LAST EPIPHANY / TRANSFIGURATION
2/19/23
FR. PHIL
EBERHART
OPEN OUR
EYES, LORD!!
Paul
prayed this prayer for the Ephesian Church:
17that See Rom. 15:6the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of
glory, [Col. 1:9]may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of
revelation in the knowledge of him, 18[Heb. 6:4;
10:32; Rev. 3:17, 18]; See Acts 26:18having the eyes of your
hearts enlightened, that you may know what is ch. 4:4; [ch. 2:12]the hope to which he has called you,
what are ch. 3:8,
16; Col. 1:27; See ver. 7the riches of his glorious inheritance in
the saints, 19and
what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, ch. 3:7; Phil. 3:21; Col. 1:29; 2:12according to the working of ch. 6:10; [Dan. 4:30]his great might 20that
he worked in Christ See Acts 2:24when he raised him from the dead and See Mark 16:19; Acts 2:33; 1 Pet. 3:22seated him at his right hand See ver. 3in the heavenly places, 21ch. 4:10;
Col. 2:10; See John 3:31far above 1 Cor. 15:24all rule and authority and power and dominion,
and above ch. 3:15;
Phil. 2:9; [Heb. 1:4]every name that is named, not only in [Matt. 12:32]this age but also in the one to come. 22And Cited from Ps. 8:6; See 1 Cor. 15:27he put all things under his feet and gave him
as ch. 4:15;
5:23; Col. 1:18; 2:19; [1 Cor. 11:3; Col. 2:10]head over all things to the church, 23ch. 4:12,
16; 5:30; Col. 1:18, 24; [ch. 5:23;
1 Cor.
12:27]which
is his body, ch. 3:19;
See John 1:16the
fullness of him ch. 4:10who fills [Jer. 23:24; Col. 3:11]all in all.
There is a transfiguration that is waiting for
each of us – a moment when we see Jesus for Who He is, really. I hope that that time has already come for
you, but in our world, so time and flesh bound, I can only hope. Paul speaks of that time being like the
removal of a veil from over our eyes… from in front of our faces. He veil that Moses used over his face was
used to keep eyes from seeing and turning away from the glory of God that was
captured by his skin, as he only looked at God’s back side! But the veil eventually became a block to the
eyes – preventing them from seeing God at all.
Just a few verses later, Paul speaks of the
deceiver “blinding minds of unbelievers.”
Maybe our prayer needs to be for spiritual eye-sight! Like Blind Bartimaeus we need to cry aloud to
Jesus that we might see! That is one of
the major signs of the coming of the Kingdom of God. Jesus referred to it many times, when
announcing his ministry in his home town of Nazareth and when talking to John’s
disciples about his ministry in Israel: “The
eyes of the blind are opened.”
Sometimes the physical portends the spiritual
reality. So much of our world that we
speak of as Christians is UNSEEN.
There are both angelic and demonic realms
around us, that are for the most part, invisible to us. Faith is defined as “the evidence of
things NOT SEEN.” And Paul prays
over and over that our eyes – the eyes of our hearts – would be opened.
This can only happen by God’s hand. It is a kind of healing. A removal of a
veil. And it comes through faith and
prayer.
It was something that Paul prayed for as he
prayed for his church plants. It is
essential equipment for the believer. Have you ever tried to drive while
blindfolded? Duh!! NO. We can’t even
walk while blindfolded – yet many of us go through life blindfolded
spiritually.
Pray with me for God to remove the veil – the
blindfold, so we can see Him AS HE IS.
That was what happened to Peter, James and John on the mountain in
today’s Gospel reading. Jesus showed
them WHO HE WAS. Who HE IS! And that “Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the
knowledge of him” yields some
significant fruit in our lives: You come
to know three things…
1. the hope to which he has called you
Hope is a big four-letter word! It is like an internal, nuclear power plant! It becomes the source of so much in the
spiritual life – have you noticed that a good deal of our spiritual life is
“waiting.” Hope is essential equipment!
Hope is the root of our assurance in
Christ. The Prophet Hosea called it a
doorway. Jesus is its embodiment! And Paul prayed that the Christians would “abound
in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
2. The riches of his glorious
inheritance in the saints
Look around you. I’ve been the priest for this church now
since 1996. I’ve seen lots of faces come
and go over those many years. What do
you see when you look around you here today?
When you look at our faces gathered on Zoom? What you see here is THE RICHES OF HIS
GLORIOUS INHERITANCE IN THE SAINTS! This
is what Paul is praying for! Eyes open
to the spiritual realities around us. CS
LEWIS said it this way in “The Weight of Glory:”
It is a serious thing to live
in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and
most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if
you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and
a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day
long, we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these
destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is
with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all
our dealing with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all
politics. There are no ordinary people.
You have never talked to a mere mortal.
The riches of His
glorious inheritance in the saints!
3. the immeasurable greatness of
his power toward us who believe,
God’s power.
Immeasurable by definition.
Almost goes without saying doesn’t it?
But here’s the kicker: toward us who believe!
We live in a world that is inebriated with
power! Gathering it, holding it,
wielding it over others. But this is a
different kind of power. This isn’t
power to climb upwards, but to go lower.
Jesus modeled this kind of power for us.
It is the power of the KINGDOM.
It is the power of SERVANTHOOD.
It is God’s power, that is used to send a Son that was …
despised and rejected[b] by
men,
a man of
sorrows[c] and
acquainted with[d] grief;[e]
and as one from whom men hide their faces[f]
he was
despised, and we esteemed him not.
4 Surely
he has borne our griefs
and
carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten
by God, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our
transgressions;
he was
crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with
his wounds we are healed.
Hannah Hurnard
wrote a book called “Hinds Feet on High Places.” In it she wrote of the song that the water
sings as it cascades down the mountains:
It’s called The Water Song.
Come, oh come! let
us away--
Lower, lower every day,
Oh, what joy it is to race
Down to find the lowest place.
This the dearest law we know--
"It is happy to go low."
Sweetest urge and sweetest will,
"Let us go down lower still."
Hear the summons
night and day
Calling us to come away.
From the heights we leap and flow
To the valleys down below.
Always answering to the call,
To the lowest place of all.
Sweetest urge and sweetest pain,
To go low and rise again.
Our life in
Christ is to be lived in such a way as to reflect HIS humility as it is posited
for us in Philippians 2:5-8:
5 Have
this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,[a] 6 who,
though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a
thing to be grasped,[b] 7 but emptied
himself, by taking the form of a servant,[c] being
born in the likeness of men. 8 And
being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the
point of death, even death on a cross.
The point that I’m making here is that this Power
of God is not exercised in human ways, not available for human
aggrandizement! It is God’s Power “towards
us who believe”
(Dunamis: Dynamite/Dynamo)
that is exercised through us, for others, in servanthood and humility. It’s not OUR POWER! It's HIS POWER! Never forget that little fact!
So what now?
Transfiguration,
or another word we use is Transformation, comes out of a root word in the Greek
from which we get the word METAMORPHOSIS.
Paul ends his thoughts about the veil over Moses face in 2 Cor 3 with
this line:
18We can all draw close to him with the veil
removed from our faces. And with no veil we all become like mirrors who
brightly reflect the glory of the Lord Jesus. 3:18 Or “We all, with unveiled faces, behold
the glory of the Lord as in a mirror.” We are being transfigured 3:18 The Greek verb metamorphoō is the same word used for Jesus’ being
transfigured on the mountain (Matt. 17:2; Mark 9:2) and for our transfiguration through the
renewing of the thoughts of our minds (Rom. 12:2). into his very image as we move from one
brighter level of glory to another. 3:18 The source of our transformation comes
from Christ’s glory, and the destination we are brought to is more glory. The
transforming glory is the result of gazing upon the beauty and splendor of
Jesus Christ. And
this glorious transfiguration comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
Friends, God is calling us and has given us the equipment to
be transfigured like He was on the mountain.
Transformed from “Glory to Glory” by the power of the Spirit of God. That transformation come from … I love the
phrase that David used in the psalms … “beholding the fair beauty of the
Lord!” The fact is, what we look at,
we become like!
And that means that we need to see differently, “with eyes
wide open to the mercies of God”, and thus be “Transfigured, transformed, in the
process of metamorphosis”.
CS Lewis added a final comment in his book:
Next to the Blessed Sacrament
itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is
your Christian neighbor, he is holy in almost the same way, for in him
also Christ vere latitat—the glorifier and the glorified, Glory
Himself, is truly hidden.”
We need to look at the world and at one another
differently, with eyes wide open to the real value and power of each person,
especially those of the “household of faith.”
Look around this morning. Ask God
to open your eyes to see others the way He sees them. Ask God for open eyes to see Him as He is, in
our midst, the King of Glory, and the King of Peace.
Amen.
Pray with me as we sing the Gospel Song again: Open our Eyes, Lord.
Open Our Eyes, Lord
By Bob Cull
Open our eyes, Lord.
We want to see Jesus
To reach out and touch Him,
and say that we love Him.
Open our ears, Lord
and help us to listen.
Open our eyes, Lord.
We want to see Jesus.
Soften our hearts, Lord,
melt us and mold us.
Make us Your vessels,
O pour out Your Spirit.
To bring joy and gladness
to those who have sorrow.
Open our eyes, Lord.
We want to see Jesus.
© 1976 Maranatha!
