Exodus 24:12-18/2 Peter 1:16-21/ Matthew 17:1-9
March 6, 2011
“No one could see God and remain unchanged”
Summary: The passage of the transfiguration is no ordinary story. It tells of the faithful disciples being given an intimate glimpse into the reality of God’s holiness. Moreover, the vision of God is inescapably transformative. “No one could see God and remain unchanged.”
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Many of you are aware that my family used to run a retail store back in Ontario. In many ways it was a run-of-the-mill corner store.
Yet in some ways, it was a very special store. The cash register was located opposite the front entrance; between the two lay rows of specialized aisles. The centre aisle which provided direct passage to the cash from the front door was filled with confectionaries of all sorts and colour, gums, chocolates, jaw breakers, Gummie bears…
Not surprisingly, of all the aisles present in the store, this (confectionary) aisle was most frequented by kids of all ages. Why, I still stop by confectionary aisles in grocery stores to pick up a package of ‘Sour Gummie Worms’ now and then.
I remember this one day when a preschooler entered the store with his mother. Half way down the candy aisle, the little boy just stood in his tracks with his mouth wide open for what seemed an eternity to me, the tired store owner! He seemed as if he had just stepped on holy ground of some sort.
With his mother’s urging, the little boy did settle on a candy of his choice and walked up to the counter to have it paid for by his mother. As the boy laid the candy on the counter, he whispered these words to me:
“Mister, I think you have the bestest job in the whole world!”
When was the last time that you were mesmerized by something so awesome that you stood there with your mouth open?
For the past 9 weeks or so, the church has had a long look at the majesty and glory of God. We discovered the power of God in the lowliest of human conditions shunned by worldly powers, where the poor, the destitute, the despised and outcasts dwell.
We were blessed with this view all throughout the Epiphany season; that season now comes to an end, at least on our calendar.
Now it is time to move on.
As the church must move on from Epiphany to Lent, so Israel must move on from Mt. Sinai into the wilderness, yet we are here offered one more glimpse of the glory and majesty of God in today’s Scripture.
Our passage from Exodus begins in preparation for Moses’ meeting with God at the top of the mountain. The meeting is initiated by God; it is for the purpose of receiving the tablets of the law. The meeting is on Yahweh’s terms and for Yahweh’s purpose.
The meeting is crucial. Moses takes Joshua, who is his heir as leader, with him.
Moses also takes with him the “elders,” seventy of them. As the story advances, however, neither Joshua nor the elders can accompany all the way to the meeting with God.
They must remain at the base of the holy mountain.
Finally, Moses must go on alone, to enter the danger zone of God’s holiness. Pardon me, that is a qualified “alone”; you and I are privileged to be invited along, to also stand in God’s holiness atop the mountain.
We are led in this story to an awesome moment when God makes God’s own self available in Israel.
You know, God’s self-giving, however, is never casual or incidental. As such, we find ourselves here dealing with a majestic sovereign who must not be infringed on or taken for granted. The splendour of God, even when made available, is kept hidden and inscrutable.
There is a cloud.
The cloud makes everything about God mysterious, threatening, and beyond reach. It is as if the Scripture is telling us that only in the cloud comes the glory.
The glory is light, the light of God’s sovereign will and presence.
Even that light is veiled, because God’s holiness is never handed over.
Moses is invited to wait in the midst of the hidden glory, in the veiled light. That is all Moses can do – wait. So must we also.
He waits in silence. He waits six days. He waits until God decides to act. Nothing is said.
On the seventh day, after a wait appropriate to God’s honour, there is a voice. It is the voice hidden in cloud, mediated as glory. The voice of the Holy One calls to Moses, addresses him and summons him.
One can only guess that a form of some sort would have given Moses a stable assurance, but there was no form, no firm assurance, just a voice of sovereign insistence, sovereign command.
We are not told of Moses’ response. Off hand, would he have been as speechless as that little boy in the candy aisle of a corner store?
Speechless, nonetheless…
We know only that he stays in that surreal place, a dangerous place even, of glory and command for forty days and forty nights! In Scripture-talk, that basically means a long, suspended time.
For that time Moses was cut off from his community, situated in the awesome, demanding, transformative presence of God.
Many of you are familiar with the movie “Ten Commandments” starring Charlton Heston. He plays the role of none other than Moses. There is a scene in that movie taken straight out of today’s Scripture wherein Moses encounters God’s glory on Mt. Sinai.
Movies are visual and convey their message visually. So following forty days and forty nights in God’s presence, Moses finally comes down, not as the youthful same person who went in but as a person whose face is glowing in awe and whose hair and beard have all turned ghostly white!
Nothing of such, of course, is mentioned in Scripture. We know that Scripture is normally eloquent and articulate; but it seems here that it has reached the point of the unutterable.
All we know is that Moses has indeed met God. We have met God in the pages of his Holy Book, our Bible; in these testimonies of the great prophets! Because of that meeting, nothing will ever be the same.
There is a well-known theologian by the name of Karl Barth who is known for being a prolific writer of things concerning the Christian Faith. In short, Barth has written multitudes of volumes of theology to both tantalize and taunt struggling theology students across the world!
On the topic of God, Barth is known to have uttered these words:
“As minsters we ought to speak of God. We are human, however, and so cannot speak of God.”
I would hazard to guess that it pretty much summarizes Moses’ encounter with God’s glory on Mt. Sinai.
Now, things would have it that we find a close counterpart to Exodus reading in the narrative of the transfiguration of Jesus. There the narrator stammers: “His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white”; “His clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them.”
The narrator continues, “They saw his glory” and “they were terrified as they entered the cloud.”
Here also there is glory; here also the cloud overwhelms; and here also, a massive, terrifying voice is heard!
The faithful disciples are given an intimate glimpse into God’s holiness; this holiness is embodied in Jesus.
The vision of God is inescapably transformative. No one could see God and remain unchanged; not Moses, not the disciples of Jesus!
And not certainly you and I sitting here today.
By virtue of our reading of today’s Scripture; by virtue of our meditation upon the witnesses of the past; by virtue of God’s grace upon us, we have changed.
On the mountaintop, be it Mt. Sinai with Moses or the high mountain with Jesus and his disciples, we learn who has supreme power in this world, in the church;
on the walk down we learn that suffering is the form this power takes;
and at the foot of the mountain we learn how disciples put God’s power in Jesus to work in the world: venturing into the depths of human sorrow with confidence and compassion, and defying worldly logic to be fools for Christ that they may serve fellow human beings in the name of Christ.
We stand in the cloud of great witnesses this day, who in turn have stood before the cloud of God’s glory in Jesus Christ. Let us be at awe over God’s glory upon us; more importantly, let us put to work God’s power in this world.
~Amen~
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