The Reality of Christ

Transfiguration Sunday

Feburary 18, 2007

Luke 9: 28-36 [37-43]

What is real? How do we know what is real? Physical things are real to us because we see them and touch them. Thanks to Sir Francis Bacon the physical world is more to us than the invisible world. To the ancients the invisible world was real. Light is real because of the light we preceive the physical world.

There is something more real--even more real than light--and that something is the Glory of God. Once you have seen the Glory of God the the average everyday level is dissappointing and shabby. The Glory of God is inexplainably, astoundingly joyous and real. The disciple reaction to seeing the Glory of God is not a possitive one. They are terrified and they tried to make meaning of what they were seeing. We like, like they, want to deterimine for ourselves what is important to understand. We do this a lot in religion. We tell God that we will make you into our religion we will build you shrines (tents/dwellings) for God. The Glory of God as seen in the Transfiguration is so real that that it does not need our meanings, our shrine, nor our worship.

Peter wants the "good old time religion" and make it up themselves. Peter, James and John confronted a reality so clear and large that it enveloped them. They could not make it up, they could not confine it and give it meaning. God inclosed them into His Glory and then gave them a message. This is my Son, the Chosen, listen to him. Listen or hear in the Greek means "Obey!" Jesus is the reality that is beyond the Law and the Prophets.

Paul says in 2 Corinthians that the law is fine but it does not reveal the Glory of God.

Since, then, we have such a hope, we act with great boldness, not like Moses, who put a veil over his face to keep the people of Israel from gazing at the end of the glory that of what as being set aside. But their minds were hardened. Indeed, to this very day, when they hear the reading of the old covenant, that same veil is still there, since only in Christ is it set aside. Indeed, to this very day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their minds; 16 -->but when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. 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.

If we are a Gospel based church, even if we dare to say it, it will be not because we say it is so, but because it comes from God. The veil is lifted and the Truth is revealed.

The stuff we humans do to make meaning of the Truth is religion. It is not a religion that determines Truth from falseness, because of what we Christians do has the question of truth and falseness. The standard of Truth is the Glory of God shining through Jesus Christ. It deeply impacts us in ways that makes us tell stories.

My friend and fellow missionary who is a pastor in Chicago was driving in the dark in the third world. His daughter, about the age 9, was sleeping next to him when suddenly he heard a voice say "Stop!" He answered what? Again the voice said, "Stop!" not in a angry or loud voice, just clear and authoritative. He stopped the car only to discover that the bridge he was about to drive over was gone. Don't think this story is made up. Call him and he will tell you. He will also tell you that it wasn't for his sake that God told him to stop but for his daughter's.

This is a reality that is more real than the physical world that we can see and touch. Paul says in Romans that Faith comes from hearing. We hear the Truth of God's Glory through Jesus Christ.