SERMON

Face Time

Luke 9:28-36

Pastor Robyn Hogue February 7, 2016 Skyline Presbyterian Church

How many are the faces that surround us—the toothy grin of the political candidate who wants our vote; the porcelain perfection of the fashion model, beautiful yet cold; the wide-eyed surprise of a small child; resigned expression of the disaster victim, eyes heavy with despair; the calm countenance of offered wisdom.

We are surrounded by these faces and a thousand others. We encounter them in shopping malls. They pop up through television screens, laptops, home computer monitors, and smart phones. We meet them round the family table. We see faces both alien to us, and intimately known.

It is through our faces that we recognize each other. Some are masks, others are invitations. But even when makeup’s artfully applied, even when sincerity is faked, our faces tell the truth. They reveal who we are to those with eyes to see.

Your face reveals what you look at, what you honor, what you desire. This becomes increasingly true with the passage of time. It’s said that for our first fifty years, we wear the face that nature gave us, but from then on our face is our responsibility; it is the sum total of our choices, our defeats, our victories, and what it is we love.

Spend your time with pornography, and your face will show it. Look on another race with hatred, and your face will show it. Fail to recognize that everything is holy, and your face will show it.

But see the beauty that surrounds you, even on ordinary days, and your face will show it. Recognize that God’s children come in different colors and that each of them can enrich your life, and your face will show it. Fulfill your desire for intimacy in sound and sacred ways, and your face will show it.

Yes, to those with eyes to see, our faces reveal who we are. They reveal what we look at, what we honor, what we desire. Thus our faces also declare the way we will behave, how we will put into effect what is written in our faces.

A gift is given to three disciples who climb with Jesus to the mountain top: they become able to recognize Him for who He is. His clothing, His body, His face radiate the light of God and the surrounding rocks and sky shimmer with unearthly color. These disciples gaze upon His glory. In His face they see the One to whom He looks, the One He Honors, the one He loves. The light flowing from Him comes from the Father. It is in His prayer that Jesus gazes on the Father. It is because His existence is unbroken relationship that the divine light surrounding Him can become visible even to sleepy disciples.

They see in His face not only that He comes from the Father’s infinite depths, but they also see the place where He is going. His face is set toward Jerusalem. There at Jerusalem, by giving up His blood and breath, by emptying out His life, He will free forever the children of God, you and me among them. There the light shining from His face will illuminate the midnight of human sin. His light will fall upon both the dead and the living, that they may waken from sin’s stupor and enter endless day.

All this is shown to three awestruck disciples up on the mountain as they gaze on His glory.

Every day we see around us a world of human faces. On the last Sunday before Lent we see the face of Jesus brilliant with eternal light. But we have faces, too. And like the faces we see every day, and like the transfigured face of Jesus, our faces reveal what we honor, what we do, who we are.

And does your face reveal? Does something keep the light of divine love from shining there? It could be a burden of guilt you have yet to drop. It could be a refusal to respect yourself. It could be a grudge that lingers. What keeps you from having a redeemed face? Lent is not a time to look grim and terrible, but to give up that terrible and grim look we already have. It is a time when our faces can be redeemed. We need to look at Jesus. We need to reflect His light.

Can you imagine Lent as face time? Do you want to behold the face of Jesus? Do you want to reflect His light? The season of Lent can be a time to do this.

Jesus said: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 22:37-40) The true face of God is the face of love. The words people most need to hear, face-to-face, are God’s words: “You are loved.”

Once on the mountain top, we do not linger. We soon turn back, to that world of human faces. There we offer to those around us the hope and testimony that reach beyond words that only a redeemed face can provide.

Is your face a reflection of Jesus’ face? These days before Lent can be ‘face time’ where we spiritually climb the Mount of Transfiguration and look on the face of Jesus so that our own faces can reflect His redeeming love.