“Shining Faces”
The text for this sermon is Luke 9:29a, “And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed.” Pastor Jim Kniseley presented this sermon at Resurrection on Transfiguration Sunday, February 18, 2007.
Dear
Friends in Christ,
Today
is Transfiguration Sunday in the calendar of the Church, the last Sunday in the
Season of Light called Epiphany. It is
also the last Sunday before Ash Wednesday and the beginning of the Season of
Lent, a time of preparation for Holy Week and Easter.
After
today, we take down the Star. But today,
for Christians, this star shines even brighter than usual as we remember what
it represents.
We
read in the Bible that whenever God wanted to reveal himself to people, a
special light or glow appeared. The Hebrew
word for this light is “shekinah.” The
people of
Today
our Bible readings are about a couple of
incidents when God’s shekinah touched two very special individuals,
Moses and Jesus. I hope that we can learn something from their stories that will help us
in our faith journeys today.
Moses
was up on
Our
Exodus passage tells us that every time Moses came back from speaking with God,
his face had this special glow. At first
it scared the people, but after awhile, they came to recognize that Moses was
the mediator between God and them, and
Moses was the chosen messenger.
Now
let’s skip ahead about 1300 years to the time of Jesus and his disciples. We hear the story of the Transfiguration of
Jesus. “Transfiguration” is a fancy word
that means “changed.” Jesus face
“changed” and his clothes became dazzling white. Three gospel writers give us an account of
this event (Matthew, Mark and Luke), so we know it was very important for early
Christians to remember. Jesus took his
inner circle of disciples, his “executive team”, to witness something out of
the ordinary. This was a moment of grace
for them. Eventually they were to tell
to everyone what they saw and heard.
It
was another time of God’s shekinah being seen and God’s message being
given. Peter, James and John would
always be able to remember that God had shown them something so special that
they would not doubt that Jesus was truly the Son of God.
What
really interests me about the Transfiguration and the story of Moses is what
happened to their faces. Moses face
“shined” and Jesus face “changed.” I believe that we are hearing about God’s
shekinah radiating out of these two because they had been in the presence of
God. And others saw it.
Today Moses and Jesus are not walking around this good old earth as they once did. Today God’s shekinah must be revealed in the faces of others. As followers of Jesus Christ, it is important that our faces today are a mirror of God’s light, this shekinah. God chooses to reveal himself through us for the sake of the world.
So,
dear Christian, what is the message of God that can be seen in your face
today?
After
the Transfiguration, the disciples and Jesus come down from the mountain and
are immediately confronted by people and their needs. A father comes to Jesus, pleading for his son
to be healed. Then the disciples get into an argument about who will be
greatest in the
In
our Lenten Study book, Reclaiming the “C” Word, Daring to be Church Again,
Kelly Fryer reminds us that today the Church, you and I, need to regain this
sense of getting “off the mountain”, getting “out of the church building” and
go out to where the people with needs are.
Kelly pleads for us becoming a “missional” church. That is, a church whose purpose is to
participate in God’s mission.
We
go to the
I
conclude this sermon with our Resurrection Lutheran Mission Statement. How close do you think this is to the mission
Jesus wants for His Church?
“Marked with the cross of Christ
forever,
we are claimed, gathered, and sent –
for the sake of the world.”
Amen.