Have you ever had an experience that changed you forever? A moment where you saw the world or yourself differently? Maybe it was standing in the mountains, looking out at a vast horizon that made you feel both small and deeply connected to something greater. Maybe it was holding a newborn baby, realizing the weight of love and responsibility in a way you had never understood before. Maybe it was a hard conversation, one that shook you but also woke you up to a truth you could no longer ignore.
Moments like these change us. They open our eyes, shift our perspective, and mark us in ways that cannot be undone. Encounters with the divine are like that except even more so. When we truly encounter God, we do not remain the same. We are transformed. And that transformation is both beautiful and costly.
In today’s scripture, we see people encountering God in powerful ways: Moses, whose face shines so brightly after speaking with God that the people around him are afraid. Jesus, transfigured on the mountaintop, his divine radiance revealed to his disciples. And Paul, reminding us that we, too, are being transformed into God’s image with unveiled faces. But here’s the thing about these encounters: they are not just moments of glory. They are moments that call these people deeper into the struggle of faith. Moses comes down from the mountain into a people who will resist him. Jesus walks off the mountain straight toward Jerusalem and the cross. Paul, blinded by divine light, is reshaped for a mission that will lead him into suffering and sacrifice.
Friends, we live in a time when the light of truth is shining, and yet many would rather turn away. We see movements for justice, cries for dignity, and the truth of human worth shining brightly in every day moments. And yet, how often do also we see efforts to shut them down? Laws that seek to erase history. Policies that push people back into the shadows. Fearmongering that tells us to silence those who are crying out for justice, bullying that is supposed to convince us that the oppressed are the enemy.
But if we have encountered the living God, if we have truly been transformed by Christ’s love, then we cannot turn away. We cannot veil our faces in fear or retreat into comfort. Instead, we are called to step forward: to shine, to be refined, to stand with those who are being cast aside. Because transformation is not just about us. It is about how God is transforming us for the sake of the world.
Look at Moses!
Moses comes down from Mount Sinai, carrying the stone tablets, the covenant of God written in his hands. But something else about him is different. His face is shining; radiant with the glory of God. He doesn’t even realize it at first, but the people around him do. And they are afraid.
This is the same Moses who once doubted whether he was the right person for the job. The same Moses who trembled before the burning bush and tried to talk his way out of God’s call. And yet, here he is now, his very body bearing the evidence of God’s presence. He has been changed. Transfigured. And the people don’t know what to do with it.
So Moses veils his face. Not because he is ashamed, not because he wants to hide, but because the people cannot handle the fullness of what they see. The divine glory on his face is too much for them. His transformation makes them uncomfortable.
Centuries later, Jesus ascends another mountain, and this time, it is not just his face but his entire being that shines with divine radiance. Peter, James, and John witness something extraordinary: Jesus transfigured before their eyes, his clothes dazzling white, his glory revealed.
Moses and Elijah, representatives of the law and the prophets, are there talking with Jesus about what is to come. The Gospel of Luke tells us something striking about the Transfiguration: the three are speaking about Jesus’ departure, his exodus, the journey he is about to take through suffering, rejection, and the cross.
The disciples are overwhelmed. They don’t know what to say. Peter, desperate to hold onto the moment, suggests building tents to stay there. But the voice of God interrupts him: “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!”
Just as with Moses, the divine encounter brings both glory and burden. Jesus is revealed in brilliant light, but that light points toward the cross. The Transfiguration is not an escape from suffering; it is preparation for it. Transformation in God’s presence does not shield us from struggle; it strengthens us for it.
This is what Peter doesn’t yet understand. He wants the glory without the suffering, the light without the cost. But true transformation; true encounters with God; always leads us back down the mountain, back into the world, back into the hard work of love and justice.
Then there’s Paul. Paul had his own mountaintop moment, though his was not bathed in light but in blinding truth. On the road to Damascus, he was struck down by a vision of Jesus. The light of Christ didn’t just illuminate his path; it exposed his. Paul, once a persecutor of the church, found himself blind, helpless, and completely undone. His transformation was not just about glory; it was about reckoning with the truth. And it changed everything.
Years later, Paul writes to the Corinthians in his second letter about transformation, about unveiled faces, about what it means to be changed by God’s presence. He tells them, “All of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord… are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.” (2 Cor. 3:18) Paul is saying, No longer do we need to hide behind a veil, as Moses did. No longer do we need to be afraid of the light. We are called to live in it, to reflect it, to embody it.
But – and here’s the part we cannot forget – Paul immediately follows this image of transformation with a reality check later in chapter 4: “We do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’ sake… We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.” (2 Cor. 4:5, 8-9)
In other words, to be transformed by God is not just to shine. It is to suffer. It is to pour out one’s life for the sake of others.
Will we embrace the kind of transformation that does not just inspire but convicts? The kind that does not just comfort but disrupts? The kind that does not just illuminate but burns away all that keeps us from loving as God loves?
Because transformation is not just about personal faith.
It is about how we live in the world. It is about taking our unveiled faces into places where the light is most needed… into the struggles for justice, into the places where suffering is real, into the work of healing and liberation.
Moses came down the mountain shining. Jesus came down the mountain walking toward the cross. Paul, blinded and then restored, spent the rest of his life proclaiming the gospel, no matter the cost.
And now it is our turn.
The light of God is not given to us to keep to ourselves. It is not meant to be locked away behind church walls. It is meant to shine in the world: to challenge, to transform, to heal. But let’s not be mistaken: that light will change us first. And that change, that transformation, may come with a cost.
But it is a cost worth bearing.
This is why Paul speaks of living with unveiled faces, with boldness, with courage. It is why Jesus tells his disciples not to build tents on the mountain but to follow him back down into the valleys of the world’s suffering. It is why Dietrich Bonhoeffer, seeing the horrors of Nazi Germany, could not turn away, but declared, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”
But when we stand in the light, when we refuse to veil our faces, we bear witness to something greater than ourselves. We bear witness to the glory of a God who does not stand far off, but who comes close, who walks with us, who suffers with us, and who leads us into new life.
And here, today, in this moment, we must ask ourselves: what will we do with the light we have seen?
Because the world is still trying to veil the truth. The world is still trying to silence the voices of justice. We see it in the relentless attacks against the most vulnerable: against victims of war, against LGBTQIA+ siblings, against immigrants and refugees, against those living in poverty, against anyone who dares to stand in the light and demand that God’s justice be done. The world does not welcome transformation. It prefers things as they are. It tells us to be quiet, to be cautious, to be careful. It tells us that faith should be private, that love should have limits, that justice should be slow.
But we have seen the glory of God. And we cannot go back.
We stand as a transfigured people: bold in love, courageous in justice, steadfast in hope. We refuse to veil our faces or soften the truth. We are the ones who walk back down the mountain, ready to follow Jesus into the hard and holy work of healing the world.
And when we grow weary, when the cost feels too great, when the suffering feels too heavy; we remember this: the same God who transformed Moses, who transfigured Jesus, who blinded and called Paul, is still at work in us. That same glory, that same light, that same love: it shines in us too.
We rise, unveiled and unafraid, transfigured and called. We go into the world, bearing the light of Christ. Amen.
