Gospel for February 23, 2020

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Matthew 17:1-9
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

The Transfiguration of Jesus occurs at a strategic moment in the life and ministry of Jesus.  In the Gospel of Matthew, this account is placed almost squarely between the beginning and the end — at the half-way mark.

In the previous passages, Jesus has initiated his ministry — he has been baptized, he has endured temptation in the wilderness, he has laid out some of his teaching in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 3-7). He has engaged in a ministry of healing and exorcism, calmed the storm on the Sea of Galilee, chosen the 12 as his disciples and sent them out in ministry, continued to teach, and fed the five thousand. And he has incurred the hostility of the priests and the Pharisees (Matthew 8-16).  He has been busy.

In the passage immediately preceding the account of the Transfiguration, Jesus has asked a significant question of his disciples:

Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am? (Matthew 16:13)

Peter is the one who has the spiritual breakthrough:

You are the Christ, the Son of the living God (Matthew 16:15).

Six days after this moment of epiphany, Jesus leads his three closest disciples to the top of the mountain.

What occurs next exceeds anything that Peter, James and John had experienced with Jesus prior to this event — and they had already experienced some remarkable things.

He was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his garments became as white as the light. Behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them talking with him.

The word transfigured is interesting.  The Greek word is metamorphein —  it is used to describe the change that takes place in the believer who is being transformed into the same mind and image as Christ (Romans 12:2; 2 Corinthians 3:18).

But in this situation, the transformation is unique.  Jesus’ countenance and clothing shine like the sun.  This is truly another Theophany, not unlike that which occurs with Moses in Exodus 24:12-28.  The difference here, however, is that Jesus himself  is revealed as the focus of the transformation.  This will become clear as events unfold.

Moses and Elijah appear and are talking with him.  These two men represent the apex of revelation to Israel.  Moses represents deliverance from slavery, and the law; Elijah represents the ethical imperative of social and religious  justice, and the prophets.

Peter is caught up in the moment.  He wishes to erect three tents, for each of these special men.  This no doubt alludes to the Tent of Meeting that Moses was instructed by God to create after he had led his people to Sinai (Exodus 26).  The tent was to be the place where Yahweh would meet with his people, and where sacrifices were to be made.  The Tent of Meeting was the predecessor of the Temple as a place of worship.

We are also reminded of the Feast of Tabernacles, which was one of the major festivals of the Israelites (Leviticus 23:42-43).  The Feast of the Tabernacles was a living reminder of their liberation from Egypt, and how their ancestors had lived in tents while they were nomads in the wilderness of Sinai.

But Peter’s enthusiasm is soon overwhelmed by subsequent events:

While he was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them.

We have seen the bright cloud in Exodus 24:15-18.  We are reminded that the pillar of cloud and fire was a sign of the presence of God’s glory.  Here, this glory is fulfilled in Jesus.  The Father declares the nature of Jesus:

Behold, a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Listen to him.”

Jesus is not a mere lawgiver or prophet — he is the beloved Son.  These are the same words the Father had uttered when Jesus was baptized (Matthew 3:17).  He is affirming a unique relationship, that John’s Gospel will explore even more deeply:

The Word became flesh, and lived among us. We saw his glory, such glory as of the one and only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:14).

The disciples are overwhelmed by this experience:

When the disciples heard it, they fell on their faces, and were very afraid.

But Jesus, who has been revealed as the very Son of God, reaches in a very touching, human moment:

 Jesus came and touched them and said, “Get up, and don’t be afraid.”

The moment of epiphany has passed — Moses, Elijah, the cloud, the Voice — all are gone:

Lifting up their eyes, they saw no one, except Jesus alone.

However, this experience that Jesus has shared with these three friends isn’t for public disclosure — at least not yet:

As they were coming down from the mountain, Jesus commanded them, saying, “Don’t tell anyone what you saw, until the Son of Man has risen from the dead.”

This is for them to ponder in their own hearts — and likely to fortify Jesus for the coming tribulation in his life.

APPLY:  

It is nearly impossible for us to fully understand all that was happening in this account; nor to understand the various perspectives of Jesus and his disciples.

Jesus, as both Son of God and Son of Man, has a unique perspective.  On the one hand, as a human being, we may suspect that he knows something of fear.  He is aware that a cross awaits him in Jerusalem.  Perhaps the Transfiguration experience is given in order to provide assurance from his Father that he is not alone.

On the other hand, as Son of God, we catch a brief glimpse of his divine nature — the metamorphosis that the disciples see reveals him as God in the flesh — for a moment.  And then he is seen alone.

This too is significant.  It is Jesus alone who reveals to us who God truly is.  As he tells Philip in the Gospel of John:

He who has seen me has seen the Father (John 14:9).

However, because we are mere mortals, we may be able to identify a little more completely with the experience of Peter, James and John.  Although even this numinous experience far exceeds anything we can imagine.

Perhaps we can identify most closely with Peter, whose impulsive nature leads him to want to do something, anything, to honor this moment:

Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you want, let’s make three tents here: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.

We so want to do , to build, to act!

But the Father tells us the most important thing we can do in just such a moment with his beloved Son:

Listen to him.

RESPOND: 

The Transfiguration is not the key event of the Gospels.  In fact, Jesus himself told the disciples to tell no one what they had seen and heard until after his death and resurrection.  Jesus knew that is what he was moving toward.  That would be the climax of his life and ministry.

However, the Transfiguration tells me that the nature of Jesus concealed will be revealed.

Coming at the end of the season of Epiphany, and at the beginning of the season of Lent, this is a comfort.  Lent, with its fasts and repentance and remorse for sin, would be difficult without a reminder of the glory of Christ — and a forecast of the resurrection that is to come.

Lord, open my eyes that I may see your true nature, and that I may listen to you, and talk less. Amen. 

PHOTO:
“Transfiguration” by scottgunn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic license.

Epistle for February 23, 2020

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
2 Peter 1:16-21
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

On its face, this epistle is written by the Apostle Peter.  It is immediately clear from our lectionary passage that the writer is describing the Transfiguration of Jesus from the perspective of an eyewitness.

However, modern Biblical scholarship has called Peter’s authorship into question.  For the orthodox Christian of any denomination, this is a problem.  For example, when modern scholars speculate concerning the authorship of the book of Isaiah,  suggesting that there may have been at least three Isaiahs is one thing.  But it is another thing to question  2 Peter, which claims to have been written by the apostle himself.

This is not the place for a lengthy discussion of Biblical interpretation and theory.  I will simply state my own inclination by quoting the position of  The Orthodox Study Bible (Copyright 2008 by St. Athanasius Academy of Orthodox Theology) on 2 Peter:

While the Orthodox Church is clear on the canonicity of 2 Peter, some modern scholars consider the letter to be pseudonymous, that is, written by someone else based on what Peter taught.  However, internal evidence supports Peter’s authorship.

In my opinion,  the obviously autobiographical references in 2 Peter mean one of three things:

• The letter was written by Peter himself.
• The letter was perhaps edited by an anonymous author based on Peter’s sermons and writings.
• Or, the letter is a fraud written in his name by another hand.

Obviously, I don’t think that the last option is creditable.  The first or second option are the only two possible from my perspective.

Here is the reason for my longer than usual introduction to this epistle reading for the week.  Peter makes it clear that the truth is extremely important:

For we did not follow cunningly devised fables, when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.

In other words, Peter is refuting any notion that Christians follow a mere myth.  Like the Apostle John, he asserts that he too was an eyewitness.  When the Apostle John describes the crucifixion of Jesus, he declares:

He who has seen has testified, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, that you may believe (John 19:35).

John also declares in his first epistle:

That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we saw, and our hands touched, concerning the Word of life (1 John 1:1).

In Peter’s case, he is obviously describing the Transfiguration of Jesus, recorded in the three Synoptic Gospels (Matthew 17:5; Mark 9:7; Luke 9:35).

He describes the voice from the Majestic Glory — perhaps the cloud that enshrouded Jesus, Peter, James and John on the mountain — and the exact words of the Father quoted in the Gospels:

 This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

Peter makes his identity very clear as a first-person witness, speaking for himself and the other two disciples:

 We heard this voice come out of heaven when we were with him on the holy mountain.

Peter also addresses the subject of God’s revelation in Scripture.  He speaks of the:

more sure word of prophecy; and you do well that you heed it, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns, and the morning star arises in your hearts

Note his metaphor — the word of prophecy, revealed in Scripture, is like a lamp that shines in the darkness.  This is the same imagery used to describe the law in Psalm 119:

Your word is a lamp to my feet, and a light for my path (Psalm 119:105).

The purpose of the Scripture, as with a lamp, is to illuminate the path that leads to inner illumination.  The morning star is likely a familiar metaphor for Christ that may have been prevalent in the early church.  In The Book of the Revelation, Jesus declares:

I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify these things to you for the assemblies. I am the root and the offspring of David; the Bright and Morning Star (Revelation 22:16).

Peter also includes guidelines concerning the method of reading Scripture.  He reminds his readers that the Scriptures are the church’s book:

no prophecy of Scripture is of private interpretation.

And he also dips into the inspiration of the Scriptures:

For no prophecy ever came by the will of man: but holy men of God spoke, being moved by the Holy Spirit.

He acknowledges that human beings are the means of God’s communication, but the impetus of the revelation comes from the Spirit of God.

APPLY:  

The subject of Peter’s reflections relate to the unique experience of the Transfiguration of Jesus.  But on another level, he is really addressing the subject of God’s self revelation to human beings.

Peter  can speak with authority about his own experience with Jesus — he was there! The very definition of apostolic authority is that he was an eyewitness.  This provides the credibility not only for Peter’s epistle, but also for the entire New Testament.  Either these Gospels, letters, sermons, and other writings were written by eyewitnesses, or were written by people who had access to eyewitnesses.

However, Peter also refers to a source of revelation about the things of God that is available to all believers — Scripture.

He says several things that are extremely helpful to us about the nature of Scripture:

• The Scripture, like a lamp shining in a dark place, points the way beyond itself to the True Light that enlightens everyone one — Christ himself. This is a confirmation of the principle that the Old Testament points the way to Christ.
• No prophecy of Scripture is of private interpretation. Those of us who are part of the Protestant branch of the Christian family cherish the Reformation notion that with a Bible in his hands even a plough boy would know the Scriptures better than a priest (cf. William Tyndale).  However, Peter is cautioning against  subjectivism in our interpretation.  The Bible is uniquely the church’s book.  Extreme individualism in interpretation may well lead us astray.  We must remember that the Bible endured a long  “vetting” process within the community of faith, and was vindicated as the authoritative Word of God.  The Bible is best read and understood within the long history of the church, and within the corporate life of the living church today.
• And we have an early theory of Scriptural inspiration to help us understand how to think about the Bible:

For no prophecy ever came by the will of man: but holy men of God spoke, being moved by the Holy Spirit.

The Scriptures, then, are not cunningly devised fables, invented by clever human beings.  Rather, the Holy Spirit inspired the writers and what they wrote reflects God’s own thoughts.  This doesn’t mean that these holy men were mere microphones.  They were clearly people of their own time and culture, and spoke in the idiom of their day.  But the timeliness of their words was inspired by God and became timeless.

What this means is that, although we may not be able to climb the mountain with Peter and James and John, through the Scriptures we can identify with their experience; and by faith we too can participate in the story as well!

RESPOND: 

In my own Christian tradition, there is a method for understanding the sources and standards of Christian doctrine called the Quadrilateral — Scripture, tradition, reason and experience.

• Scripture is the revealed Word of God, and it is the primary source for our understanding of who God is, what God has done, what God will do. The Bible tells us all that is necessary and sufficient for salvation.
• Tradition is the historic and ongoing experience of the church, stretching back to the beginning of the church with the disciples and Pentecost. This includes the early church councils of the first 500 years of the church, as well as the writings and experiences of Christians through the ages that have become a resource for faith.  I personally find it comforting that when I read a particularly difficult passage of Scripture, I am not the first to think about it.  Many minds much smarter than mine have wrestled with these texts before me.  This confirms the doctrine — no prophecy of Scripture is of private interpretation.
• Reason is a reminder that God has made us rational beings. For example, I have found great reassurance as I’ve read some of the great philosophers and theologians who provide ample arguments for the existence of God — Aristotle, Aquinas, Anselm, Leibniz, to name just a few.  When I study the design, order, and beauty of the world, I am convinced that God is real.  To me, it seems that being an atheist requires far more faith  — to believe that all creation came in to being randomly and spontaneously — than to believe in a Creator.
• Experience reassures me that God can be known in my own life. Yes, God is holy, mysterious, and transcendent.  But he has also condescended to be known, through Jesus Christ, and also through the inner witness of his Holy Spirit.   God’s light leads me to the place where the Morning Star arises in my own heart.

In our Christian tradition, we say that the “marrow” of Christian truth is:

revealed in Scripture, illumined by tradition, vivified in personal and corporate experience, and confirmed by reason.

However, as I have explained to confirmation classes and adult new member classes over the years, we do not believe that these four “lines” of the Quadrilateral are all equal.

I have used a tripod, the kind you might use to hold a blackboard, as an illustration.  The three legs of the tripod, I would tell them, represent Tradition, Reason, and Experience.  “Where is Scripture?” I would ask.  The answer — Scripture is the floor, the fourth line, upon which all the other sources rest.  And  I would point at the top of the tripod, where the three legs all come together in one peak, and I would tell them: “All of these point toward God! But Scripture is the foundation.”

Lord, you have revealed yourself through the apostles and through the prophets; but you also reveal yourself in our hearts.  Be known to us so that we may make you known. Amen. 

PHOTOS:
"2 Peter 1 verse 19" uses this photo:
"I Love Jimmy" by Aaron Knox is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license.

Psalm Reading for February 23, 2020

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Psalm 99
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

This Psalm of praise extols the holiness of God as King over all. The character of Yahweh is declared three times:

He is Holy!

God’s holiness describes his unique separateness from all other reality.  God is, as theologians might say Wholly Other.  Creation is finite, and God is infinite and transcendent.

Some of the imagery in this Psalm describes a supernatural realm beyond the realm of normal human experience.  Yahweh:

sits enthroned among the cherubim.

Not only are the people to tremble but even the earth quakes because of his supernatural power.

The term cherubim is the plural form of an order of angels that appear at various points in Scripture:

• They guard the entrance to Eden after Adam and Eve are expelled (Genesis 3:24).
• The cherubim are represented as two figures of gold on the ark of the covenant (Exodus 25:18-22).
• The Lord spoke to Moses from the mercy seat on the ark of the covenant between the two cherubim (Numbers 7:89).
• When the ark of the covenant is installed in the temple after the reign of Solomon, prayers are directed toward the Lord who is perceived as seated above the cherubim (2 Kings 19:15, Isaiah 37:15-17).
• In Ezekiel, the cherubim are part of the unearthly “wheel within a wheel” vision that appears to the prophet (Ezekiel 10). In this vision they fly and deliver God’s fire to be scattered over the city.

Needless to say, the cherubim are beyond normal human experience.

And yet this same God, who sits enthroned upon the cherubim and who is holy and transcendent and otherworldly, also reigns in human affairs:

The King’s strength also loves justice.
You do establish equity.
You execute justice and righteousness in Jacob.

Yahweh works not only through the ministering angels known as cherubim, but through his human agents:

Moses and Aaron were among his priests,
Samuel among those who call on his name;
they called on Yahweh, and he answered them.
He spoke to them in the pillar of cloud.
They kept his testimonies,
the statute that he gave them.

There are actually three orders represented by these men —  Moses the prophet, Aaron the priest and Samuel the judge.

The Psalmist points out that the original self-disclosure of God is given in the pillar of cloud which guided the Israelites in the wilderness, and which filled the tabernacle in their camp when Yahweh met with Moses face to face.  And further, the decrees and statutes were also a form of God’s self-disclosure.

God speaks through the extraordinary and miraculous means of the pillar of cloud, but also through the moral and ritual guidance of the law.

And the Psalmist suggests that God’s self-revelation discloses the balanced nature of God, both compassionate and just:

You answered them, Yahweh our God.
You are a God who forgave them,
although you took vengeance for their doings.

Finally, in this Psalm there is a kind of “refrain” that is repeated twice (almost identically).

Verse 5:
Exalt Yahweh our God.
Worship at his footstool.
He is Holy!
Verse 9:
Exalt Yahweh, our God.
Worship at his holy hill,
for Yahweh, our God, is holy!

The reason for such worship is the same — God is holy and is worthy of our worship.

APPLY:  

Why do we worship God?  Because we are exhorted to do so by a worship leader? Perhaps.  Because we see his magnificence in the world around us? Certainly.  Because of his characteristics of justice and righteousness and forgiveness? Of course.

But perhaps the most telling motivation for worship is simply the very nature of God — he is holy.  Holiness means that he is uniquely set apart by his transcendence, majesty and ethical purity.

This same sense of his holiness is suggested when the people are exhorted to:

Exalt Yahweh, our God.
Worship at his holy hill,
for Yahweh, our God, is holy!

The name revealed to Moses — Yahweh,  the “Tetragrammaton,” i.e., the four letters of the “I Am” (YHWH) — reveals the nature and identity of God.  We get the same sense from Revelation 1:8, where God says,

  “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”

Our only proper response to the Creator and Finisher of all things, and to the Eternal One, is worship!

RESPOND: 

I ran across a wonderful little “meme” on Facebook recently, entitled “Leibnez’ Contingency Argument”  by Dr. William Lane Craig.  This is a fast-paced, fun, and visually entertaining Youtube  exposition on a very sophisticated argument for the existence of God.

I will try to sum it up as simply and briefly as possible:

1. Everything which exists has an explanation of its existence.
2. If the universe had an explanation of its existence, that explanation must be God.
3. The universe exists.
4. Therefore, The explanation of the universe’s existence is God.

If the first three premises are true, then the fourth premise must follow.  Some people, the Youtube narrator suggests, might question the obvious logic of the first premise.  They picture Bertrand Russell smoking a pipe and saying “The universe is just there, that’s all. No explanation needed. End of discussion.”

The Youtube video then offers a wonderful little rebuttal to this nonsensical idea by picturing the viewer and a friend as two cartoon friends hiking through the woods and coming upon a shiny sphere in the middle of the forest.  You would wonder how the sphere came to be there, and you would think it odd if your friend said “There’s no explanation for it. Stop wondering.  It just IS.”  Not a very satisfactory answer, I daresay!

And the video goes on to say:  if the ball were larger, even to the size of the universe, the change in its size wouldn’t remove the desire for an explanation. We are predisposed to require explanations, scientifically and intuitively — and I would add theologically!

The Youtube meme continues and does an excellent job of demonstrating that while some things exist contingently (depending on the existence of other things – e.g., your birth depends on your parents), God exists necessarily because everything that exists depends ultimately on him.

I recommend that you check out this video on Youtube: Leibniz’ Contingency Argument.

The bottom line for me is that I believe in and worship God not because of a philosophical argument — although I find that helpful and encouraging.  Ultimately, I believe because I have experienced God through Scripture and  through personal faith.

Lord, as the Psalmist exhorts me, I exalt you and worship you because you are holy.  Thank  you for your forgiveness and your love.  Amen. 

PHOTOS:

"Psalm 99" uses this photo:  "M31 - Andromeda Galaxy (NGC 224) [Explored 5/9/2010 #20]" by Cyrus II is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license.

Old Testament for February 23, 2020

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Exodus 24:12-18
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

This passage may be called a Theophany, when God makes himself manifest to Moses.  This Theophany on Mount Sinai is not the first nor the last.  Moses had been summoned to Mount Sinai to begin receiving the law, particularly the Ten Commandments, beginning in Exodus 19 and continuing through chapter 23.

Our lectionary  episode seems to be a subsequent summons to appear before Yahweh.  The law had been given to Moses by declaration, but now Yahweh promises to present it in written form on stone tablets.  The written record is given so that Moses may teach the Israelites the law and the commands. 

Moses takes his general, Joshua, with him up the mountain, and leaves Aaron and Hur in charge to resolve disputes below.  His brother Aaron represents the priestly, religious authority; Hur, of the house of Judah, represents the secular authority.  Aaron and Hur had held up Moses’ arms as he prayed for victory over the Amalekites in Israel’s first major military encounter (Exodus 17:12).

When Moses ascends the mountain, the cloud covers the mountain.  The cloud is representative of Yahweh’s glory.  The cloud, representing Yahweh’s presence and glory, had been introduced at the beginning of Israel’s journey — the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night to guide them (Exodus 13:21).

In this case, the cloud covers the mountain for six days, perhaps preparing Moses for the revelations to come.

The seventh day he called to Moses out of the middle of the cloud. The appearance of Yahweh’s glory was like devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the eyes of the children of Israel.

Note that the children of Israel had previously been warned not to approach the Mountain of God. Aaron and his sons, Nadab, and Abihu, plus seventy of the elders of Israel had been permitted to worship Yahweh from a distance.  Moses built an altar and offered sacrifices, and also erected 12 pillars representing the tribes of Israel, and held a sacrificial feast with the elders.  He also read aloud what he had previously written down from the book of the covenant.  The people had affirmed their obedience to the covenant, and Moses had sprinkled them with the blood of the sacrifices (Exodus  24:3-11).

This was clearly an awesome, even terrifying experience.  The people were warned that only Moses was to approach the mountain to come near to Yahweh.  When the priests and the elders worshiped, presumably at the foothills of the mountain, their experience was extraordinary:

They saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was like a paved work of sapphire  stone, like the skies for clearness (Exodus 24:10).

But only Moses was allowed to speak to Yahweh:

face to face, as a man speaks to his friend (Exodus 33:11).

After all of these events — the sacrifices, the feasts, the affirmation of the covenant — another period of intense communion begins between Moses and Yahweh:

Moses entered into the middle of the cloud, and went up on the mountain; and Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights.

APPLY:  

This seems a fitting climax to the season of Epiphany, which celebrates the manifestation of Christ beginning with the Nativity, the Visitation of the Magi, and the Baptism of Jesus.  A method of Biblical interpretation known as typology suggests to us that the experience of  Moses in the cloud  is a prefiguration of the Transfiguration of Jesus in the three Synoptic Gospels.  This week’s lectionary reading from the Gospel is Matthew’s account of the Transfiguration.

On this mountain Yahweh reveals to Moses the law that will guide Israel.  On the mountain of Transfiguration, Jesus and three disciples are enveloped by the cloud of God’s glory, and Jesus is suffused in dazzling light. The Father affirms the divine nature of Jesus:

This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased (Matthew 17:5).

And there is another key parallel — Moses receives the law, which Israel is to obey — and in Matthew’s Gospel, the Father tells the disciples that they are to listen to Jesus.  Jesus himself becomes the source of revelation, guidance and truth.

RESPOND: 

Sometimes when we become overly familiar with holy things, they may lose some of their awe for us.  Worship may become routine.  We look at our watches during the sermon.  Communion becomes a mere “snack.”

The experience of Moses, the priests and the elders is a bracing reminder that an encounter with the living God is anything but routine! No, not every moment will find us transported to the mountaintop, and we may not be enveloped with the cloud of glory. We may not see anything extraordinary, except through the eyes of faith.

Perhaps this imagery, the cloud, reminds us that though we are surrounded by God’s glory we may not always be able to see clearly even in the midst of that presence.

This is why we must cultivate an attitude of wonder always in our lives, so that each moment is pregnant with the glory of God.  Gerard Manley Hopkins captures this so well as he revels in the glory of God’s creation:

Glory be to God for dappled things –
   For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
      For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
   Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;
      And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim. 
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
   Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
      With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
                                Praise him.
(Pied Beauty, by Gerard Manley Hopkins)

Our Lord, you reveal yourself in so many ways — your law, your creation, your Son, your Holy Spirit.  Open my eyes to your glory, even when it is revealed as though in a cloud. Amen.

PHOTOS:
“Exodus 24-12” by Baptist Union of Great Britain is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic license.