Year C

Luke 9:28-36, (37-43a)

The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn

Behold the Glory

Transfiguration Sunday, today, marks the transition from the end of the Epiphany Season which began on January 6, with the coming of the Magi to the baby Jesus, to the beginning of Lent which begins this Ash Wednesday. We celebrate today God’s remarkable embrace of Jesus, the climax of his earthly life, and the symbolic shift of his ministry from Galilee to Jerusalem where the cross awaits. We celebrate the glory of God today as it appeared to Jesus, Moses, Paul, the disciples, and as it appears in our own lives of faith. We witnessed it at the time of Jesus’ baptism in the beginning of Epiphany. And, now, at the close of the Epiphany season, we witness that glory again in the story of the Transfiguration on the mountaintop. The voice is still the same, affirming Jesus as the beloved and we should listen to him. God makes known God’s divine glory through Jesus so that the whole world may see the presence of God.

Very similar to our gospel story today is Moses’ encounter with God on Mount Sinai.  Moses too was literally transfigured, the appearance of his face changed after his encounter with God. In today’s reading, we hear of the second meeting Moses had with God on Mount Sinai and his descent from the mountain with the tablets of the covenant. Mountains have always had importance for people around the world from culture to culture. Whether it’s for a place to retreat, a subject of art, a symbol of the gods, or a place to meet God, mountains have always been seen as significant and beautiful in the life of humanity. Moses received his call from God on Mount Sinai to lead the people out of bondage and it is where later he received the Ten Commandments.

His return today with the replacement tablets he broke when he came down from the mountain the first time and discovered the Israelites worshiping the golden calf, is much different. This time down the mountain, instead of his face becoming red hot with anger at the behavior of his fellow Israelites…”The skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God.” He appears to the Israelites as if he too has become divine, and they are afraid. To help his people, Moses veils his face to shield them from his glory so that they can concentrate on God’s Word directly and not be sidetracked by his transformation that resulted in his meeting with God. Moses is able to give his people the law or the Ten Commandments, which then shows them the nature of God, who God is and how to be God’s people.

In the text today from 2 Corinthians, Paul is referring directly to today’s reading from Exodus and makes much of the image of veiling and unveiling. There is no suggestion in Exodus that the people of Israel are to be blamed for the veiling of Moses’ face. It seems it would be quite natural after an encounter with the glory of God. But Paul is implying that the veil is a sign of the Israelites’ determination not to see what is offered to them and that they choose to put a barrier between God and themselves. Once Moses was gone, it is as if the Israelites transferred the veil from his face onto their own. They cannot grasp in Paul’s day that the glory of Moses has faded and yielded to another glory, seen in the face of Jesus Christ. Paul urges his hearers not to copy the Israelites by choosing to veil their minds. They are instead to look at what God has done in Christ and this makes it possible to remove the veil.

He says, “But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. For in Jesus Christ, we encounter God’s full glory revealed by the Spirit, and by seeing it, we are transformed into its likeness. This glory is the glory that is our very transformation by the work of the Spirit of God in us that should have practical consequences for our lives. We are like mirrors, Paul says, imperfectly reflecting the glory of God but at the same time by the Spirit being able to show forth the glory of God in our lives. There is a beautiful statue, you may have seen it or heard about it, as I have, on the campus of Tuskegee Univ. in Tuskegee, Alabama, entitled ‘Lifting the Veil of Ignorance’.

The statue is of Booker T. Washington, who founded the University in 1881, standing over a slave and lifting a veil so that the light of education can strike his face. The slave, crouched down, has a book in one hand and is using the other hand to help lift the veil. His feet are poised to stand and move forward. The slave is looking out into the world with wide-eyed hope. The caption under the statue reads: “He lifted the veil of ignorance from his people and pointed the way to progress through education and industry.” “In Christ, Paul is telling us, the veil of ignorance and death is being lifted so that we might live in the truth of God’s redeeming love and in the work of God’s transforming Spirit.”

 No one knows for sure whether Paul was thinking about the story of the Transfiguration in our gospel today when he wrote the text from 2 Corinthians but he might have because it obviously fits. The mountain Jesus happened to be standing on was in Israel instead of Egypt, but it was clearly the same glory that Paul is speaking about that enveloped Jesus as Peter, James and John watched. Jesus’ entire appearance began to change and his clothes became dazzling white. Unlike Moses, however, when Jesus came down from the mountain, his face had returned to normal.

It wasn’t that the glory faded from his face, it was perhaps hidden, in a sense like a veil, to see if people would still be able to discern that glory in his life, death and resurrection. Instead of wearing the light, he had actually become the light, the healing, saving light of God. And no sooner had they came down the mountain from meeting with God, Moses, and Elijah in transforming glory, they are confronted with a boy tormented by demons. Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, healed the boy and they found transfiguration. The glory of God’s presence and the pain of the broken world cannot be separated. And so it is. We are transformed, healed, saved by the presence of Christ in our lives and thereafter we become one with him and his mission in the world.

Transfiguration Sunday reminds us that we need an encounter with God to renew our sense of purpose in the world. We need to be transformed by the presence of God’s spirit in our lives so that our lives will shine forth with the glory of God. Jesus told us, “I am the light of the world and you are the light of the world.” It’s when we begin to see ourselves in this light of God’s glory that the veil is removed and the whole world suddenly starts shinning with the new life of spring. And so it is, that the transfigured church soon turns to a new season, Lent, to help us anticipate and participate in the passion, death, and resurrection of our Lord, to whom we should be listening to daily, coming to know better and better as we grow in the saving grace of relationship with him. And, as we travel the way of the cross with Jesus in the weeks ahead may we see and behold the glory of God so that we can live as Christ lived for the world.