God with Skin on: a sermon for Transfiguration Sunday

Matthew 17:1-9

Six days later Jesus took Peter, James, and John his brother, and brought them to the top of a very high mountain. ² He was transformed in front of them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as light.

³ Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with Jesus. ⁴ Peter reacted to all of this by saying to Jesus, “Lord, it’s good that we’re here. If you want, I’ll make three shrines: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”

⁵ While he was still speaking, look, a bright cloud overshadowed them. A voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son whom I dearly love. I am very pleased with him. Listen to him!” ⁶ Hearing this, the disciples fell on their faces, filled with awe.

⁷ But Jesus came and touched them. “Get up,” he said. “Don’t be afraid.” ⁸ When they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus.

⁹ As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus commanded them, “Don’t tell anybody about the vision until the Human One is raised from the dead.”

Let the words of my mouth
    and the meditations of my heart
    be pleasing to you,
    Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

When you tell someone a secret, what do you expect them to do?

Sometimes that depends on the person. Usually, that depends on your relationship with the person.

If that person respects you, and if the secret is not dangerous, they’ll keep your secret, won’t they?

But if that person is perfectly willing to write you off, if you’re not important to them, is it fair to expect them to keep your secret?

Do you confide in someone you don’t trust?

Can someone confide something in you if you don’t have a relationship with you?

Jesus is trusting P, J, & J with a really big secret. They’ve never seen anything like this in their lives. Sure, Jesus did some really nifty miracles, healed people, brought somebody back from the dead once or twice, but this is huge! This is impossible! This is beyond their imagination! This is inconceivable!

But what did they see?

We sing:

Open our eyes Lord
We want to see Jesus
To reach out and touch Him
And say that we love Him
Open our ears Lord
And help us to listen
Open our eyes Lord
We want to see Jesus

or

Open my eyes, that I may see glimpses of truth thou hast for me;

place in my hands the wonderful key that shall unclasp and set me free.

Silently now I wait for thee, ready, my God, thy will to see.

Open my eyes, illumine me, Spirit divine!

And that’s nifty. But what are we asking for?

Are we asking for an experience like Moses?

The Lord said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain and wait there. I’ll give you the stone tablets with the instructions and the commandments that I’ve written in order to teach them.”

13 So Moses and his assistant Joshua got up, and Moses went up God’s mountain. 14 Moses had said to the elders, “Wait for us here until we come back to you. Aaron and Hur will be here with you. Whoever has a legal dispute may go to them.”

15 Then Moses went up the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain. 16 The Lord’s glorious presence settled on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days. On the seventh day the Lord called to Moses from the cloud. 17 To the Israelites, the Lord’s glorious presence looked like a blazing fire on top of the mountain. 18 Moses entered the cloud and went up the mountain. Moses stayed on the mountain for forty days and forty nights.

Do we want to see what the people saw from afar? Do we want to be on the mountain like Moses, beholding the glory of God with our own eyes?

That’s one of the things I don’t get about our tradition, by the way. There are times when our witness tells us that no one can see God and live, and then there are stories like Moses’s about someone who does exactly that.

And then there’s Jesus.

How many people saw Jesus? A bunch. Thousands, tens of thousands. Who knows?

I’m just… I’m stuck trying to figure out the difference between seeing Jesus and seeing God. I don’t understand, if Jesus says, “I and the Father are One,” what the actual difference is.

Just confused.

Maybe Jesus is like God with a mask on. Like Moses with a towel on his head when he comes back down from the mountain:

29 Moses came down from Mount Sinai. As he came down from the mountain with the two covenant tablets in his hand, Moses didn’t realize that the skin of his face shone brightly because he had been talking with God. 30 When Aaron and all the Israelites saw the skin of Moses’ face shining brightly, they were afraid to come near him. 31 But Moses called them closer. So Aaron and all the leaders of the community came back to him, and Moses spoke with them. 32 After that, all the Israelites came near as well, and Moses commanded them everything that the Lord had spoken with him on Mount Sinai. 33 When Moses finished speaking with them, he put a veil over his face. 34 Whenever Moses went into the Lord’s presence to speak with him, Moses would take the veil off until he came out again. When Moses came out and told the Israelites what he had been commanded, 35 the Israelites would see that the skin of Moses’ face was shining brightly. So Moses would put the veil on his face again until the next time he went in to speak with the Lord.

Do you know what a habit is?

Today, we refer to a habit as something we do over and over, usually a behavior that is so deeply ingrained that it is nearly impossible to stop.

The older sense of the word refers to the plain dress of a member of a monastic order. Habits are worn by nuns and monks. They put them on and the robe reminds them of the simplicity of their calling, their covenant to a life of poverty and reflection.

As monastics put on their habits, they begin to associate certain behavior with the certain dress. So a couple centuries after the term developed to describe monastic robes, the term evolved to describe the kind of repeated behavior that the habit inspired.

You put on a habit to develop holy habits.

Let me offer this observation, then: Jesus is God’s holy habit.

Jesus is the mask of God, the costume of God, the behavior God puts on to show us what God is really like.

God walking around in skin. God with skin on.

But under that habit you can still see the motion of the Almighty. Under that towel, you can watch the motivation of the Maker.

God’s love beams out through Jesus’s eyes.

And P, J, & J caught a glimpse.

The good news is that we can, too.

I was hungry and you gave me food to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me. I was naked and you gave me clothes to wear. I was sick and you took care of me. I was in prison and you visited me.

I assure you that when you have done [this] for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you have done it for me.

Do you want to catch a glimpse of Christ? Look around you. Here he is.

That’s the big secret for us today. God is within every single one of us. Maybe that’s a little creepy, because plenty of us aren’t actually interested in inviting God into our lives, into our selves, into our private moments.

But Christ is here among us.

And even more importantly, Jesus is outside these walls waiting, just waiting for you to meet him and offer him bread, shelter, comfort, healing, peace.

And if you’ll offer your meager self to God with Skin on, just imagine what God will offer to you.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.