Reading: Exodus 34:29-35 and Luke 9:28-43a
Both the Hebrew Scriptures and the Gospels share
stories of people who are in such deep communion with God that they “shine with
glory” and appear to others as “dazzling with light.”
In the Book of Exodus, Moses comes to shines with
the light of God when he ascends Mount Sinai to speak with God, and then comes
down to share God’s word with the people.
In the Gospels, Jesus ascends a mountain and shines
with glory as he communes deeply with God.
The story says that on the mountain he talks with Moses and Elijah who
represent the Law and the Prophets – the whole of God’s word to the people, and
who also are two persons in the Old Testament who see God face to face without
dying.
I wish you all
could have seen it. Conner F’s
face. What, a month or two ago? Maybe a little longer?
It was during children’s
time. I don’t remember what we were
talking about. But Conner was sitting
right there, and I will never forget his face – the look that came across it, the
way his eyes and whole face suddenly opened, and the way he just glowed. You just knew he had seen or thought or
imagined something truly wonderful. So I
had to ask him what it was.
He was almost
embarrassed to have been noticed. It
seemed he had no idea until it was pointed out that the light bulb in his brain
was so visible to others outside his own head.
But I coaxed him to say what so transfigured him, and that’s when we
heard that delightful idea – probably the real reality, that heaven and earth maybe
are two almost identical but very different worlds that exist at the same time
and all the time, side by side, with a wall between them that sometimes – at
special moments or in special places, comes down, so they touch and mix
together and become one world.
At which point I
thought, and I think I even said, I really don’t need to say anything more
today, do I? Because what else is there
to say with such a vision of heaven and earth made visible to us in his face
and made clear to us in his words?
When the people
of Israel camped at the foot of Mount Sinai on their way towards the Promised
Land away from slavery to the Egyptian Empire, Moses would ascend the mountain
to be in the presence of God, to talk with God and listen to God, so he could bring
God’s Word for the people back down to them.
And they knew Moses
was seeing God and hearing God’s Word because when Moses came down from the
mountain, the skin of his face shone like the sun. He glowed so brightly with the light of God that
they couldn’t bear to face him. So to
accommodate their dullness and their sensitivity to that much light shining on
them, when Moses was with them he covered his face with a veil. He hid the fullness of the glory he had come
to know, because it scared them to see it and be subjected to it.
But at the same
time they were reassured by him and by the light they saw in his face. Because it showed them God was still with
them. Still guiding and guarding along
the way. Still teaching and
transforming. Still helping them step by
step, word by word, test by test to become the people for all the world that
God promised them they would be.
And maybe it doesn’t
always have to be someone’s shining face that helps us know the presence of God
with us, and that heaven and earth at least at that moment are one.
It might be a
voice.
Like the first
time Japhia went for radical eye surgery – a deeply invasive procedure into the
eyeball called a total vitrectomy that after the surgery involves four to six
months of half-blindness and care to help repair a tear in the retina of one
eye. It was maybe eight years ago, and
she was scared. The surgery was
scheduled for 7 am at St Joe’s in Stoney Creek, and the night before the
surgery a blizzard moved in. Not a good
sign, and it was easy to imagine the very worst coming of the whole
venture.
But we drove in
through the snow, she got prepped and we waited, and she got wheeled into the
operating room. And then through the fog
of fear there was a voice that seemed somehow familiar saying, “Hello,
Japhia!” And when she looked up, trying
to put a name to that voice that spoke right to her heart, the face she saw
half-hidden behind a surgical mask was that of Robyn H. And at that moment, all fear fell away. She knew she was in good hands – Robyn’s,
her doctor’s, and God’s, and that all would be well.
Or during the hospitalization
last summer when she and I both feared the worst. The second or third day in, Japhia was facing
some major tests and Jake and Amy – our son and daughter-in-law, came in to
visit, and they prayed with Japhia for healing if it would be God’s will, and
for God’s presence and peace in all things.
And that night, she says, she slept well – better than she had for a
long time, because through the clarity and glowing certainty of their prayers
and the radiance of their belief in God, Japhia also had peace, knowing God was
with her no matter what.
And so many
others have that same effect, and bring that same gift to others around
them. I think of Dorothy M’s calm faith
in the face of whatever comes, that you cannot help but feel yourself when
you’re with her. And others like Jack
Durfey and Muriel Coker had that same gift of contagious faith and peace, that
they learned through their lifetimes of knowing and trusting the promise and
the Word of God no matter what. And that’s
only three of a long list any of us could make of people in this congregation
who especially at critical moments just glow with the presence and constant good
will of God.
I knew a minister
I knew in Winnipeg – Richard, who spoke with such deep integrity and radiated
such calm and humble trust in God because of what he and his wife had had to
struggle through when one of their children died prematurely. He had won his way through to a place of deep
and radiant faith, and he more than anyone else helped me make the critical journey
we all need to make from the faith of my childhood to something more mature and
lasting.
Aren’t we all on
a journey like that – like the people of Israel, like the first disciples of
Jesus, away from wherever we have been towards something not yet known but promised
to us? And don’t we all need shining
examples of faith and faithfulness to help us along the way? The witness and the reassurance of people who
commune with God in very deep ways, and have the glow, the quiet brilliance,
the scarily deep pool of wisdom and peace that scares and intimidates us – makes
us question our own life of faith sometimes, but that also and at the same time
reassures us that God is still here, guiding and guarding, teaching and
transforming, and that we need not be afraid because we are not alone.
I remember the
face and can still hear the words of William Stringfellow when he came as a
guest speaker to the University of Winnipeg in the early 70’s. Stringfellow was a theologically brilliant civil
rights lawyer in the States who was close friends with the Berrigan brothers during
the time of Nixon and of the anti-war protests and civil disobedience that many
Christians were engaged in. When he
spoke at the university to a lecture hall of hundreds, there was just something
about him – a brilliance of vision, and a divine clarity of commitment to the
well-being of all the world, all its peoples, and its governments.
I think too of
seeing and hearing Todd Bender speaking here at Fifty a few years on one of our
Miracle Sundays. Seeing the passionate,
burning intensity of love for the children of Hamilton, and the way he saw and
helped the healing of the city to happen one child, one family, one volunteer,
one program, one day at a time.
Both men were a
little frightening in the intensity of their faith; both men were also deeply reassuring
in the brilliant, holy glow of their actions and of their commitment to the ongoing
pressure of the kingdom of heaven upon the life of earth.
There are so many
people who glow with the light of God in so many ways, both big and small. So many right here. At some time and in some ways, probably each
one of us in things we do, in words we say, in ways we reach out, in ways we
are present to others.
It makes me
wonder about the story of Jesus’ transfiguration.
The disciples see
him standing and talking with Moses and Elijah – the giver of the Law, and the
greatest, most mystical of the Prophets.
In other words, Jesus is standing there shaped and informed to the core of
his being by the Law and the Prophets, the whole Word of God for the world, and
he is glowing before them with the light of God.
Their first
response is to want to worship him. But that’s not the point. As soon as the disciples say that, the whole
scene dissolves into fog, and a voice from heaven says, “This is my Son, my
Chosen, listen to him.” Not worship him,
but listen to him. Don’t just bow down
to him; rather, let your hearts and minds and all your lives be shaped by him
and what he says to you, as his is shaped by the Law and the Prophets.
The they come
down from the mountain and meet the man whose son the other disciples are not able
to heal. Everyone turns to Jesus to do
something – to do God’s work and bring God’s light into the world. And he does that, but he also says, “You faithless and perverse generation,
how much longer must I be with you and bear with you?”
And I wonder what he
means. Is he feeling the people around
him are hopeless, and he’d just love to get back to a realm where God’s light
is more clearly seen?
Or might he be saying,
“Oh my goodness. Are you not there
yet? How much longer at this stage in
Earth’s unfolding for all of you and each of you to know that you too bear this
same light of God, and that in more ways than you know, you already glow and
are brilliant with it for the sake of others around you. That it’s not me by myself, but all of us
together– all of you in communion with God as I am, who are the light of the
world – the shining examples that all the world needs of the presence, the
power and the purpose of God at work here and now.”
Heaven and earth
exist at the same time all the time, side by side, and sometimes the wall
between them comes down, so that they touch and mix together and become one
world. The promise is revealed in Christ. And it’s made true in us, as we let our lives
be shaped by him – as scary, and as enlivening and exciting as that it, all at
the same time.
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