February 22, 2004 (Jimmie Johnson)

Old Testament Lesson                                                         Exodus 34:29-35

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.

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Gospel Lesson                                                                         Luke 9:28-36

Now about eight days after these sayings 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 terrifed 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.

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I have never seen anyone glow and certainly not as Jesus glows in this story. It’s not common in the Bible either; I only know of its happening to Moses and to Jesus. There are people who speak about their Christian experience in glowing terms. It is simply not my religious experience. However, the strange thing is that when I pray for you such as when you are going to undergo medical tests, I pray for you by visualizing your face, and then I visualize you smiling and glowing with the light of God upon you. Sometimes I would lose all confidence in prayer except for the fact Jesus was a person of prayer.

Sometimes I will be praying, and the question sweeps over me: “Whom are you talking to?” I confess I sometimes wonder if deafness is at the heart of the universe rather than a listening heart. I see the same darkness you do. Sometimes it is the darkness of the world, a world which at times seems to have become enveloped in an unending night of hatred. Sometimes I see the darkness in my own heart where I become aware that even in the presence of what is beautiful and good and kind, I seem only to see darkness. If you are this way, you know it makes you feel lonely, doesn’t it? Darkness makes it difficult to pray. If everything were glowing with God, part of me thinks it would be a snap to believe.

I suspect it wasn’t easy for Jesus to pray either. Prayer always takes place in the presence of realities that deny God’s presence; at least any prayer that is not pretending is prayed in the reality of ordinariness where no glory is shining or worse where only darkness is visible.

One thing I do know about prayer is that prayer helped Jesus find God in the darkness, not only in the light. Prayer was what enabled Jesus to see what was inside himself and also what was tucked inside others. Jesus looked at the people the religious designated sinners and no doubt they were, and what Jesus saw tucked inside was the soul of a friend. Jesus looked at sinners and saw the love of God tucked deep inside them where only he evidently could see it.

Prayer is how Jesus found God in the darkness, not only in the light. It is the same for you and me. The story of Jesus being lit up, the story of the Transfiguration, is set between stories of Jesus struggling to get his disciples to understand who he was, how his being who he was didn’t eliminate the darkness, how he would undergo great suffering even death and as importantly, how his followers would not be given a life of light exclusive of darkness either, and how his life would be marked by betrayal.

All the while Jesus was trying to shed light on his suffering and death, the disciples were debating which of them would be the greatest in Jesus’ new kingdom. Jesus looked at the disciples and saw darkness, but because of prayer he looked at them and also saw God’s love shining inside them. You see it is the genius of the art form called gospel stories that right in the middle of these realities of harsh talk about suffering, death, misunderstanding, and betrayal, the writer of the Gospel places the story of Jesus shining, shining as he prayed to find God present in the darkness swirling around him.

What prayer offers me is not a baby sitter to calm my childish fears nor magical thinking that if I can eliminate all negative images and thoughts, then miracles will happen. Prayer offers me what prayer offered Jesus—the Sustaining Presence of God in my life whether anything I would call a miracle is visible or not. Prayer helps me see the invisible glowing of the Holy inside the people and places that would be voted “least likely” to win any glowing contest—people like me and in experiences like Hospice care where death is growing stronger and life seems to be fading away.

The insight that most astonishes me in this story is that as quickly as the disciples of Jesus were engulfed in shining light, they were swallowed up in a dark cloud. Seeing the brilliance of Jesus didn’t end darkness. Faith in Jesus simply reinterprets darkness. For me, I see light and darkness as opposites. For God, they are the same reality. Followers of Jesus can learn to be less impressed with the light and less afraid of the darkness. God is present in both experiences.

Jump ahead with me in time to the day we call Good Friday, the day Jesus was crucified. On that day when Jesus’ exodus, his death, got underway, disciples saw his face bloodied and shiny but shiny with spit, not light, and those robes which had glowed were torn into souvenir rags. They had to rethink glory that day .They had to admit they wouldn’t know glory if it were shining in front of them. They had to rethink light and darkness. His face didn’t shine on the cross. There was no Moses or Elijah at his side. Instead, at his side were a couple of crucified political hotheads, who may well have resorted to thievery to support their small rebellion against Rome. That day the two crucified at his side were simply sad losers being made an example for all to see.

You have to wonder about this. Why did God hide all the glory on the mountain? Why couldn’t the glory shine out on the cross? When we pray to God, why won’t God write “I AM GOD” in shining letters in the sky? That would be glorious, at least the way the world understands a grand and glorious show. That’s glory according to athletes, politicians, celebrities and the hugely successful who get their names up in lights. But Christian faith says God didn’t save the glory for the Cross because then the death of Jesus would have been a different kind of death from the kind most of us die and that would not have worked.

To lead our exodus, our departure, our death, Jesus had to die as we do which is with very little, if any, glory, at least the visible kind. As it was, he died very much like those who died on either side of him, one of them begging to be saved from what was coming and the other asking Jesus to remember him when Jesus got to wherever he was going. Jesus wasn’t able to help the one who wanted to be delivered from the darkness, but he did a great favor for the other. He promised him that the darkness was really a dazzling one with a shiny paradise tucked inside it for both of them.

I think Jesus learned about God’s shining on the mountain and remembered how the light burst through all his seams and showed him what he was made of. It was something he never forgot even in darkness of his death. Jesus learned you could trust God even when things appeared dark and in contradiction. That’s a very hard thing to do: to trust God in the darkness.
But then Jesus never did say it would be easy to follow, did he?

And as for the shining, well, I believe that someday when it is as dark as night, I’ll look at myself or you and I’ll be astonished at the light of God tucked inside us, shining out with love just when we need it.