The One Who Makes Us Radiant

Luke 9:28-36; Exodus 34:29-35

        My favorite hour of the entire week might be 10:00 on Sunday Morning.  A handful of us gather around tables in the fellowship hall and take a closer look at the scriptures which are being used to guide us through worship on that particular day.  It is not an exclusive group. Everyone is invited. We can easily expand to accommodate more folks.  It is not necessary that you have been there before.  Each lesson is an independent adventure and each adventure leads us to new ground for discussion. It is a group that encourages dialogue and a group that respects dissenting opinions. Most of all it is a group that seldom finds itself in complete accord with each other, leading us to discover new unopened doors in our faith journey.

        A question that always seems to skip along the perimeter of any of our lessons is, “Who is Jesus?” At first glance that does not seem problematic. It goes without saying everyone knows who Jesus is. But then when that question is asked to a room of fifteen or so independent thinkers, the conversation is complicated by a variety of interesting responses.

        We are in good company. The ninth chapter of Luke centers on this very question. It begins with Jesus gathering the twelve together and giving them the power and authority to proclaim the kingdom of God and heal the sick. Then Jesus sends them out on sort of a test run. And the disciples are a hit! Luke tells us that they preached and healed wherever they went. In fact they were so successful word got back to King Herod and he was perplexed. He asked his advisors who this Jesus of Nazareth might be. Some claimed he was Elijah. Others suggested he was John the Baptist resurrected. From the poorest fisherman to the King himself people wanted to know who Jesus really was.

        So it should come as no surprise that even the disciples became a bit curious. Jesus and the disciples gathered together in a secluded place and had a conversation. First Jesus asked, “Who are people saying that I am?” Again the name of Elijah and John the Baptist surfaced. The Jesus said, “Who do you think I am?” Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Christ.” And then Jesus asked, “Do you have any idea what that means?”

        The disciples looked at each other, shook their heads and then were astonished when Jesus said, “It means I must undergo great suffering, be rejected, and killed. But on the third day God will raise me up.” Before the disciples could respond he added, “If you want to know me, you must take up your cross. Those who lose their lives for my sake will save it.” This statement caused a bigger power outage than we witnessed last Sunday night at the Super Bowl. Those words completely deflated the spirits and the faith of the disciples.  How do I know this? Luke does not record another healing by a disciple until after the resurrection.  They were on a roll. And then everything came to a screeching halt.  For a whole year the disciples wanted to be just like Jesus. Then, all of a sudden, they weren’t so sure. To further complicate things, a week later Jesus took Peter, James, and John up to the mountain top.

        Ever been to the mountain top? I’m not talking about hiking up Humpback and standing at that glorious spot where you can look into both valleys. I’m talking about going to a retreat as a kid where the speaker gets you so pumped up you want to go home and talk the minister into having graham crackers and coke for communion. Or perhaps as an adult you went to a place like Massanetta and heard someone like Fred Craddock or Otis Moss and wondered why your preacher can’t fire you up like that.  Those speakers take us to the mountain top and give us Christ’s vision of who we can become. They are uplifting experiences, lasting until reality brings us back to earth.

        Jesus took three disciples to the mountain top. And while they were there they were joined by two more figures, Elijah and Moses. Then out of the clouds the voice of God spoke, “This is my son! Listen to him!” The disciples were terrified as I suspect any of us would have been. They had witnessed the radiance of God.   The important question is, “How were they affected?”

        My favorite image of the Transfiguration is captured on canvas by the Italian painter Raphael. As you might imagine, the scene on the top of the mountain is in resplendent in glory. But down below, in the real world, something not so glorious is taking place. A huge crowd and the rest of the disciples have gathered around a young boy. The frustration of the crowd is obvious as the disciples are unable to cure the sick child. They have lost their faith and their power to heal. Two figures at the foot of the mountain point at the transfigured Jesus. They are begging Jesus to come down the mountain and heal the boy.

        In the text that follows the transfiguration, Jesus does come down and does heal the boy. But in the process he looks at the disciples and said, “You faithless generation, how much longer must I be with you?”

        What on earth is going on here? One minute Jesus blesses the disciples and they go out performing miracles. But the disciples get a little nervous when Herod gets curious about Jesus. Their discomfort increases when Jesus talks bluntly about death. Then the disciples begin to lose their faith, their healing powers, and the shine around their faces.  Trying to be Jesus is hard, perhaps even impossible, especially when confronted with God’s holy expectations.

        But we keep trying.  Like those disciples we have those glimpses of truth, those moments of clarity when we seem to grasp the possibility of being all that Jesus would have us be. But then we stumble. Maybe it is fear of Herod, or death or just life itself. Whatever it is, we are like those disciples at the bottom of the mountain who became less than their potential in the eyes of God.  Truth is, I suspect we would like to be the light. We would like to think we could walk hand in hand with Jesus. I would even dare to say that possibility exists, at least in the mind of God. But the potential for perfection and the reality of perfection seems beyond our limited imagination.   That is why I am grateful for our text this morning from Exodus. One of the two figures that stood with Jesus on that mountain was Moses. What Moses and Elijah had in common was they had both experienced a theophany, an encounter with the face of God and survived.   In the 34^th chapter of Exodus Moses goes to Sinai a second time. You might remember the first he came down from the mountain; Moses stumbled into a wild party with the Israelites worshipping their man-made god of gold. In disgust Moses threw the first addition of the commandments to the ground. He went back up to Sinai and engaged in a remarkable conversation with God in which Moses had the audacity to ask, “Reveal yourself. Tell me who you are?”

        Yahweh said to Moses, “You tell your people I am the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.” Moses quickly bowed his head and worshipped. And then he listened as God’s mercy, graciousness and love was revealed. When Moses came off the mountain his face was shinning so brightly that the Israelites could not look upon him. They knew the words of Moses were a reflection of the word of God.

        Perhaps that is attainable. If we cannot imagine ourselves being Jesus, perhaps we can at least work harder to become a reflection of God.  Karl Barth reminds us, “Jesus is the one who makes us radiant. When we look to him, we cannot prevent our face from shining.” I suspect the only way to do this is to intentionally get close to God, allowing the radiance of God to mold who we are.

        Iris Dement, another one of those quirky song writers I adore sings,

                It was a long time ago,

                I was a girl but twelve years old,

                On my back staring up into the dark summer sky.

                When I said, “God, tomorrow I can’t see,

                But I’ll stick close to you if you’ll stick close to me.

                All night I prayed, “Keep me Lord, Keep me Lord.”

        Perhaps our holiness does not come from who we are but rather the company we keep. And perhaps it is not our works that purify us but rather the one who makes our works radiant.

        Keep me Lord.

Keep me Lord. 

        Amen.