Take Off The Veil
In the life of the church, we are a week away from Lent beginning and, traditionally, the sunday service prior to Lent’s beginning revisits the familiar story of Jesus’ transfiguration on the mount. He, with a few of his disciples, underwent a powerful mystical transformation, and was joined by the mythic figures of Moses and Elijah. It stupefied the disciples and must have been terrifying. The brilliance of Jesus, transifgured and shining, was meant to recall the story of Moses whose encounter with God caused his skin to shine, too.
God is powerful, and a real witnessing of God’s power is terrifying. We might see it in the force of hurricanes or the brilliance of the sun. In the Old Testament, Moses was one who came into real contact with God but in order to survive such an ordeal, he had to veil his eyes and only indirectly behold the visage of God, lest he die. In Exodus 33, God tells Moses, “‘But,’ [God] said, ‘you cannot see my face, for no one shall see me and live.’”
The encounter Moses had with God caused his skin to literally shine, terrifying the Isrealites. The intensity of God’s presence required God to be hinted at. When God passed Moses, Moses had to hide his face until God passed by and then Moses could only see his back.
An encounter with God transforms. Paul’s encounter with the risen Christ struck him blind for three days. When he writes to the Corinthian churchs, he refers to this familar story of Moses veiling his face, but says something surprising to them! “Since, then, we have such a hope, we act with complete frankness, 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 was being set aside.”
Moses’ veil was an important way to mediate God’s presence to humanity. But we believe as Christians that Jesus is our new mediator. No veil is required. For in Jesus God became human to live among us. The disciples of Jesus wore no veils. And so Paul encourages the Corinthian church to hope with “frankness.” No veils required!
I dont know, friends. I think it can be tempting to put a veil on. To not be too frank, too weird, to not make a spectacle of our faith. We might not want to seem deranged, or perhaps we are even embarassed to claim a Christian identity because of the ways much of Christianity has been coopted as a force of oppression, white supremacy, and nationalism!
But if I am hearing Paul say anything here it is that we need to take the veil off. We need to openly proclaim who we are, a people of justice and righteousness, a people of redemption and mercy, a people for whom Love is a guiding light.
A veil is comforting, it hides us when we don’t want to be seen, it allows us to be less concerned with who might bear witness to us. To take off the veil means that our whole life is on display—it means that whenever someone witnesses how we live, they are witnessing a Christ follower, and that can be an intimidating and exhausting standard to live into.
But I also think it’s important to notice another thing Paul wrote to the Church in Corinth, “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.”
Taking off the veil is how we get closer to who God made us to be. Taking off the veil is an act of freedom! It leads to transformation, which is the goal of salvation: to be transformed into the perfectly loving children of God we were made to be.
What is keeping you from taking off the veil? What is keeping our church from taking off the veil? What might be possible if we had the courage to unveil ourselves and proclaim the completely frank hope we have in Jesus Christ?
