The picture Bible
Commentary
Big events in our culture are generally accompanied by much picture taking.
If you've watched the initial kickoff at any year's Super Bowl, you've seen how the occasion is marked by thousands of flashes around the stadium, as people capture the moment. So, too, with a major press conference, a bill signing, or a summit: big events in our culture are always surrounded by cameras, whirring and clicking away.
Big events in our families work the same way. We always take lots of pictures at our personal big events: weddings, birthday parties, anniversaries, baptisms, and such. You and I have been part of that picture taking as one of the family members; and we have also been part of a lot of those pictures as the officiating minister.
For myself, I have had the privilege along the way of attending the eightieth and ninetieth birthday celebrations for several different family members and parishioners. These are festive occasions, with plenty of food, endless storytelling, and lots of kids. The better part of a century is a long time for a family tree to be able to grow, and so there are children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and even great-great-grandchildren.
One inevitable part of such an occasion, of course, is the big family portrait. All the offspring group together (usually arranged in family units) around the matriarch or patriarch who is being honored and celebrated. There, smiling and proud, we see the three, or four, or possibly five generations of a family represented in a single moment.
Perhaps you've been part of such a picture, such a group.
The Bible has a group picture like that. In this instance, we might say that Luke is the photographer: He is the one who captures the moment for us in our gospel lection. The setting is a mountain in northern Palestine. And the occasion -- the big event where the picture was taken -- is the Transfiguration of Jesus.
Exodus 34:29-35
As a matter of trivia, it may be worth noting that this is the passage that gave rise to numerous artistic depictions of Moses with horns. When the text reports that "the skin of his face shone," the Hebrew word that is used (qaran) for "shone" can mean: "to shine," "to send out rays," and "to display or grow horns." The Greek Septuagint more properly translated the tense of the original Hebrew verb and opted for a word that suggested Moses' face was glorified. The Latin Vulgate, however, used a word for "horned." And out of that came the popular convention in art to portray Moses with horns.
On the other hand, perhaps the matter is not so trivial, for it serves as a metaphor for a rather common problem. The face of Moses shone with the glory of God, and yet it has been perceived and portrayed by some as horns. The misapprehension recalls the folks who thought the disciples were drunk on Pentecost (Acts 2:12-13) and the leaders who reckoned that Jesus' miracles were Beelzebul's doing (Matthew 12:24). Misreading and misunderstanding the work of God is not a trivial matter, at all.
The reaction to Moses' radiance by his own contemporaries represents another sort of misunderstanding. When Aaron and the people saw his glowing countenance, the Bible reports that "they were afraid to come near him." When we see in the next verse that Moses had to call to them and that then they "returned to him," we are given the impression that they may actually have run away at first.
Aaron and company did not misunderstand and think that Moses had horns. No, for they could see quite clearly that he was shining. And yet, even so, they misunderstood and responded improperly.
Think of the other kinds of people and situations that would have made those people shy away or flee. They might run from a leper. They might run from the pharaoh or some other enemy. They might run from some dangerous creature (such as the poisonous serpents that later invaded their camp). But juxtaposed with these other things that might make them turn and run, see how silly it is to react the same way to Moses: a man who was simply aglow from the presence of God.
A better reflex would have been to run to Moses, but people are different in this regard. For some, the instinct is to draw near to the mysterious and glorious. For others, the reflex is to cower and shy away. From the burning bush on, we see Moses as the kind of person who is always pursuing God, always drawing nearer. Indeed, in the chapter preceding our lection, Moses literally seeks God's face. And his epitaph in Deuteronomy, Moses is distinguished for the closeness of his relationship with God: "Never since has there arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face" (Deuteronomy 34:10). No doubt it was that sort of face-to-face contact with God that so transformed Moses' own face.
2 Corinthians 3:12--4:2
In our Old Testament reading, we were introduced to Moses' veil. Now here, over a millennium later, the apostle Paul borrows the image of that veil and uses it as a metaphor for a larger, spiritual problem.
The analogy is an imperfect one -- every analogy is -- inasmuch as the veil has changed its location. In the original story from Exodus, Moses is the one who has seen the glory, and who has come to reflect that glory. He chooses to put the veil on himself, apparently for the sake of the Israelites.
In Paul's application of the image, however, it is the Jews themselves who have the veil over their faces. It keeps them, indeed, from seeing the glory. But, this is not the fading glory of Moses' face that they are missing; it is the glory of the Lord. The present opportunity, therefore, is greater, and so the veil is more tragic.
Paul says that the glory associated with Moses was "being set aside." His point is not merely that the shine on Moses' face faded over time. Rather, he implies a broader point about law and gospel, about the old covenant and the new. That old glory was good, but incomplete. And so we have the hope now of seeing a greater glory.
Ambrosiaster, a fourth-century church father, identified the greater glory that is available for us to see, and he ties together all three of our lections in his commentary on this passage: "Paul is saying that we have a hope of seeing glory, not the kind that was on the face of Moses but the kind which the three apostles saw on the mountain when the Lord revealed himself" (Ambrosiaster, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, New Testament VII [Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1999], p. 221).
Paul's picture of the Jews is a poignant one: they "hear the reading of the old covenant, (yet) that same veil is still there." These were Paul's own people. Though he recognized that his peculiar calling was to the Gentiles, the fact is that he routinely began his missionary work in each place by teaching in the synagogue there. On a regular basis, he saw the very thing that he describes here: the people sitting there, hearing the old covenant being read, but not seeing or recognizing the glory to which it points.
Remember Paul's heart for these people. In his letter to the Romans, he reflects at length on how they have largely rejected the good news about Christ. With powerful language, he expresses his grief and his heartfelt longing on their behalf: "I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people, my kindred according to the flesh" (Romans 9:2-3).
Many preachers with all-Gentile congregations have seen the same terrible sight. I have looked out on the people in my pews and felt a great pity and frustration for some that I see. They have been sitting in church almost every Sunday of their lives; they have heard the scriptures read and preached; and yet, still, it seems there is some veil that keeps them from understanding and receiving the truth.
Paul says that "only in Christ is (the veil) set aside." When a person turns to him, "the veil is removed." Although it seems that Paul has discovered no surefire way to make that happen for anyone, he has proclaimed the opportunity in every place he has been, but he cannot lift and remove another person's veil. In that sense, it is a voluntary condition -- to whatever extent ignorance can be voluntary.
Luke 9:28-36 (37-43)
The story of Jesus' transfiguration appears in all three synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), though it does not appear in John. In all significant details, the three accounts are the same: Jesus' three human companions are Peter, James, and John; the event occurs on a mountain; Jesus' appearance is altered, becoming dazzlingly white; Moses and Elijah appeared with him, and spoke with him; Peter speaks up to suggest erecting three dwellings; a cloud overshadowed them; and a voice from the cloud spoke of Jesus as "my Son."
The several differences between the three accounts are not significant, and taken together they give us a fuller picture of the occasion. Mark adds to our understanding of Jesus' appearance that his clothes were white "such as no one on earth could bleach them" (Mark 9:3). Luke is the one who expands on the nature of the conversation between Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. Luke is also the gospel writer who notes that the disciples were sleepy. Mark reports that the disciples were terrified. Matthew concludes with the disciples falling down on their faces, filled with awe, until Jesus touched them, told them to get up and not to be afraid. Luke also observes that the disciples did not tell anyone at that time what they had seen.
We should give some attention to the particular men who were with Jesus on that mountain.
Luke reports that Jesus took just three of his disciples up this mountain with him to pray. We do not have any details in scripture to explain why these three men -- Peter, James, and John -- were apparently Jesus' inner circle, but the textual evidence clearly suggests that they were. In addition to this occasion, those are also the three disciples that Jesus separated out to go into the house with him when he raised Jairus' daughter (Luke 8:51); and it is the same three that Jesus took with him deeper into the Garden of Gethsemane on the night he was betrayed (Mark 14:32-33).
In addition to being Jesus' inner circle of disciples during his earthly ministry, Peter and John went on to become pillars of the church. James was an early martyr. John was prominent first in the Jerusalem church, and then became the patriarch of an entire community of believers -- traditionally associated with the church at Ephesus -- and the source of perhaps five of the books in the New Testament. Peter, meanwhile, was the spokesman and leader of the Jerusalem church beginning on the Day of Pentecost, and tradition traces his missionary work all the way to martyrdom in Rome.
In addition to these contemporaries of Jesus, Moses and Elijah -- great figures from the Old Testament -- also appeared on the mountain.
Moses was Israel's first leader. When the people first went to Egypt, they were just a large family. During their centuries of slavery, their only real "leadership" was their Egyptian overseers. But when they emerged from their bondage as a small nation of nomads, Moses was their leader; and he led them for an entire eventful generation.
Moses was the one who was God's instrument of deliverance from bondage in Egypt. He was the point man in negotiations with the pharaoh. He was the one who led the Israelites from Egypt to Canaan, suffered their complaints, endured their assorted rebellions and surrenders, and interceded on their behalf before God.
Perhaps most significant of all, Moses was the agent through whom God gave his law to his people. It is difficult to overstate the importance of the law to the Old Testament people of God. The placement of the Ten Commandments within the Ark of the Covenant, which in turn resided in the holy of holies, gives some indication of the central importance and theological significance of the law. And while the casual reader today might dismiss so much of the material as harsh, repetitive, or irrelevant, the undeniable fact is that the devout Jews welcomed the law as a great gift from God. (Psalm 119, the longest chapter in the Bible, offers a tremendous glimpse into how God's people, at their best, cherished God's Law.)
Finally, there was Elijah. He was the spectacular ninth-century prophet, who embodied power and boldness from God. He spoke out against a wicked king and queen; he challenged a foreign god and his clients to a showdown of divine proportions; and he exhorted his fellow Israelites to an undiluted allegiance to God.
While Elijah does not have a book named after him -- like Isaiah or Jeremiah or others -- he came to a place of special significance by the end of the Old Testament era. In the book of Malachi, his return is anticipated as an antecedent to the coming of the day of the Lord (Malachi 4:5-6), and that expectation concerning Elijah is echoed in the gospels (as in Matthew 11:14).
Application
See the portrait provided by Luke: the photograph of the big event there on the mountain. In the foreground, there are three men -- from left to right: Peter, James, and John. In the back row, high and aglow, we see two other men: Moses and Elijah. And there, in the center of the picture, is Jesus, the Christ.
See the picture snapped there on that mountain, for it is a "picture Bible" -- that is, the whole Bible contained in a single scene. There is Moses, representing the law. Next to him is Elijah, representing the prophets. Then come Peter, James, and John, representing the apostles and the church. The Old and New Testaments stand together on that mountain: the old covenant and the new, meeting, intersecting, overlapping.
And there, in the center of it all, is Jesus. He is the star of the show, the first cause, the reason for being. He is the one whose sacrifice and blood was required by the law. He is the one whose coming, suffering, and reign the prophets promised. He is the fulfillment of all that had come before. And he is the one whose gospel the apostles proclaimed.
Alternative Applications
Exodus 34:29-35. "Whatever Miss T. Eats." Walter de La Mare's familiar children's poem makes this simple observation: "It's a very odd thing / As odd as can be / That whatever Miss T. eats / Turns into Miss T" (Walter de La Mare, Peacock Pie, A Book of Rhymes [Oxford: Kessinger Publishing, 2004], p. 15).
It's a very sweet picture, and a rather innocent notion. The simple observation is that this young girl sits down at the table to eat her meals; and whatever it is that she eats -- "porridge and apples, / mince, muffins, and mutton, / jam, junket, jumbles" -- becomes part of her; and so, in a sense, it becomes her.
In point of fact, however, we know that in the long run there is another effect. It is not only true that whatever Miss T. eats turns into Miss T.; it is also true that, as the old saying goes, "you are what you eat." Lean or fat, nutritious or junky, healthy or harmful: Miss T. does not merely absorb what she eats into an unchanging self; she is affected by what she eats.
What is true of our bodies is true of our minds, hearts, and souls, as well. What we consume, what we take in, what we feed on does not merely submit to becoming part of us. It influences and changes us. And over the long haul, we become what we digest.
If one person is routinely exposed to language that is crude, while another person is exposed to more refined and articulate ways of expressing oneself, the effects on each will be quite predictable. So, too, we see in our children and teenagers the fruits of a popular culture that is relativistic in its philosophy, superficial in its emphasis, dismissive of authority, and generally oversexed. We become the inevitable products of what we are exposed to and immersed in. We are what we eat.
In our Old Testament lection, meanwhile, we are given a positive, alternative picture. It is the marvelous picture of Moses aglow. Here is a man who had been so exposed to God that he himself became radiant. As routinely as the rest of us show in the tan (or the burn) of our skin that we have been out in the sun, so Moses' skin showed that he had been in the presence of God. It is a remarkable story and a beautiful prospect.
You and I become a product of what we "eat" -- i.e., what we take in, absorb, immerse ourselves in, and expose ourselves to. We may become trite, crass, conscientious, or erudite through our exposures. And Moses has blazed for us the best trail of all: that we should be so thoroughly exposed to the presence of God that we ourselves would reflect his glory.
Exodus 34:29-35; Luke 9:28-36 (37-43). "What Happens Next?" Our Old Testament lection begins with this blunt report: "Moses came down from Mount Sinai." On the surface, it is a simple statement of fact: namely, the next thing Moses did. In the larger scheme of things, however, it is also a profound statement of truth: namely, that this is always what we are required to do.
At the top of the mountain, Moses stood in the blazing presence of God. At the foot of the mountain, there were the same old frail, blemished, unreliable people with whom he constantly had to deal.
At the top of the mountain, Jesus spoke with the now-heavenly figures of Moses and Elijah; he was radiant; and the voice of his Father spoke. But, at the foot of the mountain, he encountered again the screaming human needs, the demons, and the "faithless and perverse generation" (v. 41).
"Moses came down from Mount Sinai." Of course, he did. Jesus came down from the mountain, too. And we always do. What comes next does not need to negate the reality of what happened on the mountain. But we follow, after all, the God who became incarnate. We are always called to leave the mountaintop glory in order to meet and minister to the needs down below.
Preaching The Psalm
Psalm 99
Former Secretary of Education, Richard Reilly, once remarked that "We are the victims of the tyranny of lowered expectations." Secretary Reilly went on to say that as a people, we have flattened out our expectations into a broad and bland sense of mediocrity. We, too, often settle for below average performance or something that we deem as "good enough." Rarely, if ever, do we call for -- much less demand -- excellence. Excellence, it seems, is not an option in our world today. Indeed, go to any public school and observe the treatment received by an "A" student at the hands of his or her peers. Ridicule, shunning, and even violence await those who excel.
Perhaps it is the mentality of the lowest common denominator at work. Fearful of being surpassed or failing, the crowd will attack and bring down any among it who show signs of moving ahead. Or maybe it is a misguided sense of democracy. Frequently in community settings, the lifting up of excellence is discouraged because it might make others feel badly. Instead, everyone gets the award -- so that no one might lose. But there is a sinister truth underlying all this. And that is that when everyone is excellent, there is no excellence.
In such a repressed environment as this, how are the people to consider a thing such as holiness? If greatness and creativity are not encouraged among the people, how then can the people perceive the greatness and creativity of their God? Holiness, after all, means something that is other than, or apart from, the common. God is holy because God isn't you or me. God is holy because ... as scripture reminds us, God is ... God.
In the muddied waters of modernity, what passes for holy these days? How is it that the people experience awe? What, aside from the next acquisition, gets the attention of people these days? At the risk of walking unsupported onto a fragile limb, this writer will suggest that in our dumbed down, numbed out mass consciousness we have lost the ability to perceive excellence. Worse still, we have ceased to yearn for it.
In days gone by, much effort was given to ridiculing the blandness of socialist culture. Unimaginative architecture, state controlled art, and tightly restricted education all lent to the fall of a once grand and idealistic system. But the question comes today to each one of us. Where is excellence? Of what -- or whom -- do we stand in awe? How do we find the holiness of God, and therefore the excellence to which each person is called?
Perhaps a new beginning might be made in the reading of this psalm as we claim without reservation the utter holiness of God. Perhaps, as we pause in awe of God, we might begin the work of becoming the people of God's dreams, a people committed to wonder, to awe, to excellence in every endeavor we undertake.
If you've watched the initial kickoff at any year's Super Bowl, you've seen how the occasion is marked by thousands of flashes around the stadium, as people capture the moment. So, too, with a major press conference, a bill signing, or a summit: big events in our culture are always surrounded by cameras, whirring and clicking away.
Big events in our families work the same way. We always take lots of pictures at our personal big events: weddings, birthday parties, anniversaries, baptisms, and such. You and I have been part of that picture taking as one of the family members; and we have also been part of a lot of those pictures as the officiating minister.
For myself, I have had the privilege along the way of attending the eightieth and ninetieth birthday celebrations for several different family members and parishioners. These are festive occasions, with plenty of food, endless storytelling, and lots of kids. The better part of a century is a long time for a family tree to be able to grow, and so there are children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and even great-great-grandchildren.
One inevitable part of such an occasion, of course, is the big family portrait. All the offspring group together (usually arranged in family units) around the matriarch or patriarch who is being honored and celebrated. There, smiling and proud, we see the three, or four, or possibly five generations of a family represented in a single moment.
Perhaps you've been part of such a picture, such a group.
The Bible has a group picture like that. In this instance, we might say that Luke is the photographer: He is the one who captures the moment for us in our gospel lection. The setting is a mountain in northern Palestine. And the occasion -- the big event where the picture was taken -- is the Transfiguration of Jesus.
Exodus 34:29-35
As a matter of trivia, it may be worth noting that this is the passage that gave rise to numerous artistic depictions of Moses with horns. When the text reports that "the skin of his face shone," the Hebrew word that is used (qaran) for "shone" can mean: "to shine," "to send out rays," and "to display or grow horns." The Greek Septuagint more properly translated the tense of the original Hebrew verb and opted for a word that suggested Moses' face was glorified. The Latin Vulgate, however, used a word for "horned." And out of that came the popular convention in art to portray Moses with horns.
On the other hand, perhaps the matter is not so trivial, for it serves as a metaphor for a rather common problem. The face of Moses shone with the glory of God, and yet it has been perceived and portrayed by some as horns. The misapprehension recalls the folks who thought the disciples were drunk on Pentecost (Acts 2:12-13) and the leaders who reckoned that Jesus' miracles were Beelzebul's doing (Matthew 12:24). Misreading and misunderstanding the work of God is not a trivial matter, at all.
The reaction to Moses' radiance by his own contemporaries represents another sort of misunderstanding. When Aaron and the people saw his glowing countenance, the Bible reports that "they were afraid to come near him." When we see in the next verse that Moses had to call to them and that then they "returned to him," we are given the impression that they may actually have run away at first.
Aaron and company did not misunderstand and think that Moses had horns. No, for they could see quite clearly that he was shining. And yet, even so, they misunderstood and responded improperly.
Think of the other kinds of people and situations that would have made those people shy away or flee. They might run from a leper. They might run from the pharaoh or some other enemy. They might run from some dangerous creature (such as the poisonous serpents that later invaded their camp). But juxtaposed with these other things that might make them turn and run, see how silly it is to react the same way to Moses: a man who was simply aglow from the presence of God.
A better reflex would have been to run to Moses, but people are different in this regard. For some, the instinct is to draw near to the mysterious and glorious. For others, the reflex is to cower and shy away. From the burning bush on, we see Moses as the kind of person who is always pursuing God, always drawing nearer. Indeed, in the chapter preceding our lection, Moses literally seeks God's face. And his epitaph in Deuteronomy, Moses is distinguished for the closeness of his relationship with God: "Never since has there arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face" (Deuteronomy 34:10). No doubt it was that sort of face-to-face contact with God that so transformed Moses' own face.
2 Corinthians 3:12--4:2
In our Old Testament reading, we were introduced to Moses' veil. Now here, over a millennium later, the apostle Paul borrows the image of that veil and uses it as a metaphor for a larger, spiritual problem.
The analogy is an imperfect one -- every analogy is -- inasmuch as the veil has changed its location. In the original story from Exodus, Moses is the one who has seen the glory, and who has come to reflect that glory. He chooses to put the veil on himself, apparently for the sake of the Israelites.
In Paul's application of the image, however, it is the Jews themselves who have the veil over their faces. It keeps them, indeed, from seeing the glory. But, this is not the fading glory of Moses' face that they are missing; it is the glory of the Lord. The present opportunity, therefore, is greater, and so the veil is more tragic.
Paul says that the glory associated with Moses was "being set aside." His point is not merely that the shine on Moses' face faded over time. Rather, he implies a broader point about law and gospel, about the old covenant and the new. That old glory was good, but incomplete. And so we have the hope now of seeing a greater glory.
Ambrosiaster, a fourth-century church father, identified the greater glory that is available for us to see, and he ties together all three of our lections in his commentary on this passage: "Paul is saying that we have a hope of seeing glory, not the kind that was on the face of Moses but the kind which the three apostles saw on the mountain when the Lord revealed himself" (Ambrosiaster, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, New Testament VII [Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1999], p. 221).
Paul's picture of the Jews is a poignant one: they "hear the reading of the old covenant, (yet) that same veil is still there." These were Paul's own people. Though he recognized that his peculiar calling was to the Gentiles, the fact is that he routinely began his missionary work in each place by teaching in the synagogue there. On a regular basis, he saw the very thing that he describes here: the people sitting there, hearing the old covenant being read, but not seeing or recognizing the glory to which it points.
Remember Paul's heart for these people. In his letter to the Romans, he reflects at length on how they have largely rejected the good news about Christ. With powerful language, he expresses his grief and his heartfelt longing on their behalf: "I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people, my kindred according to the flesh" (Romans 9:2-3).
Many preachers with all-Gentile congregations have seen the same terrible sight. I have looked out on the people in my pews and felt a great pity and frustration for some that I see. They have been sitting in church almost every Sunday of their lives; they have heard the scriptures read and preached; and yet, still, it seems there is some veil that keeps them from understanding and receiving the truth.
Paul says that "only in Christ is (the veil) set aside." When a person turns to him, "the veil is removed." Although it seems that Paul has discovered no surefire way to make that happen for anyone, he has proclaimed the opportunity in every place he has been, but he cannot lift and remove another person's veil. In that sense, it is a voluntary condition -- to whatever extent ignorance can be voluntary.
Luke 9:28-36 (37-43)
The story of Jesus' transfiguration appears in all three synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), though it does not appear in John. In all significant details, the three accounts are the same: Jesus' three human companions are Peter, James, and John; the event occurs on a mountain; Jesus' appearance is altered, becoming dazzlingly white; Moses and Elijah appeared with him, and spoke with him; Peter speaks up to suggest erecting three dwellings; a cloud overshadowed them; and a voice from the cloud spoke of Jesus as "my Son."
The several differences between the three accounts are not significant, and taken together they give us a fuller picture of the occasion. Mark adds to our understanding of Jesus' appearance that his clothes were white "such as no one on earth could bleach them" (Mark 9:3). Luke is the one who expands on the nature of the conversation between Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. Luke is also the gospel writer who notes that the disciples were sleepy. Mark reports that the disciples were terrified. Matthew concludes with the disciples falling down on their faces, filled with awe, until Jesus touched them, told them to get up and not to be afraid. Luke also observes that the disciples did not tell anyone at that time what they had seen.
We should give some attention to the particular men who were with Jesus on that mountain.
Luke reports that Jesus took just three of his disciples up this mountain with him to pray. We do not have any details in scripture to explain why these three men -- Peter, James, and John -- were apparently Jesus' inner circle, but the textual evidence clearly suggests that they were. In addition to this occasion, those are also the three disciples that Jesus separated out to go into the house with him when he raised Jairus' daughter (Luke 8:51); and it is the same three that Jesus took with him deeper into the Garden of Gethsemane on the night he was betrayed (Mark 14:32-33).
In addition to being Jesus' inner circle of disciples during his earthly ministry, Peter and John went on to become pillars of the church. James was an early martyr. John was prominent first in the Jerusalem church, and then became the patriarch of an entire community of believers -- traditionally associated with the church at Ephesus -- and the source of perhaps five of the books in the New Testament. Peter, meanwhile, was the spokesman and leader of the Jerusalem church beginning on the Day of Pentecost, and tradition traces his missionary work all the way to martyrdom in Rome.
In addition to these contemporaries of Jesus, Moses and Elijah -- great figures from the Old Testament -- also appeared on the mountain.
Moses was Israel's first leader. When the people first went to Egypt, they were just a large family. During their centuries of slavery, their only real "leadership" was their Egyptian overseers. But when they emerged from their bondage as a small nation of nomads, Moses was their leader; and he led them for an entire eventful generation.
Moses was the one who was God's instrument of deliverance from bondage in Egypt. He was the point man in negotiations with the pharaoh. He was the one who led the Israelites from Egypt to Canaan, suffered their complaints, endured their assorted rebellions and surrenders, and interceded on their behalf before God.
Perhaps most significant of all, Moses was the agent through whom God gave his law to his people. It is difficult to overstate the importance of the law to the Old Testament people of God. The placement of the Ten Commandments within the Ark of the Covenant, which in turn resided in the holy of holies, gives some indication of the central importance and theological significance of the law. And while the casual reader today might dismiss so much of the material as harsh, repetitive, or irrelevant, the undeniable fact is that the devout Jews welcomed the law as a great gift from God. (Psalm 119, the longest chapter in the Bible, offers a tremendous glimpse into how God's people, at their best, cherished God's Law.)
Finally, there was Elijah. He was the spectacular ninth-century prophet, who embodied power and boldness from God. He spoke out against a wicked king and queen; he challenged a foreign god and his clients to a showdown of divine proportions; and he exhorted his fellow Israelites to an undiluted allegiance to God.
While Elijah does not have a book named after him -- like Isaiah or Jeremiah or others -- he came to a place of special significance by the end of the Old Testament era. In the book of Malachi, his return is anticipated as an antecedent to the coming of the day of the Lord (Malachi 4:5-6), and that expectation concerning Elijah is echoed in the gospels (as in Matthew 11:14).
Application
See the portrait provided by Luke: the photograph of the big event there on the mountain. In the foreground, there are three men -- from left to right: Peter, James, and John. In the back row, high and aglow, we see two other men: Moses and Elijah. And there, in the center of the picture, is Jesus, the Christ.
See the picture snapped there on that mountain, for it is a "picture Bible" -- that is, the whole Bible contained in a single scene. There is Moses, representing the law. Next to him is Elijah, representing the prophets. Then come Peter, James, and John, representing the apostles and the church. The Old and New Testaments stand together on that mountain: the old covenant and the new, meeting, intersecting, overlapping.
And there, in the center of it all, is Jesus. He is the star of the show, the first cause, the reason for being. He is the one whose sacrifice and blood was required by the law. He is the one whose coming, suffering, and reign the prophets promised. He is the fulfillment of all that had come before. And he is the one whose gospel the apostles proclaimed.
Alternative Applications
Exodus 34:29-35. "Whatever Miss T. Eats." Walter de La Mare's familiar children's poem makes this simple observation: "It's a very odd thing / As odd as can be / That whatever Miss T. eats / Turns into Miss T" (Walter de La Mare, Peacock Pie, A Book of Rhymes [Oxford: Kessinger Publishing, 2004], p. 15).
It's a very sweet picture, and a rather innocent notion. The simple observation is that this young girl sits down at the table to eat her meals; and whatever it is that she eats -- "porridge and apples, / mince, muffins, and mutton, / jam, junket, jumbles" -- becomes part of her; and so, in a sense, it becomes her.
In point of fact, however, we know that in the long run there is another effect. It is not only true that whatever Miss T. eats turns into Miss T.; it is also true that, as the old saying goes, "you are what you eat." Lean or fat, nutritious or junky, healthy or harmful: Miss T. does not merely absorb what she eats into an unchanging self; she is affected by what she eats.
What is true of our bodies is true of our minds, hearts, and souls, as well. What we consume, what we take in, what we feed on does not merely submit to becoming part of us. It influences and changes us. And over the long haul, we become what we digest.
If one person is routinely exposed to language that is crude, while another person is exposed to more refined and articulate ways of expressing oneself, the effects on each will be quite predictable. So, too, we see in our children and teenagers the fruits of a popular culture that is relativistic in its philosophy, superficial in its emphasis, dismissive of authority, and generally oversexed. We become the inevitable products of what we are exposed to and immersed in. We are what we eat.
In our Old Testament lection, meanwhile, we are given a positive, alternative picture. It is the marvelous picture of Moses aglow. Here is a man who had been so exposed to God that he himself became radiant. As routinely as the rest of us show in the tan (or the burn) of our skin that we have been out in the sun, so Moses' skin showed that he had been in the presence of God. It is a remarkable story and a beautiful prospect.
You and I become a product of what we "eat" -- i.e., what we take in, absorb, immerse ourselves in, and expose ourselves to. We may become trite, crass, conscientious, or erudite through our exposures. And Moses has blazed for us the best trail of all: that we should be so thoroughly exposed to the presence of God that we ourselves would reflect his glory.
Exodus 34:29-35; Luke 9:28-36 (37-43). "What Happens Next?" Our Old Testament lection begins with this blunt report: "Moses came down from Mount Sinai." On the surface, it is a simple statement of fact: namely, the next thing Moses did. In the larger scheme of things, however, it is also a profound statement of truth: namely, that this is always what we are required to do.
At the top of the mountain, Moses stood in the blazing presence of God. At the foot of the mountain, there were the same old frail, blemished, unreliable people with whom he constantly had to deal.
At the top of the mountain, Jesus spoke with the now-heavenly figures of Moses and Elijah; he was radiant; and the voice of his Father spoke. But, at the foot of the mountain, he encountered again the screaming human needs, the demons, and the "faithless and perverse generation" (v. 41).
"Moses came down from Mount Sinai." Of course, he did. Jesus came down from the mountain, too. And we always do. What comes next does not need to negate the reality of what happened on the mountain. But we follow, after all, the God who became incarnate. We are always called to leave the mountaintop glory in order to meet and minister to the needs down below.
Preaching The Psalm
Psalm 99
Former Secretary of Education, Richard Reilly, once remarked that "We are the victims of the tyranny of lowered expectations." Secretary Reilly went on to say that as a people, we have flattened out our expectations into a broad and bland sense of mediocrity. We, too, often settle for below average performance or something that we deem as "good enough." Rarely, if ever, do we call for -- much less demand -- excellence. Excellence, it seems, is not an option in our world today. Indeed, go to any public school and observe the treatment received by an "A" student at the hands of his or her peers. Ridicule, shunning, and even violence await those who excel.
Perhaps it is the mentality of the lowest common denominator at work. Fearful of being surpassed or failing, the crowd will attack and bring down any among it who show signs of moving ahead. Or maybe it is a misguided sense of democracy. Frequently in community settings, the lifting up of excellence is discouraged because it might make others feel badly. Instead, everyone gets the award -- so that no one might lose. But there is a sinister truth underlying all this. And that is that when everyone is excellent, there is no excellence.
In such a repressed environment as this, how are the people to consider a thing such as holiness? If greatness and creativity are not encouraged among the people, how then can the people perceive the greatness and creativity of their God? Holiness, after all, means something that is other than, or apart from, the common. God is holy because God isn't you or me. God is holy because ... as scripture reminds us, God is ... God.
In the muddied waters of modernity, what passes for holy these days? How is it that the people experience awe? What, aside from the next acquisition, gets the attention of people these days? At the risk of walking unsupported onto a fragile limb, this writer will suggest that in our dumbed down, numbed out mass consciousness we have lost the ability to perceive excellence. Worse still, we have ceased to yearn for it.
In days gone by, much effort was given to ridiculing the blandness of socialist culture. Unimaginative architecture, state controlled art, and tightly restricted education all lent to the fall of a once grand and idealistic system. But the question comes today to each one of us. Where is excellence? Of what -- or whom -- do we stand in awe? How do we find the holiness of God, and therefore the excellence to which each person is called?
Perhaps a new beginning might be made in the reading of this psalm as we claim without reservation the utter holiness of God. Perhaps, as we pause in awe of God, we might begin the work of becoming the people of God's dreams, a people committed to wonder, to awe, to excellence in every endeavor we undertake.
