I pulled out my phone just before the start of worship this past Sunday to check the time, as they are synced up with towers and satellites. So it was to my surprise that after worship I noticed a large, ominous black spot on the display where just an hour before I has seen the time and a picture of my two boys. At some point in worship the display on my phone broke.
I'll get it replaced, paying the small deductible, and will soon be communicating with many of you and others from around the world on it. But the irony is stark: The face got dark during worship. That is not biblical!
Quite the opposite, in fact. There is this amazing and even challenging story from the book of Exodus where Moses would go up the mountain to stand in the cloud that covered God's very presence and receive the Law and Commandments. But when Moses would return from being in the presence of God, all of the people were afraid, for Moses face shone brightly from having been so close to God (read the whole story in Exodus 34).
I believe the same still happens today. I also believe it happens in worship in our sanctuary. When a person stands before the congregation to profess their faith in God, or to share their story of God's power, we are changed. Our lives are made brighter. Listen to Paul's interpretation from that story of Moses and how Easter has changed who and how we now access God:
All of us! Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of his face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him.
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