Sermon Delivered at Church of the Good Shepherd
Fort Lee, New Jersey,
Sunday, February 27, 2022, at 8:00 & 10:00 a.m.
By The Rev. Stephen Galleher
“Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had
been talking with God.” (Exodus 34:29-35)
“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” (2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2)
“The appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling
white” (Luke 9:28-36)
This Epiphany season we have been tracing the wonder and
miracle of light, without which none of us would be here this
morning, a light that shone at the beginning of creation (if creation
had a beginning), the light that announced the birth of one who
personified light, a new light that was coming into the world. Light
announces light. And we saw how light plays a role in our everyday
lives when we speak, say, of “seeing the light” or of “having light
shine upon a situation.” First ignorance and darkness; then suddenly
or gradually, brightness and understanding.
And Epiphany has traced the birth and ministry of Jesus from
his Baptism, when God announced that Jesus was the one with whom
God was well pleased. The nearest example that comes to mind was
when Ed McMahon announced night after night, “Here’s Johnny!” to
awaken us to the one who was about to appear. And from this solemn
dedication by God of the ministry of Jesus at his baptism, we are led
to today’s story of Jesus’s clothes and face turning a dazzling white.
Whether this story happened literally as written, who can be certain?
Similarly, Moses’ face shone because he had been in the presence of
God. Moses’ face was so bright in fact that it startled the
congregation upon his return, and he had to veil it to keep the crowd
from panicking.
It’s about light, and it’s always about the light. The light that
illumines and the light that dazzles. We know that flood lights can be
so intense that we can barely see what it shines upon. Similarly, to
look at an intense light can be painful, no matter how hard we
struggle to see the object more clearly.
So, the transfiguration of Jesus was the explosion, so to speak,
of the true meaning of who this man was. Jesus was a humble
carpenter all right; he walked among us with no great credentials or
pretense. He spoke, it seems quite quietly, in parables and modest
aphorisms. And yet the gospel writers report something more—a
depth in the man, a portal opening through which we see something
we have never quite seen before. We are looking, so to speak, into the
face of God itself.
You know when you look through a peephole in a door to see
who has rung your doorbell. You don’t see much, right? Once the
door is flung open, you see the entire person and what surrounds him
or her. Our point of view has changed. It can be quite startling at first,
but if it is someone we have longed to see, our eyes widen, the smile
erupts on our face, and we welcome our friend with open arms. This
is what the disciples saw, I believe, on that mountain that day. That is
transfiguration.
You know how children, when confronted for the first time with
something new, how their mouth drops open, their eyes pop, and they
stare and then perhaps laugh. This is transfiguration. They are seeing
the world for the first time with delight, and they are changed by it.
So, I ask you this morning to consider those times in your life
when you have been transfigured. Perhaps it is someone who said
something to you, did something for you, who themselves were
transfiguring agents. Notice how I am putting this question. I am
asking how you have been transfigured. For Jesus’s transfiguration
wasn’t so much about what Jesus did or became, but more about how
the disciples understood so dramatically just who Jesus was. In a
sense, the transfiguration was about the disciples. Remember how
they were so moved that they wanted to construct a chapel to
memorialize the event. Jesus rightly understood that transfiguration
wasn’t about bliss and grand cathedrals, but a life lived humbly in
love. This was what transfiguration was: a lesson in love.
So, I ask you to please consider those moments of
transfiguration in your own lives, for such moments can be life-
transforming. Somebody may have said something that changed your
life forever for the better. It may have been a word of encouragement
or consolation. It may have been a challenge—something that you
initially were uncomfortable to hear. And perhaps the strongest
evidence that these events (for I hope there has been more than one)
is not so much what was said or what happened as how the words or
event made you feel. Didn’t you feel better about yourself? That you
mattered, really mattered, and that you were loved.
And the reason we use such a special word for these
events—the word “transfiguration”—is that these are portals through
which we see into God itself. And this change in us, this light that has
fallen on us, turns us into a transfiguring person. Transfiguration is
the receiving of light and our emission of this same light.
Now, you know I’m not just talking abstractly! Haven’t we
known people so full of joy, so full of the grace and fullness of God
what we feel special just being around them? And this something that
they have becomes part of who we are. Light is transmitted like that.
Love is contagious like that. These people don’t have to be
particularly “religious” as we commonly understand that word. They
may be a nurse’s aide we met in the hospital. They may be a clerk
who made a lasting impact on us during a recent transaction. They
may be a grandmother reading to us as a child. Or the laughter shared
at a recent lunch between you and an old friend.
Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote, “The world is charged with the
grandeur of God, and it will flame out, like shining from shook foil.”
The image I have is the shaking of aluminum foil with light flickering
off it in numerous directions, like the sound of a windchime or the
sudden eruption of a cathedral choir.
I truly believe that the message of the gospel is that we, too,
manifest this grandeur. We can be transfiguring agents as we let our
light flame out like shining from shook foil.
Ray Stevens can tell us,
Everything is beautiful in its own way
Like a starry summer night or a snow- covered winter’s day
Everybody’s beautiful in their own way
Under God’s heaven, the world’s gonna find a way
Amen.