SUNDAY OF THE TRANSFIGURATION OF JESUS
FIRST LESSON
Exodus 34: 29-35
The transfiguration of Moses’s face is the antitype of the Transfiguration of the person of Jesus in Matthew 17. Matthew tells us that in that miraculous event, Jesus’s face shone. To me, it is puzzling idea, for it seems to attribute some sort of physicality to God the Father, his glory being a mist-like substance transferable to all-too-human Moses. Paul dis not much like the idea of the veil. And in our second reading today we find out why.
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SECOND LESSON
2 Corinthians 3: 12- 4:2
Paul explained the veil Moses put on as his attempt to hide from the people the fact the glory in that shining soon faded. He feared that they would get the idea that the glory of God was temporary. Then Paul turns the veil into an image of how the Jews receive the word of God imperfectly. But for Paul’s people, the Spirit removes the veil and allows them to “see” Good as if though a reflection in a mirror.
© Arthur H. Cash