Sixth Sunday After Epiphany Year C 2010

06 Epiphany C 10
February 14, 2010

Exodus 34:29-35
29 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. 30 When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, the skin of his face was shining, and they were afraid to come near him. 31 But Moses called to them; and Aaron and all the leaders of the congregation returned to him, and Moses spoke with them. 32 Afterward all the Israelites came near, and he gave them in commandment all that the LORD had spoken with him on Mount Sinai. 33 When Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil on his face; 34 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, 35 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.

Psalm 99
1 The LORD is king; let the peoples tremble!
He sits enthroned upon the cherubim; let the earth quake!
2 The LORD is great in Zion;
he is exalted over all the peoples.
3 Let them praise your great and awesome name.
Holy is he! 4 Mighty King, lover of justice,
you have established equity;
you have executed justice
and righteousness in Jacob.
5 Extol the LORD our God;
worship at his footstool.
Holy is he!
6 Moses and Aaron were among his priests,
Samuel also was among those who called on his name.
They cried to the LORD, and he answered them.
7 He spoke to them in the pillar of cloud;
they kept his decrees,
and the statutes that he gave them.
8 O LORD our God, you answered them;
you were a forgiving God to them,
but an avenger of their wrongdoings.
9 Extol the LORD our God,
and worship at his holy mountain;
for the LORD our God is holy.

2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2
12 Since, then, we have such a hope, we act with great boldness, 13 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. 14 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. 15 Indeed, to this very day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their minds; 16 but when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. 17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 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.

1 Therefore, since it is by God's mercy that we are engaged in this ministry, we do not lose heart. 2 We have renounced the 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.

Luke 9:28-43
28 Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. 29 And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. 30 Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. 31 They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. 32 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. 33 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. 34 While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud. 35 Then from the cloud came a voice that said, "This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!" 36 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.

37 On the next day, when they had come down from the mountain, a great crowd met him. 38 Just then a man from the crowd shouted, "Teacher, I beg you to look at my son; he is my only child. 39 Suddenly a spirit seizes him, and all at once he shrieks. It convulses him until he foams at the mouth; it mauls him and will scarcely leave him. 40 I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they could not." 41 Jesus answered, "You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you and bear with you? Bring your son here." 42 While he was coming, the demon dashed him to the ground in convulsions. But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, healed the boy, and gave him back to his father. 43 And all were astounded at the greatness of God.

The Secret to Doing Miracles

I’m pretty sure most of us here today would say out of hand that doing miracles is beyond us. Miracles are for people like Jesus and Peter and Paul, or for really super-spiritual people we can’t hope to ever become.

But today I want to let you in on the secret, the secret to doing miracles.

Do you remember Apollo 8, the one that circled the moon? It was Christmas eve when the capsule rounded the moon and earth rose over the moons horizon. The astronauts trained their camera on the tiny blue ball floating over the wide expanse of the desolate lunar surface. And as the whole world looked at itself from the highest vantage point ever achieved, the astronauts began to read, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth…”

There are times and places in our lives when the veil that hides the glory of God slips away. Barbara Brown Taylor calls them “thin places.” They can be at the top of a mountain or far out in space. They can be in certain unforgettable life moments. When my daughter Hilary emerged into the world and opened her beautiful blue eyes for the first time. Or when Bishop Bob Isakson placed a stole on my shoulders and said, “Receive this stole as a sign of your work, and live in obedience to the Lord Jesus” . Or when Liz walked down the aisle at Faith Lutheran Church wearing a simple cream suit and carrying a small bouquet. Thin places, where the veil that hides the glory of God slides away.

Under the veil is the glory of God, and under the veil is also the demonic. Sometimes when the veil slides away I see God’s glory. Sometimes when the veil slides away I see demons. When the veil slides away from my image in the mirror, I see both.

Why does God hide his glory behind any kind of veil? God doesn’t show his glory to the crowds that incessantly follow Jesus and his disciples, begging them for favors. He shows himself to a few disciples on a mountaintop, who are so overwhelmed they never speak of it to anyone, though of course, eventually they must have, or we would not have the story.

Maybe it’s because we are so quick to fear the threats of the lesser spirits, the demonic forces in the world. “You can’t trust other people. You can’t share because there’s not enough. You can’t forgive because you will be taken advantage of. You’re on your own.” Or maybe it’s because we’re so deeply connected to the demonic, so convinced that the worldly powers we confuse with God will lead us to something we want. Yet all these spirits do is confuse us, blind us to God’s glory, make us deaf to his word, enslave us and finally simply kill us. Our lives in the end become a useless waste.

Did you notice the little parallel in Luke’s story? When he is on the mountaintop, and he begins to shine with God’s glory, the voice of God comes in a cloud, saying “This is my Son; listen to him!” And then when Jesus and the disciples come down off the mountain, another father says, “Look at my son; he is my only child.”

Perhaps the words of the father at the bottom of the mountain are needed to understand the words of the Father at the top. “I beg you to look at my son; he is my only child. Suddenly a spirit seizes him.”

“Suddenly a spirit seizes him.” Perhaps this is God’s perspective, God’s exasperation, God’s frustration, God’s desperation, that we also hear in Jesus’ response. “I beg you,” we might imagine God asking us, “to look at my humanity; it is my only child, and a spirit seizes it.”

The father at the foot of the mountain, and Jesus’ disciples as well, fail to see behind the veil. All they can see is this lesser spirit, all they can believe in is this destructive demon. They fail to see God’s glory hidden in themselves, the power of God over all such little spirits. You will notice Jesus is exasperated, annoyed. He is not surrounded by people who are stupid. He is surrounded by people who ignore the mountain of evidence God has given them, evidence that he will work through them to bring the world out of the darkness and into the light.

Sin and death, the compulsive power of lesser spirits, is likened in the New Testament to blindness and deafness. In the twelve-step fellowships, we often hear that alcoholism is the disease that tells the alcoholic it’s not a disease. Sin blinds us and deafens us to the light and voice of God, telling us all the time that it’s simply common sense. We become helpless victims that are nevertheless convinced we are free and powerful. We are told that real freedom, real justice, real holiness is beyond us, that we can’t achieve such things, that we should just accept our human nature.

We become very much like the possessed boy, being tossed about and dashed to the ground against his will. What we believe to be human limitation is actually the demonic voices of the fallen world telling us, “Give up. You can’t be what you are meant to be. It’s just the way things are.”

But it isn’t. The demon lies. You are meant to do miracles. You are meant to cause water to spring up in the desert. You are meant to heal the sick and give sight to the blind, to bring the mighty down from their thrones and to lift up the lowly, to shine with the light of one who has come into the presence of the living God. That’s true human nature.

When Moses and Elijah appear to Jesus, it is of Jesus’ death and resurrection they speak. Our English translation says they spoke of Jesus’ “departure,” but Luke’s Greek word is exodos.

The exodus Jesus will make, through the cross and out of the tomb, is from an old incomplete humanity into a restored, complete humanity. This new humanity is the new promised land, and following Jesus means to go on an exodus from the old to the new. It means embracing God’s miracle in us.

In the fourth century, yes, that’s about one thousand six hundred years ago, a teenaged nun named Egeria made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and there witnessed the rituals of the Jerusalem church during Holy Week, that is, the week before Easter.

In those days, people were baptized only on one day a year, usually after an intense three-year period of preparation. The candidates for baptism would be taken to the church deep in the night before Easter by the whole community of believers. They would remove all their clothes and be anointed with oil. They would turn to the west and raise their arms and loudly renounce Satan, then turn to the east and confess their faith. Amid prayers and hymns they would descend into the waters of baptism. When they emerged, they would each be clothed in a perfectly clean white robe, a sign of their victory.

And then Cyril, the pastor of the church there, would sing a hymn to them:

May God deign then to show you this night
The darkness that is as bright as day…
For each man and woman among you
May the door of paradise swing wide!
Enjoy then the perfumed waters;
Receive the name of Christ
And the power to do deeds that are divine.

The secret to doing miracles is to let the Holy Spirit do the miracle of transforming you.

Amen.