St. Thomas Evangelical Lutheran Church
3800 East Third Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47401
(812) 332-5252
Sermon for Transfiguration Sunday (February 3, 2008)
Liturgical Color: White
Reverend Dr. Lyle E. McKee
The Glory of the Lord
Grace to you and peace from our loving God, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
The Lord said to Moses, "Come up to me on the mountain, and wait there; and I will give you the tablets of stone, with the law and the commandment, which I have written for their instruction." So Moses set out with his assistant Joshua, and Moses went up into the mountain of God. To the elders he had said, "Wait here for us, until we come to you again; for Aaron and Hur are with you; whoever has a dispute may go to them." Then Moses went up on the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain.
The glory of the Lord settled on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days; on the seventh day he called to Moses out of the cloud. Now the appearance of the glory of the Lord was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel. Moses entered the cloud, and went up on the mountain. Moses was on the mountain for forty days and forty nights.
This scene from Exodus created a significant shift in the religion of ancient Israel—from the covenant given to Abraham, promising an abiding relationship with God, to a faith centered in worship at a particular place—an organized and institutionalized ritual around the tabernacle (dwelling or tent).
The simple covenant promise from God that Moses carried by himself on behalf of the people begins in this event to take more formal and complex shape—a hierarchy of relationships and symbolic rituals that develop in order to keep the people in touch with God.
The text makes it clear that only Moses is to be in the full presence of God. The elders remain at the camp. Joshua comes only part of the way up, and Moses alone reaches the cloud-covered summit. And there he remains in the presence of God.
What's interesting for the development of Israel's faith is that God's presence is no longer wandering about with them, in pillars of cloud or fire in the wilderness. God's presence has settled itself onto the peak of Mount Sinai. This amounts to a radical reining in of the presence of God. For the first time, God is found in a particular place; God's spirit is voluntarily tamed for the sake of the people.
"This (presence) establishes the transition between the single-leader, covenant-based authority of Moses and the next development of Israel's salvation-history. While Moses remains the primary individual responsible for communicating God's words to the people, the (presence) of God is gradually contained more and more fully by the constricts of a tabernacle-enclosed religion. The (presence) which settles for a time on Mt. Sinai in 24:18 eventually takes up residence within the carefully designed structure of the tabernacle, as described in the final verses of Exodus (40:34-35). What had been an individual call from God to Moses is now a fully developed and institutionalized faith." (Homiletics)
This story provides the basis for eliminating the need of Moses' presence for the faith of Israel, indeed of any single bearer of the covenant promise. It seems a great irony that at the moment of Moses' greatest experience of and revelation from God, it is also the point at which Israel's need for him is largely eliminated.
When Moses enters the cloud, he receives instructions on how to construct the dwelling place—the tabernacle—for God's abode. From this point on, God and Israel encounter one another in the tabernacle. The priests take over the role of mediation between God and the people. The Levites are given their place in Jewish history.
For these ancient people and for us, this story marks the time when the glory of the Lord became available to all. It shone no longer only in the face of one chosen. The glory of the Lord is forever available in the dwelling places of God, in the sanctuary—here! The glory of the Lord is present in this place and in worship.
Still, the glory of God is a mystery. There is no way to grab onto it verbally or conceptually and say, "Here. I've got it. I really understand it now." Days such as this one in the liturgical year—the Day of Transfiguration—keep us from over-intellectualizing the faith. There are many matters in life and faith that we simply cannot fathom. We can, however, know something of how the symbol is experienced in the life of the church.
The events of our readings from both Exodus and Matthew this morning take place on a mountain. They point to the glory of God. They enact worship. Mountains, understandably, were the ancient locations of holy places, since people looked above and beyond themselves—to the heavens—for signs of the divine. Hills and mountains are what scripture, from this Exodus event onward, identifies as the dwelling places of God. Even the great temple was built on Mount Moriah—in Jerusalem. It is where God is revealed to the people.
- It was on Mount Carmel that Elijah provides a dramatic demonstration of the superiority of God over the prophets of Baal.
- The great temple is built on Mount Moriah in Jerusalem at the place where Abraham was tested along with his son Isaac.
- Early in his ministry, the people of Nazareth hear from one of their own—Jesus, and in their outrage plan to throw him from a nearby hill, only to find his authority greater than their resolve.
- On Mount Calvary, our Lord performs the final act of salvation, crucified there for our sins.
This church, this sanctuary, is also a place apart. When we get off to a lonely place, or a place for reflection, or even a place away from our normal activities, we find new perspective. We have opportunity to focus on what is important. We encounter the glory and the presence of the Lord.
I think of my wife, Marie, who prior to our recent vacation in Mexico thought she would resign her position at North Christian Church in Columbus when she got back. But the time away provided the new perspective that she needed, and she returned with renewed vigor into her ministry.
We have designed a cultural cacophony, a daily immersion in values that purports to be built upon Christian ideals, but is often in direct opposition: materialism, consumerism—what a recent author humorously suggests will result in the "shopocalypse," power, success, beauty, domination. We come to this holy place to find God s Word and be cleansed (transfigured, if you will) by the light and glory of that Word.
In Exodus, it is Moses and Joshua. In Matthew, on the mount of transfiguration, it is Moses and Elijah who are found to be with Jesus by Peter, James, and John. This is a fine company. The recipient of the Law, one of the greatest of the prophets, the Word made flesh, and several in whose names portions of scripture were written.
These are the ones from whom we learn on the mountain, apart, each Sunday, after every six days in the valley.
The disciples in the gospel remark that it is good to be here. It is indeed a fine thing that we are here. There is no other place where we can be together like this—no other place where we can share in this way. And so we, like the disciples, build dwellings—church buildings where the Word, the law, and the prophets may abide, where they may be preserved and shared and the glory of the Lord revealed.
The voice from the cloud on the mount of transfiguration says: "This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!" And that is what we do in this dwelling place of God-listen to the Word of God. Living as we do in a society that crowds out the sound of the Gospel, or turns it to its own advantage, we have the joy of listening for the true voice of God.
- The world teaches that human beings are to be used for economic or political ends; the Word of God teaches that persons are ends in themselves.
- The world teaches war; the Word of God teaches love.
- The world teaches revenge; the Word of God teaches forgiveness.
- The world teaches us to hate our enemies; the Word of God teaches us to love and pray for them.
- The world teaches a way of ease and comfort; the Word of God teaches the way of the cross.
- The world teaches justice as fairness; the Word of God teaches justice as enabling people to fulfill their vocations in community.
Here, on this plot of land, in this place apart, we listen, and hear.
And when we hear, we, like the disciples, fall to the ground, filled with awe. There is no word like the word of love that is proclaimed within these walls. Such love weakens the knees with gratitude and with praise and with overwhelming relief that what we have so longed for is found, what we hoped beyond hope for is fulfilled.
And when we come apart and listen, as did Moses to God and as the disciples were enjoined by a voice from heaven, we know the glory of God's word, we are touched. And that touch heals. "Jesus came and touched them, saying, 'Get up and do not be afraid.' And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone."
The fear that our culture teaches has no power on this mountain, in this tabernacle, in the confines of this sanctuary. Jesus' words and touch cast out fear and false values—and replace the love and the courage that enable us to rise and to see Jesus only—not through the eyes of the world but the eyes of faith.
Only when our faith is so strengthened are we prepared to go back down the mountain, away from the place apart and back into the world. Only when we are transfigured can we go down and take up our crosses.
Except now, we may tell others of our new vision, our new way of seeing ourselves and others and God and the world, because we live on the other side of the Resurrection. We know how the Law was fulfilled. We know what the disciples only guessed at when they worshipped on the mount of transfiguration.
We worship not merely a cloud at the top of a mountain or a transfigured Lord, but the resurrected Lord. We come up to worship. We go down to serve. It is the rhythm and cycle of our lives. Unless we come up, we will not be able to serve for long. It is the rhythm and cycle of our transfiguration. It is the way we are empowered for the mission that we celebrated last Sunday.
In worship, as on the biblical mountains, glory is apparent and present. God is heard, but not seen. At worship, we are transfigured, as was Moses, as was Jesus, by the glory of the Lord, and by the hope, redemption, new directions, discernment, and enlightenment that arise from that glory. We are repeatedly and forever changed by the glory of the Lord. Amen.
May the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep our hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus our Lord unto eternal life. Amen.
