Faces Aglow

Exodus 34:  http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=ex%2034&version=NIV1984

            First, a thing I can’t explain.  In Exodus 33:11, the Lord spoke to Moses face to face; in Exodus 33:20-23, Moses can’t see the Lord’s face and live so that Lord shows him His back.  In Exodus 34, Moses glows because He has been in the Lord’s presence.

            One of my professors suggested no man, sinful as we are, can stand in God’s unmediated presence.  However, in Moses’ case (and a few other cases), my professor suggested that the Lord ‘dialed it back,’ so that Moses saw a portion of God’s glory.  It’s as good an explanation as any, and it fits will with Isaiah 6, where the prophet worries that he will die for seeing God, but an angel announces his forgives and therefore his ability to stand in God’s presence.  Whatever we make of it, the one point that is unmistakable is that Moses spent time in the presence of God and everyone in the camp knew it.

            Now, let me suggest that as Christians, we ought to reflect in this direction:  we, too, are blessed to be the people who stand in God’s presence and see His glory.  The preface for Epiphany (the part of the liturgy right before the consecration of the elements in the Lord’s Supper) gets at this.  It notes that in Jesus the Lord has revealed His glory in human flesh, and the connection with the Real Presence of Jesus’ Body and Blood in the supper means that in bread and wine we see the glory of God.

            I don’t know how often we think of that.  Moses had his tent in which He met the Lord.  That same Lord walked and talked among His people in the person of Jesus.  And that same Lord inserts Himself into our lives in the Supper.  In all three cases, humans are blessed to have God in their midst.

            So, my first reflection on this little story:  how blessed we are to have a God who continues to dwell in our midst and show His glory—the glory of His saving grace—to us.

            My second reflection is more an exhortation:  wouldn’t it be nice if our faces ‘glowed’ after we had seen the Lord?  Sometimes with the Lord’s Supper it’s is just mechanical ritual; we’re going through the motions.  But it’s meant to be more than that.  It’s our encounter with the living God; it’s our union with Him.  In bread and wine, Jesus lives in us.  The Supper communicates forgiveness to us, but it also communicates Christ’s new life to us.  That new life ought to be like the ‘glow’ on Moses’ face; we ought to come out of our encounter with our God radiating—radiating the joy of being forgiven, the joy of granting forgiveness, the joy of being loved, and the joy of loving.  Would that we had to cover our faces because the reflection of God was so bright on them!