Reflecting Glory
Next before Lent/Last of Epiphany
Exodus 34.29-end; 2 Corinthians 3.12-4.2; Luke 9.28-36
Faded Glory. When I first saw that brand name on a pair of jeans, I thought to myself, ‘Who is going to want to wear something called Faded Glory?’ Of course perhaps Walmart aren't aiming their range at me! Nevertheless I think it a pretty (!) counterintuitive kind of name.
The term ‘faded glory’ caused a number of images to come to mind, none of which are very positive. I’m at that time of life when pension plans seem to repeatedly come up in conversations with my contemporaries. I don’t want anyone reminding me of faded glory, and those conversations have that kind of tone to them. We none of us have quite the glow we once had. Talk goes to how many years we’ve been doing what we’re doing. Mention is made of days when I had all my hair!
Faded Glory. My daughter tells me of taking family visitors to see the gold painted post box near Westminster Abbey in London. A colour change in honour of a gold medal winner at last year’s Olympics. But who was it? And that’s only last year– what about the Olympic winners of earlier events? The glory soon fades. And it’s not just athletics, of course. Who were the popular bands when you were a teenager? They seemed so important then, but what are they doing now? Who were those people that local streets were named after? Long since forgotten! Faded Glory. Not a pleasant thought.
Perhaps even Moses had a problem with a similar kind of faded glory. Moses had been on Mount Sinai with God, receiving the second set of tablets setting forth the Ten Commandments. The first time Moses had brought the stone tablets to the people he had been so angry with their idolatry in worshiping a golden calf that he had smashed them.
Later Moses made a new set of tablets (Ex 34:1) and God's covenant with the Israelites was renewed (34:10-27). When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the tablets, he didn’t realize that his face shone. His countenance glowed because he had been in the presence of God. When Aaron and the other Israelites saw Moses, they were afraid to come
near him.
Despite the fear, Moses did nothing to hide what was happening to his appearance. Was he trying to get through to
them that their God was all glorious? Or was he working to convince them of his authority? Who knows? The story, however, is clear – it wasn’t until after speaking to the people that Moses put the veil on his face. He wore it only
between the time that he finished talking to the people and the time he would go before the Lord again when he took it
off.
Strange! Why did Moses hide his face during the times when he was not making public appearances?
According to the apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians, Moses was trying to veil his faded glory,‘Moses... 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.’ (2 Cor. 3:13) In other words, Moses had received a glorious glow while being in the presence of God. Then, during the following times the glow on his face would begin to dim, and he would cover the fading glory with a veil.
No one wants to admit that their glory is fading, even if it is a reflected glory. How many of us get a glowing face, so to speak, when we come into the presence of our Lord – and yet when it comes to trying to relate our relationship with God to the everyday world, we only want to hide our face? It’s not always easy to keep one's spirits up while the glory is fading. And sometimes other people all too soon obliterate your remembrance of the glorious moment.
One mountaintop experience I had as a very young minister was a thriving youth group: they did amazing things and it
was an absolute delight to lead them. Then I came home one night, flying high from the group, and a parishioner phoned and started swearing at me because she disagreed with how things were handled at the group. She saved up her anger just
for me. My soaring wings had lead poured on them in that instant.
It can be so difficult to come down to the valley so quickly after a mountaintop experience. No wonder some people
want to hang onto the glory, hide as much glory as they can, before it all fades away – or is taken away.
What we have to keep in mind is that the glory is not ours to keep. It's God's glory! It's when we fall into the trap of believing the glory should be ours that things get snarled up. Isn’t that what Peter was trying to do that day when Jesus was transfigured before his very eyes.
Peter, along with James and John, witnessed Jesus' face changing and his clothes becoming dazzling white. Moses
and Elijah also ‘appeared in glory’ and were speaking of Jesus' exodus (departure), which he was about to accomplish in Jerusalem (Luke 9:31).
Peter wanted to hold onto that glory. He offered to build dwelling places, not realizing what he was saying.
But this kind of glory can not be held onto. It is intended to be given away. Yet peculiarly they weren’t convinced of this purpose at the time; when Peter and the others came down from the mountain-top ‘they kept silent and in those
days told no one any of the things they had seen’ (Luke 9:36).
God had spoken from the clouds and told them, ‘This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!’ They were to listen,
certainly, but did that mean they were to be so silent that no one else would hear about what they had witnessed? If they listened, they certainly didn’t hear.
Surely they were not intended to keep the glory to themselves? They were to descend to the valley where the
people were in need. The listening they had been commanded to do made Jesus’ intentions plain. He said, ‘your sins are forgiven!’ (Mk 2:9), ‘Your faith has made you well!’ (Mk 10:52), ‘Come unto me all you who are heavily laden and I
will give you rest!’ (Mt 11:28), ‘I no longer call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father, I have made known to you!’(Jn 15:15). In these
and innumerable other words and deeds he makes plain his liberating, healing, hopeful mission. The disciples must hear
this.
We come down from the mountain, because unlike Peter at this point who wanted to keep the glory to himself, the
glory is to be shared in the lives of people just like you and me, amongst the ups and downs of the ordinary existence we share. We see transfiguration in ourselves and in others, in the mundane as well as the mountain top; transfiguration is an oft repeated experience – thank God.
Transfiguration is a way of life, happening daily, as we see God with us and God with others. Sometimes it will be
a mountain top experience, but often it’s much more ordinary: we see transfiguration in another individual as we accept them for who they are; as we see things bravely overcome; as we see people going more than the extra mile for
another; and as we affirm that we all are simply children of God, members of Christ and heirs of the kingdom of
heaven.
Yes, your glory is only a reflected glory given to you by God. It is a fading glory which needs to be recharged by
returning frequently to the presence of God. A fading glory, yes, but that may be the only glory of God some individuals will ever see. Therefore, don't hide your faded glory behind a veil. Reveal it to a searching world, a world which is
looking for a word from God. Maybe faded glory isn’t so bad after all.
The term ‘faded glory’ caused a number of images to come to mind, none of which are very positive. I’m at that time of life when pension plans seem to repeatedly come up in conversations with my contemporaries. I don’t want anyone reminding me of faded glory, and those conversations have that kind of tone to them. We none of us have quite the glow we once had. Talk goes to how many years we’ve been doing what we’re doing. Mention is made of days when I had all my hair!
Faded Glory. My daughter tells me of taking family visitors to see the gold painted post box near Westminster Abbey in London. A colour change in honour of a gold medal winner at last year’s Olympics. But who was it? And that’s only last year– what about the Olympic winners of earlier events? The glory soon fades. And it’s not just athletics, of course. Who were the popular bands when you were a teenager? They seemed so important then, but what are they doing now? Who were those people that local streets were named after? Long since forgotten! Faded Glory. Not a pleasant thought.
Perhaps even Moses had a problem with a similar kind of faded glory. Moses had been on Mount Sinai with God, receiving the second set of tablets setting forth the Ten Commandments. The first time Moses had brought the stone tablets to the people he had been so angry with their idolatry in worshiping a golden calf that he had smashed them.
Later Moses made a new set of tablets (Ex 34:1) and God's covenant with the Israelites was renewed (34:10-27). When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the tablets, he didn’t realize that his face shone. His countenance glowed because he had been in the presence of God. When Aaron and the other Israelites saw Moses, they were afraid to come
near him.
Despite the fear, Moses did nothing to hide what was happening to his appearance. Was he trying to get through to
them that their God was all glorious? Or was he working to convince them of his authority? Who knows? The story, however, is clear – it wasn’t until after speaking to the people that Moses put the veil on his face. He wore it only
between the time that he finished talking to the people and the time he would go before the Lord again when he took it
off.
Strange! Why did Moses hide his face during the times when he was not making public appearances?
According to the apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians, Moses was trying to veil his faded glory,‘Moses... 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.’ (2 Cor. 3:13) In other words, Moses had received a glorious glow while being in the presence of God. Then, during the following times the glow on his face would begin to dim, and he would cover the fading glory with a veil.
No one wants to admit that their glory is fading, even if it is a reflected glory. How many of us get a glowing face, so to speak, when we come into the presence of our Lord – and yet when it comes to trying to relate our relationship with God to the everyday world, we only want to hide our face? It’s not always easy to keep one's spirits up while the glory is fading. And sometimes other people all too soon obliterate your remembrance of the glorious moment.
One mountaintop experience I had as a very young minister was a thriving youth group: they did amazing things and it
was an absolute delight to lead them. Then I came home one night, flying high from the group, and a parishioner phoned and started swearing at me because she disagreed with how things were handled at the group. She saved up her anger just
for me. My soaring wings had lead poured on them in that instant.
It can be so difficult to come down to the valley so quickly after a mountaintop experience. No wonder some people
want to hang onto the glory, hide as much glory as they can, before it all fades away – or is taken away.
What we have to keep in mind is that the glory is not ours to keep. It's God's glory! It's when we fall into the trap of believing the glory should be ours that things get snarled up. Isn’t that what Peter was trying to do that day when Jesus was transfigured before his very eyes.
Peter, along with James and John, witnessed Jesus' face changing and his clothes becoming dazzling white. Moses
and Elijah also ‘appeared in glory’ and were speaking of Jesus' exodus (departure), which he was about to accomplish in Jerusalem (Luke 9:31).
Peter wanted to hold onto that glory. He offered to build dwelling places, not realizing what he was saying.
But this kind of glory can not be held onto. It is intended to be given away. Yet peculiarly they weren’t convinced of this purpose at the time; when Peter and the others came down from the mountain-top ‘they kept silent and in those
days told no one any of the things they had seen’ (Luke 9:36).
God had spoken from the clouds and told them, ‘This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!’ They were to listen,
certainly, but did that mean they were to be so silent that no one else would hear about what they had witnessed? If they listened, they certainly didn’t hear.
Surely they were not intended to keep the glory to themselves? They were to descend to the valley where the
people were in need. The listening they had been commanded to do made Jesus’ intentions plain. He said, ‘your sins are forgiven!’ (Mk 2:9), ‘Your faith has made you well!’ (Mk 10:52), ‘Come unto me all you who are heavily laden and I
will give you rest!’ (Mt 11:28), ‘I no longer call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father, I have made known to you!’(Jn 15:15). In these
and innumerable other words and deeds he makes plain his liberating, healing, hopeful mission. The disciples must hear
this.
We come down from the mountain, because unlike Peter at this point who wanted to keep the glory to himself, the
glory is to be shared in the lives of people just like you and me, amongst the ups and downs of the ordinary existence we share. We see transfiguration in ourselves and in others, in the mundane as well as the mountain top; transfiguration is an oft repeated experience – thank God.
Transfiguration is a way of life, happening daily, as we see God with us and God with others. Sometimes it will be
a mountain top experience, but often it’s much more ordinary: we see transfiguration in another individual as we accept them for who they are; as we see things bravely overcome; as we see people going more than the extra mile for
another; and as we affirm that we all are simply children of God, members of Christ and heirs of the kingdom of
heaven.
Yes, your glory is only a reflected glory given to you by God. It is a fading glory which needs to be recharged by
returning frequently to the presence of God. A fading glory, yes, but that may be the only glory of God some individuals will ever see. Therefore, don't hide your faded glory behind a veil. Reveal it to a searching world, a world which is
looking for a word from God. Maybe faded glory isn’t so bad after all.
