Our Sunday Message

Circling the Mountain with Moses: Exodus 34:29-35
Rev. Dr. Kenneth A. Corr
February 18, 2007
Transfiguration Sunday

   Today is Transfiguration Sunday. It is the last Sunday before Lent. Our sermon text for today is the story of the transfiguration of Moses on the mountain with God. This is a strange story! How are we to understand it? What are we to do with it?
  I want walk around this story several times and look at it from different angles, pulling back different levels of understanding, to see if we can hear the text as God’s Word for us today.
  First of all, I want to read the text again. I want you to just listen to it; don’t try to read along with me, just listen. Let your imagination construct the scene. If you benefit from listening with your eyes closed, then feel free to do that. Try to imagine what you are hearing. See it with your heart and not just your mind.
READ Exodus 34:29-35
  What a strange story! First of all, let’s walk around this story from a historical point of view. What happened? It is a pretty simple story to tell.
  The text begins, “Moses came down from Mount Sinai.” Moses had been on the mountain in order to get a replacement for the tablets of commandments that he had broken the first time that he came down. You may remember that the first time he came down from the mountain, he had the two tablets with the Ten Commandments in his hands and when he saw the people dancing around the golden calf, he became so angry that he threw the tablets to the ground and they broke.
  God ordered Moses to go back up the mountain and get two new tablets to replace the ones that he had broken. Moses went up and stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights. Unlike the last time when they became restive in his absence, this time the people waited patiently for his return. I suspect that they waited on “pins and needles.”
  When Moses finally appeared, it was not the tablets that the people first noticed, but Moses’ face. His face literally “shone.” When the people saw it, they were afraid to come near him. That is not hard to understand in light of what happened the last time that he came down the mountain. This time, it was as though he was electrified. It’s not the kind of thing that you see everyday.
  But Moses assured them that it was all right and told them all that God had commanded. From that day on, Moses kept a veil over his face except when he was with God, and except when he was communicating God’s message to the people.
  That’s the story. What a strange story!
  Now, let’s walk around it again and look at it from a different angle, uncovering another layer to the story. This time, let’s look at this from an emotional and spiritual point of view. What happened to Moses on the mountain that made his face shine? One of the clear testimonies of Scripture is that God is “light.” All of the Scripture that we have read today notes this.
  When Jesus was transfigured on the mountain, “his clothes became dazzling white.”
  Paul’s vision of God on the Damascus Road was a light so bright that it blinded him. It is no wonder that Paul describes our Christian faith as seeing God with unveiled faces. He had looked with unveiled face into God’s light.
  The Scripture is clear that there is something about being in the presence of God that includes a spiritual energy, like a bright light. This experience must have been filled with emotional, spiritual, psychic energy for it to change his physical appearance.
  But what made his appearance so frightening to the people that they could not come near him? Were they afraid that they would be consumed by the fire of God because of their sin? I am reminded of Isaiah’s vision in which his response was, “Woe is me!” Were they afraid that they would be contaminated or changed in some way? When Jesus healed the Gerasene demoniac, the people were so afraid that they demanded that he leave their territory. Were they afraid that they were in the presence of something that they should not see or experience, like violating a taboo? The Bible warns that we can’t look into the face of God without being destroyed.
  Because of their fear, Moses used a veil to hide or in some way to keep his experience from the people. What was it exactly that Moses wanted to hide? The apostle Paul gives his commentary on this experience. In 2 Corinthians, Paul says that Moses put the veil on his face to hide the fact that the glory was fading. I have never understood that interpretation exactly. The best explanation that I have heard is from Renita Weems. She says, “By putting the veil over his face, Moses sought a way to remain approachable to the human community to and for whom he was responsible.”1 Regardless what Moses intended, it is clear that the veil was a way that he could stay connected to the people on a human level. What a strange story!
  Now, let’s walk around this story one more time from a practical point of view. The story begins with Moses coming down from the mountain. Was it hard to leave? Obviously he had had an incredible experience. Did he want to stay? It must have been a powerful experience to sustain him forty days and forty nights without food or drink. Did he argue or plead with God to stay?
  I heard a young mother tell about coming home to her family after a girls’ weekend with her friends. She said that when she came into the house, everyone was demanding something from her, “even the open jar of peanut butter on the kitchen counter was shouting her name.”
  It is never easy to re-enter the world of the mundane after deeply spiritual experiences. Was Moses prepared for re-entry? Peter did not want to leave the mountain of transfiguration. He suggested that they build some dwelling places up there on the mountain of transfiguration. Before they can even share their experience or begin to process it, they are confronted by a curious crowd, a distraught father, a group of frustrated disciples, and a tragically sick boy.
Moses came down. All mountaintop spiritual experiences are given so that we can offer something to others.
  Moses came down and his face shone because he had been talking with God. In his commentary on this text, Gene Tucker asks, “Is it still possible that one who approaches God, who encounters the Holy One, will be transformed so that others can see the effects of that encounter?”2 My answer is an unequivocal, Yes! I have never known anyone whose face shown. But I have known people who had a definite sense of holiness about their person. It was not reflected in the tone of their voice, or the nature of their appearance, or the number of Bible verses that they could quote, or even the energetic way that they espouse doctrine. But it was the quality of their lives. Something about their faith “glowed.”
  I have heard that before D. L. Moody, the great evangelist, even began his sermon, there were times when people began to weep and repent. I don’t know if it is true, but I believe it.
  Moses came down from the mountain and his face shown and he put a veil over his face. The veil was a symbol that there were experiences, visions, and insights that he had on that mountain that he could never tell because it was too much for the people. But in spite of all that he had experienced, Moses found a way to be with the people. We call that humility.
  Regardless how spiritual we become, how disciplined we are, how much we learn, we must find a way to be approachable. Ultimately faith is lived in community and for community.
  Now let’s walk around this story one last time. This time imagine that you are waiting with the people for Moses. It has been a tense, anxious forty days and nights. But finally, you see Moses coming down the mountain, carrying the two tablets, glowing like he is electrified, and you know that it is real. Something very real, and maybe a little scary, is in your midst. Now, pray, “Living and transforming Lord, what do you want from me today?”
  Walk around with that question all this week and see how you are transformed.

1 Renita Weems, New Proclamation: Year C, 2000-2001, p. 139.
2 Gene Tucker, Preaching Through the Christian Year: Year C, p. 122.