Un-glory to glory
Preached on 14th February 2010 at St Alban’s Anglican Church, Strasbourg, France
Preacher: Sarah Hinlicky Wilson.  Readings: Exodus 34:29-35; 2 Corinthians 3:12 to 4:2; Luke 9:28-43a

Today we hear about the high point of Jesus’ life and ministry. Literally, the “high point” - he is up on the mountain. And if you are interested in a Messiah who is all about glory, the Transfiguration certainly is the high point of his career.

This is God as we’d like to see Him, if He really wants to take the trouble of putting on human flesh. This God is beautiful. This God is glorious. Jesus’ face is altered and shines with light from the inside - all the light of his divinity, his love, his majesty. He is so glorious that even his clothes are transformed, dazzling white, an outfit for a king. And he is so glorious that servants wait on him - servants who are none other than the great prophets of Israel’s past, Moses who led the people out of Egypt, and Elijah who defeated Baal and raised the dead! They also are glorious in Jesus’ presence.  Together they talk about the great deed that Jesus is about to accomplish - though somehow the exact details of the deed don’t seem so important right now.

The dazzled disciples see nothing but the shining light and the glory. This is what they’ve been looking for all these years: the bright and beautiful king to lead them out of misery, into majesty.

Peter has the great idea of setting up court right there. A throne for Jesus, footstools for Moses and Elijah, the disciples could be knighted and monitor who enters the court for an audience with the king…Until… the heavenly Father interrupts Peter’s lovely dream with words that sound innocent and innocuous enough. “This is My Son, My chosen one. Listen to him!”

Of course we will listen to him, Lord. What else have we been doing all along? Why else would we be here?

But the Father’s words mean more than Peter is prepared to admit. Listen to him, the Lord says to Peter and James and John, not to the whispers in your mind that have Jesus’ future all planned out. Listen to My Son when he says - whoever would be first among you must become the servant of all. Listen to My Son when he says - if you would be my disciple, take up your cross and follow me. Listen to My Son when he says - the Son of Man must be handed over, and crucified, and die, and on the third day he will rise again.

Poor Peter. He always takes the blame for doing to the wrong thing, whether suggesting the booths for the three glorious wonder-workers or trying to stop Jesus from going to the cross or denying Jesus at the critical moment. How could he help it, after all?

How could any of us help it if we really saw, with our own eyes, the glory of the Lord? I imagine once you’ve had a taste of it everything else seems dull by comparison.

The psalms sing joyfully of the glory of the Lord. The book of Revelation forecasts the end times when the glory of the Lord will fill the new heaven and the new earth. Our Lord is glorious, and beautiful, and majestic. The problem is not the glory. The problem is that we usually want only the glory. But that is not God’s way.

God never chooses to go from glory to glory, an uninterrupted chain of ever more magnificent moments. The glory of the Lord includes moments that, to us, weak and mortal and fearful as we are, look very inglorious.

For example: The Lord’s glory has included the un-glory of being betrayed by His first two human creations, yet still preserving them and promising them a way out of the evil they’d landed themselves in.

The Lord’s glory has included the un-glory of singling out a band of slaves to be His own chosen people, even though they whined, complained, made false idols, and ignored His commandments.

The Lord’s glory has included the un-glory of risking humiliation in front of other nations and their false gods by allowing His own people to be defeated in war, knowing that this was the only way they’d listen to His prophets and turn back to Him in faith once more.

The Lord’s glory has included the un-glory of becoming a tiny helpless infant, born in a barn, to a poor and insignificant couple.

The Lord’s glory has included the un-glory of healing and blessing the sick, the smelly, the impure in body and mind alike, the sinners, the outsiders.

The Lord’s glory has included the un-glory of being lifted up high, not only on the mountain of transfiguration, but also on the cross of death, and dying, and being buried.

God is all-powerful. God could have chosen the way of glory after glory after glory, without risk, without insult, without damage. But such glory would be glory without love, glory without generosity.

However it may have been, this is how it is - our Lord, the God of Israel, only gives Himself glory that comes through the danger of love.

With love there is risk - there is the possibility of rejection, betrayal, neglect, manipulation, abuse. The people that God has loved have done all these things to Him and more - just as they have done to each other.

In a way we could hardly blame God for simply wiping all of us out; sometimes in our outrage at the cruelty of this world, we secretly wish He would do just that. It would certainly prove His power and put Him back on top! But for what?

For lonely glory? For light that shines with nothing to reflect it back and no one to see it? This is not the glory desired by the Lord of love.

In fact - God’s love is so great that He doesn’t want the glory only for Himself. It’s not enough for God to be glorious on Mt. Sinai, glorious on the mountain of Transfiguration, glorious on the day of resurrection, glorious when He comes again on the last day. Part and parcel of God’s love for us is His desire to pour out His glory on us.

The transfiguration of Jesus that we celebrate today does not end with Jesus. It happens so that we may be transfigured too. That is what St. Paul wishes to tell us in the 2 Corinthians lesson. Apart from Jesus, apart from his death and resurrection for us, we cannot see God. It’s like there’s a veil covering our faces, obscuring the vision of God’s glory and love. But when the veil is taken away, through our faith in Christ, something remarkable happens to us. Not only do we see the glory of the Lord ourselves - but the glory of the Lord starts to transform us. We become once again the images of God that we were always supposed to be, just as it says in the creation story of Genesis, that human beings were made “in the image and likeness of God” before sin came and put a veil over our faces. Seeing God, and becoming images of God, we start to share in God’s glory. St. Paul tells us that this happens when we see “the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”

And what is the gospel of the glory of Christ? It is not grasping after power and majesty and glory for their own sakes. That is not how our Lord does things. God only goes to glory through un-glory, and the gospel of God is His inglorious passage through human birth and life, hunger and sleepiness, suffering and death, before coming to the glory of resurrection and everlasting life.

This is the glorious light in a world that otherwise seems so hopeless, so overwhelmed by violence, greed, and dishonesty. It is not by escaping these things but by passing through them that we come to share in God’s glory.

Even God did not escape them but also passed through them. What were God’s first words but “Let there be light”? The same God Who said these words to a dark and chaotic nothingness says them now in us, in our hearts. Let there be light in this dark and fearful heart! Let this heart be filled with the knowledge of Jesus Christ! Let this heart be overcome with the love of the God who went to the cross on His way to glory! Let this heart take up its own cross! Let the this heart be ruled by Christ’s love! Let this heart start to shine from the inside out, just like Jesus did on the mountain of transfiguration! Let this heart be transfigured! Let this heart be a light in the darkness!

Sisters and brothers in Christ, this is truly a glorious thing. God has been transfigured so that we might be transfigured too. God has chosen the very people that were His enemies by their sin to become His allies, His messengers, His lights in the world.

This is not something that happens by our own power. This is nothing less than the power of God at work in us. It is not easy, it is not fast, and it is not painless. It wasn’t any of those things for Jesus, either. And we ourselves struggle with the conflict between our old natures and our new natures. The old nature that is selfish, fearful, and impatient battles against the new nature that is loving, brave, and generous.

St. Paul warns us of this conflict too. Do not lose heart! he says. Our outer nature is wasting away. And that hurts. But our new nature is being renewed every single day. Sometimes the pain and struggle of this conflict feel absolutely overwhelming to us. But St. Paul assures us, that in God’s grand scheme, even the worst of our struggles is nothing more than a “slight momentary affliction.” And the struggle prepares us for, again in Paul’s words, “an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.” This is how it is with the Lord our God.

It is not glory to glory.

It is glory through un-glory.

What God asks of us, God has already done Himself, first for us, and now in us. That is the glorious light of the gospel shining in the darkness. Amen.


Sarah Hinlicky Wilson is Assistant Research Professor at the Institute for Ecumenical Research in Strasbourg, France, which is an affiliate of the Lutheran World Federation.  She is also an ordained pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).