II Corinthians 3:12-4:2
Nobody who gets
too close to God comes away from the experience unchanged. It seems like that should be an obvious
statement, but the ways that people are changed vary. In some it is an experience of awe and
fear. In others it is one of beauty and
peace. For some, it seems unreal and it
passes. Others are changed for a
lifetime and beyond.
The passage that
we heard read from II Corinthians this morning refers to an event recorded in
Exodus. It is the aftermath of Moses’
meeting with God on top of Mount Sinai. Listen to what being confronted with God’s
glory did to him.
“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. When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, the skin of his
face was shining, and they were afraid to come near him. But Moses called to them; and Aaron and all the leaders of
the congregation returned to him, and Moses spoke with them. Afterwards all the Israelites came near, and he gave them in
commandment all that the Lord had
spoken with him on Mount Sinai. When Moses had finished speaking with them, he put
a veil on his face; 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, 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.” [Exodus 34:29-35]
Does it sound far-fetched? Maybe.
Let me tell you a story, though.
After 9/11, life
felt pretty grim for a lot of people.
There was so much uncertainty in the air, and an awareness that war was
on the horizon even though nobody was yet entirely sure who would be fighting
whom. There was a sense that another
attack might come, but in what form?
Terrorism is popular in some circles because it creates that kind of
fear, and its worst effect is not simply that people die, but that nations
change their ways because of that fear.
In a situation like that, you have to find ways to hold onto what is
good, and to remind yourself that God is in charge.
I was blessed to
have someone who could help me do that.
Her name was Ruth, and she was blind and had clinical dementia. She hadn’t always been that way, though. Once upon a time she had been a child in
Allentown, and her parents sent her faithfully to church every Sunday, although
they stayed home. What they didn’t
realize was that instead of the church where they thought they were sending
her, she started going with her friends to what was then the Zion United
Brethren in Christ. They spoke English there,
whereas her parents’ church worshiped in German.
There, as she
told me, one Sunday while she was enjoying putting one over on her parents as
much as anything else, there was an altar call and she simply felt herself
moved to go forward and pray, and while she prayed she felt that God was
placing a hand on her shoulder. That was
it; no angels were singing, no voice spoke to her or anything like that. She just felt that God was close to her. She told me, decades later, that as she
walked home everything she looked at seemed to glow a little bit, and the
sunshine seemed brighter. (It’s kind of
like the Moses effect in reverse.)
This took place
sometime during the Depression, and it wouldn’t be long until World War II, so
you know that her life would have had its difficult moments, even apart from
the regular traumas of living. That kind
of glow stuck with her, though. I know
that because when all else began to slip away – her eyesight and her mental
faculties – there was a sweetness and appreciation of God’s goodness that stuck
with her. Now, you might just say that
was her disposition and I cannot disprove it, but it was somehow something
more.
There she was, sitting
in a chair at a nursing home (and thank the Lord for places that care for
people who need them!). I would walk in
and announce that I was there.
“Ruthie?”
“Yes?
Who is it?”
“Ruthie, it’s Pastor Mark.”
“Oh!
What are you doing here?” (Now
here’s where it get’s interesting, at least to me.)
“I’m a little mixed up, Ruth. Where are we?”
“Oh, we’re on a train. I was just looking out the window.”
“It’s hard for me to see from here. What’s out there? Where are we going?”
And for the next half hour or so, she
would narrate our trip through the farmlands or into the mountains. Sometimes we would wave at the people
watching the train at railroad crossings.
Maybe the conductor would come along and check our tickets. Then we’d reach a station and I would say
goodbye.
Never once on
any of those excursions did she see anything troubling or fail to see something
beautiful and exciting.
The Bible tells
us,
“Now the Lord is
the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 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.” [II Corinthians
3:17-18]
That freedom comes in many forms. For her it was freedom to see the glory of God’s
world even when her eyesight was gone.
For me, at that time, it was the freedom to travel with her and for a
short while to be reminded to raise my eyes from the sidewalk and look around
me when I left, knowing that the bad news was not all the news. For all of us, it is the freedom to see the
glory of the Lord and to be changed by that and to know that the Lord’s glory
is one he shares freely, making Moses’ face shine and making Ruth’s spirit
shine, and one way or another transforming all God’s people “from one degree of glory to another”.
Another of God’s saints, one who
had the gift of seeing the glory in the people he met even more strongly that
Ruth did, St. Frederick Rogers, put it this way:
“I believe that appreciation is a holy thing – that when we
look for what’s best in a person we happen to be with at the moment, we’re
doing what God does all the time. So in
loving God and appreciating our neighbor, we’re participating in something
sacred.”[1]
Yes, people can be disappointing. Yes, trouble is real. Yes, the world can be a dark place
sometimes. Our help doesn’t come from
people or the world, though, and our hope isn’t grounded in them. It comes from far, far beyond and is right here,
right here inside.
“Therefore, since
it is by God’s mercy that we are engaged in this ministry, we do not lose
heart.” [II Corinthians 4:1]
[1]
Fred Rogers, Commencement Address at Middlebury College, May 2001. http://web.archive.org/web/20030906163501/http://www.middlebury.edu/offices/pubaff/general_info/addresses/Fred_Rogers_2001.htm
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