Faces Without Veils

Reading:  Psalm 99, Exodus 34:29-35, 2 Corinthians 3:12-18,Luke 9:28-36, 2 Corinthians 3:12-18
Preached at First Presbyterian Church, Baldwin, NY, February 10th, 2013

A printable PDF file can be found here

Today in the church calendar is Transfiguration Sunday. Transfiguration Sunday is not one of those great Christian festivals people get all excited about. It's not like Christmas or Easter, nor even like Pentecost or Trinity Sunday. It's not Tartan Sunday or Souperbowl Sunday. It's up there with Ascension Day, Epiphany and All Saints, one of those annual festivals that we don't always pay a whole lot of attention to.

Transfiguration Sunday marks the day when Jesus is ‘transfigured’ on the mountain, in the presence of Peter and John and James. Transfigured meant that Jesus’ appearance changed in a way that His glory and His divinity became particularly transparent to the disciples.

In our gospel lesson, the passage opens with the words, “Now about eight days after these sayings”. This lead in refers to Jesus teaching about His impending suffering, death, and resurrection, after Peter calls Jesus the Messiah in response to Jesus’ question, “Who do you say that I am?” Eight days later, Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up a mountain to pray.

While there, Jesus face changes and His clothes appear dazzling white. He is 'transfigured' and Moses and Elijah, representing the Law and the Prophets, appear with Him, speaking about what was soon to happen. We read that Peter and company had been sleepy, but “since they had stayed awake, they saw His glory.” As Moses and Elijah are leaving, Peter, not sure how to interpret the experience, offers to build dwellings on the mountain for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. But instead, they are overshadowed by a cloud, and from inside the cloud they hear God’s voice: “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to Him!”

That's the event itself. Our lectionary for the day links the transfiguration event to a passage in the Book of Exodus that is about how the people reacted to Moses when he came down from the mountain, after receiving the 10 commandments from God.

Mountains, throughout the scriptures, represent holy places where people can go to be close to God. We don’t find it so different today. People often find mountain-tops to be awe-inspiring, sometimes holy places, and people often refer to encounters with the holy and spiritual as “mountain-top experiences.” When Moses comes down from the mountain, his face is shining and glowing, because of his encounter with God.

The people find Moses difficult to look at; his shining face makes them uncomfortable and fearful. So Moses starts wearing a veil so that the people can listen to his message from God without having to be  frightened. The veil is a distancing device. Moses gets close to God, but the people seem too afraid to ever draw too close, even to Moses. The veil separates them from the reflection of God’s holiness in Moses’ face.

In our lesson from 2 Corinthians, Paul picks up on this Exodus passage. Paul says through the Holy Spirit, through Christ, we have hope, that allows us to act with boldness. He sees followers of Jesus as being in contrast with Moses and the Israelites. “When one turns to the Lord,” he says, “the veil is removed . . . and all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image.”

In other words, when the veil is removed, God is allowed to shine through us, be reflected back at us, so that we are actually transformed by our encounter with God. The Israelite's of old chose to remain at a distance from God. But in Christ, that distance is overcome. Not only do we experience closeness with God, but we, made in God’s image, can actually reflect God to others.

There are not many places that we see veils in our culture. Maybe in broadcasts from the Middle East or in certain parts of the city we see the veiled costumes of Islamic women. More likely, in our culture, the place we see a veil is at a wedding. A veil is not a mask. A mask is designed to pretend something is not the way it seems. A veil is designed to cover up beauty. Only the husband, the one who is in a love relationship with the bride, has the privilege of removing the veil.

Staying with that analogy of the husband, who because of being in love relationship with the bride, has the right to remove the veil, so it is that as we nurture a love relationship with God, through Jesus Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit, we have the opportunity to witness the love of God at work in our lives and through our lives, in our world.

This unveiling of our lives by God is a process, a process of transformation that is available to us because God loves us. It’s not something that just happens, it takes commitment and openness to change. It requires that we be receptive to the moving of God’s Spirit. It means seeking to live a servant life that is modeled on that of Jesus Christ.

Can you imagine a groom lifting his bride’s veil, taking a look at her, and then saying, “Y’know honey, I think you should keep the veil on!” Right there would be a relationship that came to an abrupt end!

There is a certain vulnerability and tenderness that we associate with veil lifting. It takes place withing the context of relationship. A relationship that requires us to fully expose ourselves and which digs deeply into our hearts. We may indeed find that sort of commitment a little scary, just as the Israelite's found it hard to gaze upon Moses. 

Paul is telling us that it doesn't have to be that way. That because we understand that the very nature of Jesus Christ is love, we can commit our lives to Him unreservedly and wholeheartedly. God only wants the best for us, but in order for that to happen, we must seek the best from God.

Seeking is a discipline that we apply ourselves to. And there are many different ways we can approach God and nurture our lives with God. Next week Lent begins. This year, we are again joining with other churches in the Nassau Joint Ministry Group, that is Baldwin, Freeport, Massapequa, Malverne, Garden City and Glen Cove, for a joint series of studies that we've entitled “For the Living of these days”.

We'll be focusing on a book by Adele Ahlberg Calhoun, titled “Spiritual Disciplines Handbook: The Practices the Transform Us”. I was kind of hoping it was called 'Practices that Transfigure Us”, but that's the best we could do! Meetings will be on Tuesday nights, beginning at 6:45 with dinner and ending at 8:30 pm, the first being in Community Presbyterian Church, Malverne.

We have also invited Rev Anna Taylor Swerigen to lead us in a number of conversations and teaching sessions. Rev Swerigen is on the Board of Directors for the Long Island Parish Resource Center and whilst serving First Church in Jamaica, Queens, developed successful spiritual growth and spiritual gift programs to help members and church officers deepen their faith and grow in service. On the morning of Saturday 16th February she'll be leading a session titled 'Spiritual Disciplines for individuals and Congregations' at our Garden City Church.

On Sunday morning, 17th February, we are setting up a 'live-link' with the congregation at Community Presbyterian Church in Malverne and join with them listening to her address that morning (in a similar way we did with Carol Howard Merritt, although that morning we were the broadcaster rather than the receiver). Please pray that the technical gremlins are held at bay! Then following worship on that same Sunday afternoon, again at Malverne, she'll be hosting a lunch and giving us an opportunity for further discussion.

There's a flyer in the Narthex with details, as there are in your Tidings magazine and on our Web site that detail all these events, and, of course, the beginning of our Lenten journey on Ash Wednesday, with soup at 6 and a service, that will include the spiritual practice of marking with ashes as a sign of repentance, at 7:30 pm.

Now I cannot guarantee that these opportunities will be mountain tops in your own personal spiritual  journey, but neither can I guarantee that they won't. And if you can not make any of these special events I would at least encourage you to try and get a copy of the book for your personal devotional use and be faithful in worship each Sunday. Every worship service can indeed be a moment of transformation.

Recall again Paul's words; “When one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed . . . and all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image.”

What a privilege is ours... to behold the majesty of God with unveiled faces. To be people whom God calls to reflect the love of Jesus Christ to a needy world. Through our hands the hands of Christ reach out to others, through our acts of service, the Kingdom is served, through our worship, the name of God is lifted high in the midst of our community.

Transfiguration Sunday. Maybe it will never become marked as one of the great Christian festivals of the year. Yet it marked a milestone in the life of Jesus and of His disciples. When He came down from the mountain His journey led Him to the Cross. Though Peter would have them stay on the mountaintop, where everything was clear and God felt very near, Jesus set His face towards the confrontation He would face in Jerusalem.

Let us be prepared to move forward through Lent, to consider the many ways we can lift the veils of misunderstanding that hinder our spiritual walk, let us face the cross... yet affirm that though 'we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we will fear no evil'... because we know that on the other side we will discover the glory of the empty tomb and the promise of resurrection.

And all this to the Glory of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.


Rev Adrian J. Pratt