by Ruth Everhart
Old Testament Reading: Exodus 34:29-35
For Sunday, Februray 10, 2013—Transfiguration of Our Lord
Shining faces. Who doesn’t love a shining face? We picture a child beaming as she displays a crayoned masterpiece. Or lovers reuniting at an airport, their faces aglow. Or those commercials for anti-aging skincare products that feature a 28 year old.
Oil. Love. Happiness. A good sweat. A hot shower. A loofah. Great sex. Fine wine. No wonder there’s such a market for skincare products! Shining skin isn’t just an idea, it’s a physical reality that shouts to the world: “I am healthy and happy!”
. . . and Holy?
The text leaves no question about the cause of Moses’ shining countenance. Moses gazed upon the face of God and his face shone. But does he reflect God’s glory as the moon reflects the sun, or does the divine light burn within him? The text doesn’t definitively say.
Moses himself didn’t seem to know that his skin was shining, or why, which is an interesting detail. “Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God.”
A Fearsome Glow
What the text emphasizes is that the light of Moses’ face was fearsome. “When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, the skin of his face was shining, and they were afraid to come near him.”
The scriptural “fear of the Lord” is evident here in shining skin, so shining it creates the need for physical distance. Whatever measure of glory Moses possessed, it was too much for the eyes of his people and he had to veil his face. Was he guarding their eyesight the way we protect our eyes from a solar eclipse? Or is the story a metaphor? Was Moses guarding their eyes because their souls couldn’t bear exposure to the brightness of the divine?
Tales of Veils
It might be the fact that I attended schools run by the Christian Reformed Church— where every subject was tinged with Calvinism— but I can’t read this passage without remembering a story by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Minister’s Black Veil.
Hawthorne’s tale features a Puritan clergyman, Rev. Hooper, who appears one Sunday morning wearing a black veil over his face. His congregation is uneasy, unsure what the veil means. Has he committed some gross sin, or is he asking them each to examine their own souls? Rev. Hooper’s veil becomes a permanent fixture, and disturbed by it, his fiancée breaks up with him. Eventually he dies and is buried wearing the veil. The reader is left to wonder what the Reverend looked like beneath the veil. Was his face seamed and seamy? Scarred by sin?
Rev. Hooper is the opposite of Moses. Hooper veiled his face to obscure his sin; Moses veiled his face to obscure God’s glory.
The Hardest Question
If we’re honest with ourselves, are we more like Rev. Hooper or Moses? The New Testament is all about walls breaking down, curtains torn asunder, lamps brought out from beneath the bushel; but does that mean the end of all veils? Can obscurity ever serve God’s glory?
Ruth Everhart is the author of Chasing the Divine in the Holy Land , which traces her pilgrimage through Israel and Palestine. The book explores faith questions stirred by that land’s dust and danger. Also its pomegranates, wine, and cable-cars. She is on staff at Western Presbyterian Church in urban Washington, DC, the home of Miriam’s Kitchen. She tweets and blogs at Work in Progress.
