Dearest e-votees-
This coming Sunday is Transfiguration—the last Sunday of Epiphany. It is when we remember the unusual experience that Jesus, Moses, Elijah, Peter, James and John shared up on the mountaintop. It is mentioned in 2 Peter 1:18—must have made an impression on Peter. Our appointed epistle text from 2 Corinthians talks about one of Moses’ mountaintop experiences as well.
We’ll use that text from 2 Corinthians to shape our devotion this week. Before that a disclaimer: this text could be used ineptly by some as anti-Semitic (against the Jews). That is not my intent. Please keep in mind that Paul (name attached to 2 Corinthians) and Jesus were both Jewish. You might find this light-hearted video amusing.
The point is that all of us can be veiled from God but we have been freed to engage God without those obstructions. And when we do we are transformed and equipped by God’s Holy Spirit to live and serve in freedom and joy.
Peace,
Karl
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Since, then, we have such a hope, we act with great boldness, not like Moses, who put a veil over his face to keep the people of Israel from gazing at the end of the glory that was being set aside. But their minds were hardened. Indeed, to this very day, when they hear the reading of the old covenant, that same veil is still there, since only in Christ is it set aside. Indeed, to this very day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their minds; but when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 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 from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.
Therefore, since it is by God’s mercy that we are engaged in this ministry, we do not lose heart. We have renounced shameful things that one hides; we refuse to practice cunning or to falsify God’s word; but by the open statement of the truth we commend ourselves to the conscience of everyone in the sight of God.
What hinders us from encountering God more directly? What veils separate us from God? Shame? Fear? Hard hearts? Hard minds? Doubt? Sin?
Does God hide God’s face from us? Our do we cower and hide our face from God?
Paul says that when one turns to the Lord—to Jesus—the veil of separation between us and God’s glory is removed.
God came into the world in Jesus that the separation might be breached.
Jesus healed and restored, engaged sinners and tax collectors, talked to Samaritans and religious leaders so that the separation might be broken down.
We people of hard hearts and hard minds chose to favor ourselves and our ways over those of God and so we crucified Jesus to restore the breach. We sealed him in a tomb and posted a guard at the door to replace a veil over our face with a curtain of stone to keep him locked away.
Even in death the veils were being undone—the Temple curtain tore at the moment of Jesus’ death (Matthew 27:51; Mark 15:38; Luke 23:45). Either we were given full access to God or God’s limitations to dwell most fully in the Temple were undone as God came out into the world. (you might enjoy the rough-hewn video of Peter Mayer’s “Loose in the World”)
When the disciples were cowering in fear of the authorities and in shame of their own failings the resurrected Jesus walks through the walls and locked doors to get to them. The separations were undone. Not even death could hold him down.
Sometimes we try to restore the barriers in our own lives. We don veils. We lose heart. We engage in shameful things. We practice cunning. We falsify God’s word with our own words and our actions.
Try as we may those dividers will not defeat God’s grace and love most fully realized in Jesus.
God, draw us into you. Help us put away our distractions and the things we use to insulate ourselves from you. Transform and transfigure us all to your glory. Help us truly live in freedom and joy in service to you and to others. Amen.
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