This morning, we are gathering around a strange story from Exodus 34, Paul’s interpretation of that story in 2 Corinthians, and our final question of faith in our sermon series. At the beginning of June, when Jeff and I read through all of the questions you submitted in preparation for this series, I paused on this question. I paused because the question was so simple, but also so profound. I also paused because the question was submitted by a very young person. As I read the question written in the brand new penmanship of this young theologian, my heart was filled to overflowing. 

We embarked on this sermon series for several reasons. First, Session set several goals for the next couple of years, and one of them was to invite your questions of faith and to explore those questions in some kind of meaningful way. Second, so many of you are regularly engaged in the habit of studying Scripture, asking questions, and seeking God’s guidance. We wanted to lift up that practice and share in it as a whole congregation. And finally, we wanted to embark on this sermon series because we believe questions are an essential part of faith. We wanted to encourage an environment where questions are embraced, rather than discouraged. I love and am so moved by the fact that the children in this place are invited and encouraged to ask questions right alongside the adults. This is how it should be. 

Jesus told his disciples–and us–that if we want to enter the kingdom, we have to become like little children. And, if you’ve spent much time around little children, you quickly observed that they love to ask questions. Everything is new to them, and so they ask about it. They don’t begin their lives afraid to ask. They only become afraid to ask if their questions are dismissed or made fun of. 

This week’s question of faith is this: Will we see Jesus? 

Isn’t that a beautiful and deep question? 

Will we see Jesus?

On one hand, this question is very literal. In Sunday School class, we learn about Jesus. In Bible studies and small groups, we read stories about Jesus’s miracles, and we imagine ourselves in the shoes of the disciples and the other people who listened to Jesus teach. We may wonder from time to time if we would have reacted the same way the disciples did. Would we have denied Jesus right along with Peter? Would we have had the faith of the woman who anointed Jesus’s feet with her tears? Would we have recognized Jesus for who he was if he had stood right in front of us?

We look at the brokenness in the world, and we wonder if we will get to see Jesus face to face. We wonder if we will get to see him make all things new again while we are still alive, or if we will have to wait until we go to be with him after death. When we ask “Will we see Jesus?” we are asking a very real, very literal question of if we will ever get to see Jesus with our own two eyes.

In the Gospel of John, when Thomas gets to see Jesus after the resurrection and have his doubts washed away, Jesus says,  “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” And that’s us: the ones who have not seen, and yet are here because there’s something about the story of Jesus we can’t help but believe. Wouldn’t it be so much better to be able to believe and see?

Our Scripture passage from Exodus 34 comes from a pivotal moment in the history of the people of Israel. They escaped from slavery in Egypt and crossed through the waters of the Red Sea on dry ground. They struggled in places with no water, and they quarreled with Moses. Eventually, they make it to the wilderness of Sinai, and Moses goes up on the mountain to receive the law. While he is on the mountain, the people become restless and they ask Aaron to make them a new god to worship. Aaron collects all of the people’s golden jewelry, makes them a golden calf, and when Moses discovers this, he is so angry that he breaks the tablets of the law he had received from God. 

The rebellion of the people of Israel at the foot of the mountain reminds me a lot of the rebellion of the first people–Adam and Eve. They walked closely with God. They enjoyed the protection and provision of God. They had seen God’s amazing deeds, and yet, they deliberately chose to rebel. Adam and Eve put the words of the serpent above God’s words, and the people of Israel at the foot of Mt. Sinai desperately wanted to worship what they could see, rather than one they could not see. Despite God’s care for them, the people broke their relationship with God. 

But, God doesn’t leave it there. After the people worship the golden calf, Moses goes back up on the mountain and into the presence of God. He receives the law again, only this time, when he comes back down the mountain, his face is glowing from having been in God’s presence. The people see Moses’s face, and they are terrified. I love the way biblical scholar Alphonetta Wines puts it. She writes this:

“When Moses’s face shines at the end of this story (Exodus 34:29-35), it is an affirmation of the renewal of the covenant. The shiny face is an indicator of Moses’s relationship to God, of his openness and vulnerability before God and before the community. It is a sign that Moses trusts God and that Israel, in turn, can trust God and Moses as their leader. Rav Alex Israel observes, ‘the people need only to look at Moses and realize that he had experienced the ultimate communion with God in receiving the second covenant.’” The people do not see God directly, but they see the change in Moses, and they can see the glory of God reflected in Moses’s face.

Have you ever seen Jesus in someone else’s face? Maybe that person was there for you in a difficult time, and you experienced the peace of God through their presence and care. Or maybe there has been a person in your life who, when you are with them, makes you aware of the love of Christ. For just a moment, let’s think about people who have shown Jesus to us, whether it is someone who is still with us, or someone who has since passed on.

I remember vividly the smell of blueberry pancakes just as the sun was rising when my family would spend time at our mountain cabin. I would wake up and go down the ladder steps into the kitchen, and my grandma was finishing cooking the pancakes over the wood burning stove. She woke up long before everyone to pump water, make breakfast, and heat up the kitchen before we got out of bed. The way she took care of everyone always made me think about Jesus.

I also think about my freshman year of college. I had a bout of severe bronchitis that lasted for months. I was terrible at taking care of myself and wouldn’t rest, and my body couldn’t heal as a result. When I was finally so worn down that I couldn’t just keep pushing through, I would sleep so much that I would miss meals in the campus dining hall. A friend of mine was concerned, and she started using her “take one item with you” allotment as a way to make sure I ate. She wrapped bagels in napkins and left notes on my desk. I relied on her every day for my daily bread–literally. I wrote about her in my book The Sacred Pulse, and when she read the story she said, “You know I never thought you needed me. I just wanted to help.” She had absolutely no idea that her love was an embodiment of the love of God for me.

Will we see Jesus? 

Yes. We will see him when we experience his glory, whether we are still living when that day comes, or we have gone to be with him. But, in the meantime, I believe we see him every day when the people of God live with faithfulness.

A quote attributed to sixteenth century St. Theresa of Avila says it this way:

“Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,

Yours are the eyes with which he looks

Compassion on this world,

Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,

Yours are the hands with which he blesses all the world.

Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,

Yours are the eyes, you are his body.

Christ has no body now on earth but yours.”

In this time between Jesus’ first coming and his return, we are the only Christ many people will ever experience. I love the way the apostle Paul says it in our passage from 2 Corinthians 3. He references the Exodus story of Moses with the shining face, and he writes this: “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.” 

In the book Leading Faithful Innovation, the authors share a simple model for listening to the community around us and responding with faithfulness. They argue that the church has become too focused on making programs good enough to try to attract people to come inside the church building rather than on caring about our neighbors and our community. I felt my breath catch when I read this quote: “Underneath shrinking budgets, burned-out leaders, and ambivalence about mission lies a deeper theological crisis. Many churches can’t identify where their hope comes from.”

Ouch, right? But, rather than hear this quote and despair, I believe we’re being invited to consider once again why we are here and why we do what we do. Unlike the first disciples, we do not have the benefit of seeing Jesus right in front of us in the flesh. We can get busy, bogged down, and just plain short-sighted and forget who we are following. 

Will we see Jesus? Yes, I believe we can and we will. We will see Jesus in the faces and actions of Jesus followers around us, and we will see Jesus when we quiet ourselves down for a moment and take time to reconnect with God. 

Every time the people of God step out in faith and take action–even in the smallest of ways–we see Jesus. The more of us there are that engage in this work, the fuller the picture of Jesus we will see. Until one day, we have been fully transformed from one degree of glory into another, in the presence of Jesus who loves us and will never let us go. Amen.