Preached at Croydon Minster on the Sunday before Lent. Readings: Exodus 34.29-end; Psalm 99; 2 Corinthians 3.12-4.2; Luke 9.28-36
My
heart hath talked of thee, Seek ye my face : Thy face, Lord, will I seek.
O
hide not thou thy face from me : nor cast thy servant away in displeasure.
(Psalm 27.9-10)
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The human face tells
many a story.
The face of the baby
speaks of openness, wonder and delight.
The face of the older
person, with wrinkles and lines, tells the story of times of trial, of highs
and lows, of experience.
In recent days we
have seen faces that testify to deep suffering and pain. Those are the faces of
the people of Ukraine. They’re faces we recognise from Syria, Afghanistan and
countless places around the world.
And on the other side
we see in the face of Vladimir Putin calculated rage, grievance and an abusive
sense of power that unleashes violence in the selfish pursuit of gain.
The countenance of
the human face can tell us many things.
Something we have learnt
from the pandemic is that a covered face impedes those subtle ways of
communication, when we see that the words we are hearing don’t quite tally with
the look on the face of the other. We
say we can read someone’s face.
So we talk about
someone having a poker face: a face that disconnects internal feelings –
excitement, nervousness and such like - from what everyone sees in their face.
The most beautiful
person is the one whose external countenance reflects the inner life. It’s
transparency of life. In other words, when you see their face you see their
soul. That is beauty.
And that takes us to
this morning’s readings and in particular the gospel account of the
Transfiguration of Jesus, which are captured in the verse of Psalm 27 that I
quoted a few moments ago:
My heart hath talked of thee,
Seek ye my face : Thy face, Lord, will I seek.
O hide not thou thy face from me
: nor cast thy servant away in displeasure. (Psalm 27.9-10)
The Christian life is
about seeking the face of Christ, and having the face of Christ, so that what
is seen in our face is who we are, without dissembling or cloaking. For in
seeing the face of Christ, we see the face of the Living God.
Of course, we are
often fearful of ‘showing our faces’. We mistake physical appearance for true
beauty and attractiveness.
Truly showing our
faces is about our spiritual beauty and that is what our readings are pointing
us to.
In Exodus Moses
encounters God in the holy place. The holiness of God so fills Moses’ life that
his face shines. As it said,
whenever Moses went in before the
Lord to speak with him, he would take the veil off, until he came out; and when
he came out, and told the Israelites what he had been commanded, the Israelites
would see the face of Moses, that the skin of his face was shining; and Moses
would put the veil on his face again, until he went in to speak with him. Exodus 34.34-35
Moses’ encounters
with God so filled him with God’s presence, that his face quite literally
shone. It begs a question. In church, in personal prayer, in serving your
neighbour – does your face shine? Does your face shine from a deep encounter
with the Living God, or is there actually no encounter, and therefore no
shining face? Does your face shine after receiving Christ in Holy Communion: do
you allow your face to shine with his presence in your life?
St Paul writing to
the Corinthians, as we heard in our second reading, develops the theme of the
veiling of faces, suggesting that to be veiled is to distort our chance of
seeing God face to face. The veil does not just stop others seeing us, but us
seeing others, and more particularly the face of the Lord. The reading ended
before the climax that comes a few verses later, where St Paul writes, beautifully:
For it is the God who said, ‘Let
light shine out of darkness’, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of
the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (2 Cor 4.6)
And that’s the point!
We seek the face of Christ. Jesus Christ is the fulfilment of humanity and his
face reveals who he is.
We see this most
clearly in his Transfiguration, this wondrous revelation of his divinity
shining through his face, and actually infusing his whole body.
The face of Christ is
utterly authentic as human and divine: True God and True Man. Who he is shines forth
from his face, and this is revealed on that Holy Mountain: ‘This is my Son, my
Chosen; listen to him’ (Luke 9.35)
The Transfiguration
is represented in the East Window of this Minster Church, centrally below the
crucifixion. The mystery of Christianity is that in the face of the Crucified
One we see the glory and beauty of God who empties himself of his love poured
upon us that we might have the capacity to live his life and ourselves shine
out with the divine presence.
This is Christian
spirituality at its deepest. And that is seeking the face of the Lord and
seeing his face incarnate, crucified and risen, and seeing him and recognising
him in the breaking of bread.
This is where we seek
and find the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
My heart hath talked
of thee, Seek ye my face : Thy face, Lord, will I seek.
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