The New Deliverer

Two weeks ago, we saw Moses ascend a mountain to receive the laws.

This week, we see an aftermath: after seeing God face to face, the prophet’s face shines in reflection of His glory. He shines so brightly that the Israelites are afraid, and so he wears a veil in their presence.

We saw Christ ascend a mountain with his disciples, and from there preach to a multitude God’s message. And now this week we see him once again ascending a mountain, this time only with a select three, far away from the crowds where his disciples witness a transformation. Like Moses, he shines brightly like the sun, and He speaks to Moses. The voice of God is heard speaking to the disciples, who cower in fear.

Once again, Matthew highlights the manner in which Christ’s ministry echoed that of Moses, and once again, in doing so, he shows us the way in which the new Moses is greater than the old.

This week’s sermon is entitled “The New Deliverer,” and that might seem an odd choice because there’s no real discussion of deliverance in these passages. Indeed, we might ask if the title of “deliverer” truly belongs to Moses. After all, wasn’t he simply the messenger of the true deliverer, God?

That tension is worth highlighting. The Exodus narrative makes it clear that it was God who delivered His people from exile, yet it was Moses’ pleading to Pharaoh and following God’s instructions that were the medium through which God carried out that deliverance. Just as it was God who wrote the laws which Moses took to Israel, yet we can call Moses the lawgiver, so too can we speak of Moses in a limited sense as a deliverer.

In today’s readings, we see that tension highlighted in two different yet similar transformations.

Two Mountains, Two Deliverers

Moses: The Reflected Glory

Picture the scene, if you can. The Israelites stand at the foot of the mountain, waiting for their leader Moses to return from meeting with the almighty. There’s likely some level of apprehension here: the previous time Moses ascended the mountain, the people had lost their hope and trust and had turned to false gods. They created a golden calf to worship.

And Moses responded by shattering the tablets containing the commandments - a clear symbolic statement that God’s people had shattered their covenant with Him as soon as it had begun, violating His commandments even before receiving them.

It was only through Moses’ intervention and pleading to God on their behalf that they had been saved from the destruction they rightly deserved.

And now as he comes down the mountain holding the new tablets of the covenant, on which are written those same previously-shattered laws, they see that his face shines brightly like the sun, reflecting the glory of their God.

And they’re afraid to come near.

Now the text doesn’t tell us exactly why they were so afraid to approach Moses, but perhaps it was in recognition of their own unworthyness: whilst Moses had the privilege to approach God and speak to him face to face, the rest of the Israelites were warned on pain of death to stay away. And now they’re being given a sampling of that glory so powerful that to see it in full would mean their end,

It’s a reminder of their failure to be faithful to their God.

It’s a reminder of the power of the one who freed them from Egypt, who led them through the dessert, and who now forms a new covenant with them and lays out a new code of laws - a power that they had been so quick to foget.

And it’s also a reminder and a proof that Moses was God’s chosen representative.

Moses, who told Pharoah to let his people go.

Moses, who called down the plagues on Egypt.

Moses, who relayed the instructions which instituted the passover.

Moses, who parted the red sea for the Israelites to pass and closed it again to drown Pharoah’s army.

Moses, who Aaron himself had stood beside on whose behalf he had conveyed God’s instructions to Pharoah.

And now Aaron is faced with this stark reminder of who the God he replaced with a golden calf is.

Now Aaron and the rest of the Israelite leaders are reminded of exactly whose word Moses communicates to them.

And they’re afraid, because they recognise just how unworthy they are to be in the presence of even a reflection of that glory.

Now here’s something interesting: Moses calls to them - perhaps he says, “don’t be afraid. Come close and hear what the Lord has to say.” And he gives them the instructions from God and then look he puts on a veil. And he wears that veil until he goes back to speak to God, and after delivering God’s message he puts it back on.

Which is interesting precisely because it doesn’t seem to be that he’s simply hiding God’s glory from them - after all he allows them to see his skin shining brightly as he relays those instructions.

Perhaps it’s a show of humility - perhaps he’s reminding them that when he speaks other than those words directly from God, he does so as a regular human man.

Or perhaps it’s something else. The apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 3:13 speaks of

2 Corinthians 3:13 NRSV

Moses, who put a veil over his face to keep the people of Israel from gazing at the end of the glory that was being set aside.

To Paul it seems that the veil was there to prevent the Israelites seeing God’s glory fade. Perhaps becaused in their weakness they might be tempted to turn back to their disobedient ways, reasoning that as the glory reflected in Moses fades so too God’s power is maybe just not that great after all.

Perhaps becoming tempted once again to create an idol and bestow upon it credit for their deliverance.

But perhaps a key point here is that the glory ended:

It was transient.

Between Moses’s meetings with God, the light faded as He spent time away from the Lord’s presence.

His glory was a temporary, reflected light.

What a contrast we see when we consider the transfiguration of Christ.

Christ: The Inherent Glory

Ascending the mountain with a chosen three disciples, Christ is "transfigured before them" - and I'd like to draw attention to this word, transfigured. The Greek word here is Metamorphou, which means something like "to change form in keeping with the inner reality."

Let that sink in.

"To change form in keeping with the inner reality."

Matthew was telling us that Christ was changed so that the disciples saw him in a manner which reflected who he truly is: The man who is God.

Which Peter at least clearly recognises, as his response to this and to seeing the sudden appearance of Moses and Elijah is to suggest setting up three “dwellings” - that is to say, three shrines for them to remain in just as God’s presence was once found to be located in the tabernacle and later in the temple.

What a contrast to the Israelites of old, who responded to the presence of glory with fear.

They key contrast however is not in the reactions but in that word there, metamorphou. Christ’s transformation was a display of his inner being.

Whereas Moses merely displayed a temporary reflection of the glory that came from God, Christ displayed the actual eternal glory that was His.

The presence of Moses and Elijah to witness Christ in His glory is significant:

Moses, the bringer of the law to the people

Elijah, the great prophet stood against God’s enemies in the time of King Ahab.

Perhaps the Apostles find thesmelves thinking back to Christ’s words as he preached on another mountain: “I have not come to abolish the laws and the prophets, but to fulfill them”, as they see before them figureheads of the laws and the prophets.

Perhaps the thought occurs to them: we are told that Moses asked to see God in his glory, but because that glory was so great that to see God’s face would be fatal he was allowed only to view it from behind as he stood in a cleft in the rock. We are told that when Elijah realised that God was outside the cave in which he hid on Mount Horeb, he covered his face with his mantle before stepping out to meet him.

And perhaps they observe that now both men are now at last seeing the face of God before them, with no barrier.

A symbolic statement that something has drastically changed: that now with the coming of God’s kingdom the barriers which prevent His people from coming directly before Him are beginning to collapse.

And that as those barriers begin to collapse, the law and the prophets stand witness to the Lord in His glory.

Yet the apostles don’t turn their faces away in fear - perhaps they’re reassured by the presence of Moses and Elijah - or at least not until the voice of God speaks to them.

Now that worries them.

Perhaps because they finally realise the gravity of what they’re witnessing.

Because when Peter suggested building three little shrines, he seemed to suggest putting them on equal footing. Viewing them as three great men reflecting the glory of the Lord.

But then they find themselves rebuked and corrected, faced with the truth when they hear the words:

“This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!”

The Deliverance We Need

“Listen to him!”

A simple command, and yet one which is central to the Christian life, to the gospel of salvation, and to the Kingdom of Heaven.

And a command which the Apostles undoubtedly understood the exact significance of, in a manner which we might easily miss today.

Let’s recall the narrative of the Exodus.

The Israelite people were slaves in Egypt, made to engage in hard labour by a king who feared their becoming powerful enough to overthrow him.

And not only did he enslave them he attempted genocide against them, ordering their male children killed at birth.

In the midst of their despair and in the face of the apparent end of their people, God sends Moses.

Moses, joined by Aaron, approaches Pharoah and makes that famous demand: "Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Let my people go!”

Pharoah refuses, and so through Moses God brings plagues upon the Egyptians, culminating in the deaths of the firstborn in every household

Except the households of the Israelites, who are delivered from that fate.

Pharoah allows the Israelites to leave, but changes his mind and sends his army to destroy them.

And Moses, following the Lord’s command, parts the seas to let them pass and closes them again behind, delivering God’s people from Pharoah’s army.

God leads them through the desert, appearing by day in a pillar of smoke and by night in a pillar of fire, delivering them to mount Sinai.

And when they get there and they see the presence of the Lord on the mountain they say to Moses: “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, or we will die.”

“You speak to us, and we will listen.”

And like that, they position Moses as the intermediary between them and God: the one they will listen to, in order to hear what they must do.

But later Moses says to them, "The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen."

A prophet like me - that is, like Moses - one who will directly speak the words of God to the people. And we know that this is no ordinary prophet, for we are also told that after Moses no other man spoke to God face-to-face.

And now when the apostles hear “listen to him”, spoken in the voice of God, they understand: this is the one to whom Moses said we shall listen.

The messiah has finally arrived.

And soon it will become clear that just as Moses delivered them from slavery, this man

Jesus Christ the Son of God

is also here to deliver his people.

But whilst Moses offered an external, physical deliverance from a physical and temporal state of slavery to men, Christ brings to his people an internal, spiritual deliverance from slavery to sin.

Through his coming death and resurrection he would deliver his people from the ultimate death that is the wages of our seperation from God.

He would deliver us from that seperation, giving us a path to our creator and allowing us to enter his presence without fear.

He would deliver us from lives of selfishness and rebellion to ones enabled to do his will

If only we listen to him, hear what that will is, and carry it out.

If only we listen to him, and understand and accept the good news of the gospel.

If only we listen to him, and repent for the kingdom of God is at hand.

If only we listen to him, and follow him.

A people transformed

So where does this leave us today?

Let’s return to that word, metamorphou. Remember that it means an outward transformation reflecting an inward reality?

Well there are four places in total that metamorphou appears in scripture. Two of them are in the gospel accounts of the transfiguration. But let’s look at the other two:

Romans 12:1–2 NRSV

I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Again: Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God.

Transformed by the renewing of the mind so that our outward behaviours and actions reflect the inward reality of our walk with Christ. And that renewal begins when we listen to him.

And as we listen to him we discern what is good and acceptable and perfect, and as we do those things others see our lives transformed to reflect that we do what we know is God’s will.

2 Corinthians 3:17–18 NRSV

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.

This time Paul offers not an admonishment but a statement of fact: we are being transformed to outwardly reflect the inner reality that through the Spirit we reflect the glory of the Lord just as Moses did - but unlike Moses, we have faces unveiled because that glory does not fade. God will not take His spirit from us, and He is working his sanctifying grace upon us, conforming us more and more every day to be like him.

And that transformation begins with listening to Christ.

And that transformation is possible because Christ is our great deliver, who through his death and resurrection has delivered us from sin and now delivers us from one stage of glory to the next along the path of sanctification.

And so the challenge to us today is simple: Listen to Him.

Listen to what he tells us in the scriptures, and listen to the message that He sends us through the spirit, showing us what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Accept that deliverance and live lives pleasing to him.

And continue,e very day, to listen to him.