000 Allen FMT (i-xxii) - The Presbyterian Leader

228 Last Sunday after the Epiphany/Year C
God is “slow to anger”; that is, does not have a low flash-point. Yet God
“by no means” clears “the guilty,” but rather visits the sins “of the parents
upon the children . . .” (v. 7). God’s great forgiveness does not overlook
sin and its destructive consequences. It is a fact, for example, that the sins
of abusive parents are sadly visited upon the children and the children’s
children. But God’s fundamental disposition caresses these children in
God’s motherly love and seeks always to bring good out of evil.
Then, after a not quite literal repetition of the “ten words” in verses
11–18, today’s passage begins. When Moses talked with God “his face
shone” (v. 29), as the appearance of Jesus’ face “changed, and his clothes
became dazzling white” (Luke 9:29) when he went up the mountain to pray
and appeared with Moses and Elijah (Luke 9:30). “All the Israelites saw”
that Moses’ face was shining, just as Peter and his companions “saw his
[Jesus’] glory and [that of] the two men who stood with him” (Luke 9: 32).
What are we to understand from the statement that Moses’ face shone
when he spoke with God and that “whenever” Moses spoke with God
(v. 34) or for God to Israel (v. 34), “the skin of his face was shining” (v. 35)?
And what are we to understand from Luke that Jesus’ face reflected the
glory of God? There is an immediate connection between the Hebrew
term for “shine” and the word “horn,” suggesting that Moses is the genuine
leader of Israel instead of the bull that the Israelites had demanded
of Aaron.
Terence Fretheim has suggested that the shining of Moses’ face indicates
that Moses not only speaks for God but that “in some sense he
embodies” the word of God, bodies it forth. 66 Moses is as inseparable from
torah, the call and claim of YHWH, as Jesus is inseparable from the Gospel.
Each embodies the word that God gives and calls him to proclaim. When
they interact with Moses, the Israelites have to do with God, and when we
Christians commune with Jesus, we are laid bare before the One who creates
and redeems the world. Jesus does not replace Moses; he represents
Moses, as both represent God. And as they were transformed by God’s
presence, so we may be transformed into newness of life by God’s grace
and justice.
When we “hear” the word of God, which we may do in study or prayer
or listening to authentic preaching and teaching, we are not merely to give
intellectual assent to truth or trust in and rely upon God’s steadfast love
and compassion. We are called to embody that word, body it forth, in how
we present our living bodies: “present your bodies as a living sacrifice . . .
which is your spiritual worship” (Rom. 12:1; emphasis ours). How we
throw ourselves into the world embodiedly is our true worship.