Moses glowing, and Jesus glowing, Elijah glowing, and Moses glowing again. Lots of glowing this week.
Luke 9:28-36; 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2; Psalm 99; Exodus 34:29-35
I can safely bet, based on all y’all’s presence in church this morning, that at at least one point in your lives, each one of you have experienced God in some way. Now, if I’m wrong, I’d love to chat with you and find out how you found yourself walking in the doors this morning. But, I know that for me, while my wonderful parents started out forcing me to go to church with them, as I got older I found myself wanting to give back to God for what He had done for me, and one of the ways of expressing that was going to church.
Now, it seems like people react to experiences of God in different ways, and our readings today give us three versions of reactions to God: there’s the people of Israel’s reaction to Moses after he spent some time on Mount Sinai; Peter, James and John have a different reaction to Jesus, Moses, and Elijah at the Transfiguration; the people Paul is writing to are told to have yet a third reaction. Even if we’re not exactly used to seeing it in this way, these reactions all apply in the way we act after an encounter with God.
First, let’s look at the people of Israel. Moses had just spent a good amount of time on the top of Mount Sinai. He had carved the tablets of the Testimony, and heard a decent portion of God’s Law straight from God. After spending so much time with God, and speaking with Him, Moses’ face was radiant, even though Moses himself didn’t know it. So when the Israelites saw him, their reaction was fear. After some insisting I’m sure, Moses convinced the people to come and gather together to hear what God had spoken. When he was finished speaking, he covered his face with a veil. Whenever he wasn’t speaking with God, or for God, he covered his face with this veil.
In this passage we have the first reaction to an encounter with God: fear. The people were afraid of God’s glory, and somewhat rightly so, but instead of rejoicing in it they sought to hide it. And so, the physical veil Moses wore became more than physical, but was a veil over their hearts keeping them from God’s glory. Oftentimes we encounter God and are so afraid, either of how big God really is or of how sinful we are or of anything else, that we set up guards to keep God at arms length. You can see it in the evolution of how the Israelites refer to God. While the Scriptures were being written, especially the Old Testament, people called God by the Name he gave them, the tetragrammaton YHVH. As time went on, they people stopped calling God by his name, and started calling Him Lord, motivated at least partially out of fear of taking God’s name in vain. There’s nothing wrong with having that fear, but it should not take away from the love that God has for us and that we have for Him.
The second reaction to an encounter with God is shown in our Gospel lesson. Peter, James, and John climb a mountain with Jesus, and as Jesus is praying his face changed and his clothes were bright as lightning. Then Moses and Elijah, the giver of the law and the greatest prophet, show up and have a chat with Jesus. Now, somehow, the three disciples with him manage to be half-asleep when this happens and Peter says, “I know, lets set up three tents, one for each of you, and we can hang out here for a while and enjoy this glory!”
Many times when we have an encounter with God we want to stay there. We don’t want to leave the experience behind, but instead spend as much time in the presence of God as possible. We have the same reaction as Peter – to just set up camp and never leave. Anyone who has been on spiritual retreat knows this feeling. After a close encounter with God, it can be hard to go home. But we can’t just stay where we are, because if we set up camp at the place where we experience God’s glory, it only benefits ourselves, and we don’t share it with others.
That leads me into the third reaction to an encounter with God. Paul, writing to the church in Corinth again, tells them that now that we have all been redeemed by the blood of Jesus and empowered through receipt of his Holy Spirit, we are no longer like Moses and the Israelites, seeking to hide from God’s glory. We’re not even like Peter and company, wanting to keep the glory of God to ourselves on the top of a mountain. With unveiled faces we reflect the Glory of God and proclaim God’s truth to all who are around to hear it.
This third reaction to an encounter with God is not to run away from it, or to simply live in it, but to share it with others, so that they might have a similar encounter with God. And I’m not talking about street-corner preaching, or even anything that obvious. We’re called to reflect God’s glory. Now think about this. How much work does a mirror really do to reflect your image back to you? It’s just how a mirror is made, right? So if we are to reflect God’s glory, his image, how much work is that for us? It’s not something that we, as Christians, even do consciously sometimes, just something that we are because of the transforming power of the Holy Spirit.