Face It

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
February 18, 2007
Transfiguration of the Lord

Face It
Luke 9:28-36
Exodus 34:29-35

We have to back up a bit before we can understand
what was happening in our first lesson,
before we can understand what happened to Moses
up on that mountain.

The children of God had been freed from their lives
as Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt.
They’d been sent out of the country,
sent out into the Wilderness,
following Moses and his brother Aaron.
They’re goal was the land of the Canaanites,
the promised land,
land that lay northeast of Egypt.
But God led them south, and southeast, into the Sinai peninsula,
deeper and deeper into land that was more and more hostile.
It was brutally hot during the day,
and bitterly cold at night,
water and food were scarce,
snakes and scorpions were in abundance.

The children of Israel paved their road with complaints;
littered the path they were on with their whining,
until they came to the base of a mountain,
a mountain called Mount Sinai.
The mountain loomed large in that countryside,
even though it was not much larger than the Granite mountains
that grace the state of New Hampshire,
a little higher than anything we find along the East Coast,
but nowhere near as high as what we might find in Colorado.

God told Moses that he was ready to speak to his children,
so Moses gathered the people around the base of the mountain,
prepared them to meet their God,
the one who had freed them,
the one who was leading them to the promised land.

You’d think the people would have been
filled with a sense of excitement,
filled with a sense of anticipation,
filled with a sense of gratitude as they waited to meet
the God of their salvation;
the God who had “borne them up as on eagle’s wings”
(Ex. 19:4),
The God who had delivered them from death to life.

But, we read,
“When all the people witnessed the thunder and lightning,
the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking,
they were afraid and trembled
and stood at a distance and said to Moses,
‘you speak to us, and we will listen,
but do not let God speak to us, or we will die’.”
(Exodus 20:18)

The children of God were afraid to face their God.
The children of God were afraid to listen to their God.

And so Moses became the mediator.
He faced God,
talked to God,
listened to God.

Moses went up the mountain to receive the Law from God.
But you remember what happened, don’t you,
when Moses came back down with the tablets
that contained the Ten Commandments?
He found the people dancing around a golden calf,
an idol they had built to worship as their god.
They had no difficulty facing an idol,
but they would not face God.
Moses’ face was flushed with fury
as he threw the two tablets to the ground,
where they smashed into bits.

And then Moses went back up the mountain,
back up the mountain to face God:
to face God’s wrath.
He went up to ask God to forgive the people.
God listened to Moses,
and Moses listened to God,
as they talked, face to face.
And Moses came down and told the people
that God, the God whom they feared so much,
whom they were afraid to face,
this God forgave his children.

And then Moses went up the mountain one last time
to receive two new tablets
with the Ten Commandments inscribed on them,
and this is where we pick up our lesson,
for as he came down with the two new tablets in his arms,
the people no longer saw a face filled with rage and fury
because of their misbehavior,
nor did they see a face that was worn by the stress
from their never-ending complaints.
They saw a face filled with radiance from the glory of the Lord.
Moses’ face shone so brightly
that even his own brother was afraid to look at him.

Moses’ face radiated –
not like one who has been out in the sun too long,
but like a bride on her wedding day,
like a father holding his newborn infant for the first time,
like a mother watching her oldest stride across the stage
to receive a diploma magna cum laude,
radiating more than just happiness,
radiating joy, peace,
confidence, assurance…..
radiating love.

But the people couldn’t face the radiance;
they found it overwhelming,
and so Moses covered his face with a veil,
and he removed the veil only when he was in God’s presence.
The people who were reluctant to face God,
were now reluctant to face God’s prophet.
They put a veil between themselves and God
because they could not face the reality of God,
the reality of God’s promise,
the reality of the covenant,
the reality of the responsibilities that came
with being the children of God.

For the next thousand years
God tried to remove the veil through his prophets.
And then finally God sent his Son, his only Son,
that we might look upon the face of God in Jesus Christ
and realize that we were not looking upon a face to fear,
but a face to fill us with assurance,
a face radiant with love,
because it was the face of love.

And how did we respond to Jesus?
We kept the veil firmly in place,
the veil that separates us from God.

In one of his most dramatic efforts to remove the veil,
Jesus invited three of his disciples to go up
to the mountaintop with him,
not Mt. Sinai, but a different mountain.
He didn’t explain his reasons to Peter, James, or John,
he just said, “Come with me”,
apparently to get away,
as he often did, simply to pray.

And the men went with him,
And when they got to the top of the mountain,
Jesus prayed, as the men struggled with the veil of sleep.
And while Jesus prayed, the text tells us,
“the appearance of his face was transformed.”
And then Moses and Elijah appeared with Jesus,
and all three disciples saw the glory of Jesus;
they saw the radiance in Jesus’ face,
the radiance that was surely even more brilliant
than the radiance the children of Israel had seen
in Moses’ face more than a thousand years before.

But even as they witnessed this incredible event,
the veils that covered their hearts and their minds
stayed firmly in place:
Veils of bewilderment,
veils of ignorance,
and the veil of ignorance’s ready partner: fear.

Down the mountain they went,
Christ transfigured,
but the three disciples no different
for having joined Jesus on that mountain top;
No different for having seen the radiance in the face of Jesus.
No different for having been in the presence of God.
No different for having witnessed the glory
of God in the form of God’s son Jesus Christ.
No different for having heard God’s voice,
“This is my Son, my Chosen;
listen to him.”

Before we reach the end of the chapter
Luke reports that the disciples were back to
bickering among themselves
as to which of them was the greatest,
which of them might have the seat of honor next to Jesus.
Veils covering their minds, their eyes,
their ears, their hearts.

Here’s the question: would we have reacted any differently?
Wouldn’t we have reacted the same way:
in stunned silence like James and John,
or at best, like Peter blurting out the odd suggestion
to build some booths, to remain there,
to memorialize the moment and the place?
Are we any different from the children of Israel
who felt so uncomfortable with Moses’ face?
Let’s face it:
The honest answer has to be, No.

We look at God as though we are looking through a glass darkly,
as Paul puts it,
not really wanting to see because we are afraid to face
the reality of what it means to be a faithful disciple of Christ.

Let’s face it: it is easier to have a veil between us and Christ,
a veil that keeps us from having to listen carefully,
a veil that allows us to filter Christ’s words,
allows us to pick and choose what we are willing to hear,
and what we don’t want to hear.
Who wants to hear the words Jesus spoke to his disciples
right before they ascended that mountain:
“If any want to become my followers,
let them deny themselves
and take up their cross daily and follow me.
For those who want to save their life will lose it,
and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.”
(Luke 9:23-25)

Deny yourself?
Take up your cross?
Lose your life?
We have trouble enough listening when Jesus says,
“Do not worry;
Do not judge;
Love your enemies.”

Christ was transfigured on that mountaintop,
but the disciples were not transformed.
Transformed by Christ, transformed through Christ.
Transformed to listen,
transformed to follow.
Are we any different?

We will begin Lent this week on Ash Wednesday.
Lent is the ideal time for each of us to begin
a new discipline in our faith journeys,
an ideal time to work anew and afresh on listening,
on following,
on being transformed,
to move to a new level of faithfulness,
discipleship, spirituality.

Lent is the ideal time to forge a new discipline
of listening to the words of our Lord
as though you were hearing them for the very first time.
Remove the veil that covers them.
As St. Benedict taught,
“Listen carefully…to the master’s instructions,
and attend to them with the ear of your heart.”
(Rule of St. Benedict, Prologue)
The ear of your heart.
Yes: that’s where our listening should begin: in our hearts.
If we listen with nothing more than our mind
we’ll just let veil upon veil get in the way.
We’ll draw them back, perhaps, a bit here,
a bit there, but never fully, never completely.
But if we listen with the ear of our heart, we will hear,
we will understand,
and we will grow.

Face it: face where you are now in your faith journey:
face it wherever you happen to be,
face it with honesty and openness.
Pull back all those veils that keep you
from looking upon the face of Christ,
from looking deep into his eyes,
for “the Word was made flesh and lived among us,
and we have seen his glory.” (John 1:14)

Listen anew to his words, his teachings,
and then be transformed,
be transformed in Christ, through Christ, with Christ.
For the Lord makes his face to shine upon us:
the Lord is gracious to us;
he lifts up his countenance upon us
not only to give us his peace,
but also his love through Jesus Christ.
Amen.