Glory
A Sermon for The Feast of the Transfiguration
August 6, 2023
The Rev. Robin Teasley
Moses came down from Mount Sinai. As he came down from the mountain with the two tablets of the covenant in his hand, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God. When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, the skin of his face was shining, and they were afraid to come near him. But Moses called to them; and Aaron and all the leaders of the congregation returned to him, and Moses spoke with them. Afterward all the Israelites came near, and he gave them in commandment all that the Lord had spoken with him on Mount Sinai. When Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil on his face; but whenever Moses went in before the Lord to speak with him, he would take the veil off, until he came out; and when he came out, and told the Israelites what he had been commanded, the Israelites would see the face of Moses, that the skin of his face was shining; and Moses would put the veil on his face again, until he went in to speak with him. Exodus 34:29-35
Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah” —not knowing what he said. While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud. Then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen. Luke 9:28-36
I hear many people say they come to church to have a quiet hour with God, that they don’t want to hear about all the horrible things going on in the world. I get it. The world can be horrible. Church is like the mountain top and we come here to leave the woes of the world far below. We all need some time and space where we can withdraw from it all and just be still with God. Jesus modeled that for us throughout the gospels. Our readings from Exodus and Luke, and indeed the focus of the Transfiguration, affirm this, and then they affirm that once we hear and see all that God would show us, we are to go back down the mountain, strengthened and equipped to engage in God's kingdom.
From this high vantage point, in worship and in communion with God, we can witness to what is going on down below, in the valley, where the people are losing faith, are afraid, are struggling. Every day we see them panic, riot, plot and scheme, and turn to other gods. All of this behavior is a direct result of separation from God, which is a way to define sin. It is not pleasant to see or hear and we are reluctant to go there, and if we are already there, we don’t want to admit it.
In the previous few chapters of Exodus leading up to today’s reading, Moses has been going up the mountain to meet with God, leaving his brother Aaron to care for the people. The scripture tells us that on one of these holy hikes Moses received the stone tablets of the covenant, written with the finger of God. Meanwhile, down in the valley below, the people have become impatient and fearful; they don’t think Moses is coming back because he’s been gone close to forty days. They riot, plot and scheme, and demand that Aaron make them a new god, so Aaron molds a golden calf for them to worship. Aaron is like a bad babysitter, allowing them to do whatever they want. What they want is to worship other gods and to run wild.
When Moses came down from the mountain to this mayhem he was so angry that he broke the tablets and asked Aaron, “what were you thinking?” Aaron replied, “you know these people, they are bent on evil. I had to do something!” And here is the exact quote from Exodus 32:24 –“so I said to them, ‘Whoever has gold, take it off; so they gave it to me and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!’” In summary, both God and Moses were furious, yet they showed mercy to the people.
In our reading today, Moses went back up to the mountain top to encounter God. When he came down with the second edition of the tablets, the commandments from God, his face was shining, radiant as other translations put it, with the glory of God. It was almost as if he was radioactive, and the people needed to be protected from all that glory! So, Moses covered his face with a veil because the people were not able to receive that much of God’s glory at once. This very same glory shines forth in our Gospel reading.
Jesus went up the mountain to pray, taking Peter, John, and James with him, and while he was praying his face changed and his clothes became dazzling white. Then suddenly Moses and Elijah were also there, talking to Jesus about his departure, about what was going to happen in Jerusalem. What was going to happen in Jerusalem was what Jesus had been telling the disciples all along, that he would suffer, be rejected, put to death, and on the third day be raised.
The disciples saw the glory of God, and surely recalled how the people of Israel had seen the glory of God in Moses. Being in all this glory was intoxicating and the disciples wanted to remain there with Moses, Elijah, and Jesus. They wanted to delay coming down from the mountain back to the valley where so many were losing faith, afraid, struggling, plotting and scheming, and worshiping false gods, Caesar to be exact.
The common thread running through these texts from Exodus and Luke is one that continues to run through the world, through our lives, today. In the midst of all the holiness and shining faces and glory of God, the reality of engagement with sin and evil continues. There is glory and yet, there is darkness. There is still the desire for power and wealth and control, and we are all in need of God’s mercy and healing love.
We may realize this only when we find that we are not prepared for what life brings us. We think we are following the rules, we think life is going to go a certain way, and then the cloud descends and we cannot see what to do next. What was once very clear to us becomes foggy. All of our preparation seems useless. The Jesus we thought we knew is suddenly so much more than we bargained for; or the God who has always been beside us suddenly seems distant. Then what do we do?
This is where the terrified disciples found themselves, enveloped in a fog of fear and uncertainty, and then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” Hearing this, the disciples had a new awareness of Jesus as the Son of God and a realization that they were not at all in control of where they were heading. And where they were heading was back down the mountain, to the valley below, where life was messy, relationships were challenging, and work needed to be done. They were heading, just as Abraham had before Moses, to the next thing that God would show them.
Sometimes we think the stories in scripture apply only to us as individuals. My mountaintop experience. My valley. My relationship with God. But in truth, mountains and valleys exist for all of us, together. As commentator Debi Thomas notes, “The truth is that your pain does not cancel out my joy. My beliefs do not give me permission to rob you of your dignity. The truth is that it is entirely possible for some of us to sit in church on Sunday morning [basking in the glory] while others of us weep because God’s presence seems lost in a cloud and we ache with loneliness. On any given day, some of us are high on the mountain and others are low in the valley. While some of us have jobs, family and friends, others are suffering from isolation, anxiety, and depression.” As followers of Jesus, we proclaim both the glory on the mountain top and the needs in the valley, always holding the two in tension.
Even when the clouds make it impossible to see the path ahead, we follow in faith, trusting that what lies ahead is even greater than what we have already experienced, and trusting that God will be with us, because we have seen the glory. This is a time of glorious transfiguration at Immanuel. We have moments of clear vision and we have moments when clouds make it hard to see where we are heading. The preference might be to stay on the mountain top and hold onto the glorious moments from the past, but then we would miss seeing the new thing that God has to show us. If we will trust God and listen to Jesus, we will be prepared, we will be transfigured, we will be changed by God’s glory!
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