Sermon for: Feb 3, 2008 [Epiphany Last A Brian McHugh, priest & vicar
[Ex 24:12-18][Ps 2][2 Peter 1:16-21][Matt 17:1-9]

"God’s Glory-Haunted World"


A priest colleague of mine recently wrote:[1]

"Episcopalians get it about glory; that the glory of God is the hidden flesh-and-blood truth about everybody, everywhere. Therefore proclaiming the glory of the incarnation is the business we are in. Which is to say that we – every parish, diocese, province, person – are in the business of healing, and feeding, and serving, and loving, and respecting the dignity of every human being in God’s glory-haunted world. [Isn’t that a great phrase! I don’t normally title my sermons; but this one is called ”God’s Glory-Haunted World.]

Anglicans have always gotten it about glory, at least on our better days. This is our charism[2]: to know that glory is the deepest truth for everyone, everywhere. Glory is the wonder-filled transfiguring end of all people and all creation, not just a platitude to sing about or an unimportant side product of a guilt-ridden religion. We live into that transfiguring, glorious truth one particular person and place at a time. "

Glory is the wonder-filled transfiguring end of all people and all creation … That, of course, is what the image of the transfigured Jesus is all about. It isn’t just about Jesus. Jesus represents all of us, all human beings. Glory has always been God’s purpose for all Creation. Handel understood it, and expressed it in that grand chorus in The Messiah - (sing) And the glory, the glory of the Lord ….shall be reveal-ed!. Simply understood, “glory” is the manifestation, the shining out, of Divine Love.

The Advent season has been about it - the shining royal image of Christ the Eternal Lord reigning over all Creation. The Christmas season has been about it - the glory of God manifested in the human figure of a little child in a manger, a figure reminding us that we are all offspring of God. The Epiphany season has been all about it; we’ve heard the words of the Proper Preface for Epiphany at every Liturgy - “for in the mystery of the Word made flesh, You have caused a new light to shine in our hearts, that we may know Your glory in the face of your son Jesus Christ Our Lord …”

Moses is seen with Jesus on the Mountain of Transfiguration. That same Moses who climbed up into the Mountain of God, Mount Sinai. The storyteller of Exodus says, “The Cloud covered the mountain. The Glory of God settled over Mount Sinai ….. In the view of the Israelites below, the Glory of God looked like a raging fire on the top of the mountain.” And later we will be told that when Moses came down from the Mountain, his face shone with the glory of the Lord, so much so that he had to put a veil over his face so as not to terrify the people. Moses brings down from Mount Sinai the two tablets containing the Law of God, the Ten Commandments. It is this Moses who is pictured with Jesus on the mountain.

The story of the Transfiguration was written many decades after Jesus’ death and resurrection. The Christian community had pondered the relationship of Jesus to their illustrious ancestors and leaders. Moses represents the Jewish Law, the heart of Jewish ethical conduct flowing out of their covenant relationship with God. The prophet Elijah is also pictured with Jesus. Elijah represents the call to that justice that was so characteristic of God, demanded by the Law. Jesus, in His Gospel, called people to a way of life that summed up the Law and the Prophets - a radical love that embraced both friend and enemy, affirmed the Golden Rule, and required unceasing forgiveness so that brokenness would be healed and people be enabled to dwell together in peace - in family, in nation, in the Kingdom.

Christians worship and follow the Saviour God Who is alive. What Jesus preached, and lived; what the Mosaic Law represents; what the prophetic message of Justice demands, are not things of the past. They are things of the present. This is the message of the image of the Mount of Transfiguration - the image that leads us into Lent and tells us what the goal of our Lent must be.

We are a people of God, filled with Divine Glory. We are meant to “live into that transfiguring, glorious truth one particular person and place at a time”. We are meant, we are created, to see that Glory face to face in ourselves and in each other just as powerfully as that Glory is seen in the face and person and Word and loving acts of Jesus. Everything we do in Lent as we accept the invitation of Ash Wednesday is to unleash the Glory.

We may not be “notorious sinners”, but we are often unloving, dimming that glory in our lives. We need to be “put in mind of the message of pardon and absolution set forth in the Gospel of our Saviour, and of the need which all Christians continually have to renew their repentance and faith[3]” ….. not so we can grovel in guilt but be freed to shine in Glory. We need to be free of fear and suspicion so we can see and respond to and draw out the innate glory of every person, indeed the whole Creation.

Jesus and Moses and Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration is a picture, a holy icon, of us as we are meant to be, and as we have been freed by divine grace to be. Lent is a time for us, as Moses did for forty days and forty nights, to climb up the Mountain of God, to meet God in the light. Where we can, as Psalm 2 says,

Worship God in adoring embrace,
Celebrate in trembling awe.
Kiss Messiah![4]

And as the Psalm says: If you make a run for God - you won’t regret it.

As we approach Lent, may we hear and recognize our experience in the words of Peter: “We couldn't be more sure of what we saw and heard—God's glory, God's voice. The prophetic Word was confirmed to us. You'll do well to keep focusing on it. It's the one light you have in a dark time as you wait for daybreak and the rising of the Morning Star in your hearts.”[5]

[1] The Rev. Martha P. Sterne
[2] means “gift”, from God
[3] The Liturgy of Ash Wednesday
[4] Psalm 2, The Message
[5] 2 Peter 1:21 ff