How Do I See God?
Sermon for the Transfiguration of our Lord, year B
Bible reading: Mark 9:2-9
The Victorian bushfires challenge us all to ask the question: ‘how do I see God?’
‘Is God the God of judgment and punishment?’
Or, ‘Is God the God of love & compassion?’
What does it mean when we read in today’s Psalm: Our God comes and does not keep silence, before him is a devouring fire, and a mighty tempest around him. He calls to the heavens above and to the earth that he may judge his people?
Is that how we see God? As one who comes to judge his people, even to condemn his people?
Or do we see God as the one who so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him should not perish but may have eternal life.
Indeed: God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
Now you might say that I’m setting up a false dichotomy, for both passages are in Scripture and both are therefore true. That is true. God judges, and God saves. But the question is, which side of this truth do we see as the essence of God’s being? Which side of this truth are we going to be guided by and influenced by? Which is the light shining from God, and which is the shadow it casts? How do I see God? As love and compassion above all? Or as judgment and punishment above all?
I ask these questions because a Victorian Pastor and self styled prophet has announced that the fires in Victoria were the result of God removing his protection from Victoria for approving the slaughter of innocent children in the womb.
In other words, these fires which killed over 200 people and destroyed over 2000 houses and much more property and livestock, are the judgment of God on Victoria for its sins relating to abortion.
Is this how you see God? Is this how you see God in the face of Jesus Christ?
Is this the face of God you see in Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration?
There we see Jesus meeting with the two great figures of the Old Testament, Moses and Elijah, the law and the prophets.
The law was given through Moses,
we’re told. The Law that shows the way for all people to live. But the law that also shows us our sins… the law that accuses us for falling short of God’s glory… the law which is all too often used as a stick to condemn and punish others who fail to match up… the law which often imprisons better people in pride, and worse people in guilt… the law which curses and condemns to death those who don’t keep it. The law which Moses brings us is God’s law, but it is not our friend, for it condemns us.
There on the Mountain with Jesus we see Elijah, the greatest of the prophets, who spent the whole of his ministry fighting with wicked king Ahab and queen Jezebel and the prophets of Baal, with the climax of it all being the overwhelming defeat of these 850 heathen prophets on Mt Carmel, and Elijah personally slaughtering them all.
Here stand these great men of the Old Testament, talking to Jesus on the Mountain, in full view of Peter, James and John, who are absolutely terrified as Jesus is transfigured before them, and in their confusion and fear wish to build a memorial to perpetuate this awesome event as a place of worship and remembrance forever.
Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud came a voice:
This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him.Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.
Moses and Elijah are great and amazing, and God did great things through them, but they fall so far short of presenting a true picture of God.
For it is not law that is at the heart of God but love, in the Old Testament and the New. It is not by slaughtering his enemies that God shows his true nature, but by loving them, and even allowing himself to be the Lamb of God, who is slaughtered by his enemies.
Truly Jesus is transfigured on the Mountain. He shows God to be far different from the God we see in Moses and Elijah, far more loving, far more forgiving, far more compassionate. All the time God is the same, but not until Jesus is revealed do we see how God shows his love to us, and how God forgives our sins, and how God becomes involved in the sin and pain and suffering of life, to rescue us from it. Not until Jesus, do we see that the true nature of God is the light of love, of which the law is only shadow.
Not until Jesus, do we see that the true nature of God is to draw all people to himself, of which condemnation is only the shadow. Not until Jesus suffers and dies on the cross, do we see that the true nature of God is to suffer with us and for us, of which his judgment on our rebellion is only the shadow.
And it is not on the Mount of Transfiguration that the disciples grasp who God is, but it is on the cross that the eyes of the foreign, centurion are opened to see, and his lips to confess of this dying man: Truly this man was God’s Son.
In other words:
- you will never see the true God on Carmel, defeating and slaughtering his enemies;
- you will never see the true God on Sinai, laying down the law;
The only place you and I will see the true God is in Jesus, suffering and dying on the cross at the hands of his enemies and us; loving & forgiving us all for what we do to him.
We have no other God than the one who loves us so much to die on the cross for us. We have no other God than the one who comes amongst us as Immanuel, and enters into all our pains, and the sufferings of the whole human race that he made in his image and loves, and wants to draw back to himself.
We know no God who sends fires to punish people for particular sins; neither do we know a God who punishes people with blindness, or by the hands of cruel dictators, or by the collapse of towers on innocent victims. To suggest that God is such a capricious, punishing God in Bible times or in our times, shows how far we still are from recognizing the true God who comes to us in Jesus Christ. But to fail to recognize that all these cruel events are calls to repentance, calls to come home to a loving God, is also to fail to recognize the true God who comes to rescue us all in Jesus Christ.
So how do I see God? I see him on the Mount of transfiguration far transcending all the work and understanding of the great figures of the Old Testament. I see him on the cross totally entering into all the suffering of my sin and dying for it, and swallowing it up in Easter victory. I see him suffering with the grief stricken people of Victoria, and of every time and place, bringing comfort and hope. I see the true God when anyone tells the good news of the cross, or offers the body and blood of the Christ, who gave his life for us all on the cross. And when I see the true God in Christ I love him and worship him. Amen.