Hidden No More...

Moses came down from Mt. Sinai. As he came down from the mountain with the two tablets of the covenant in his hand, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God...when Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, the skin of his face was shining and they were afraid...When Moses had finished speaking to then, he had put a veil on his face... from Exodus 34: 29 ff

Then Jesus cried again with a loud voice and breathed his last. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Matthew 27: 51-52

Moses' face, grown dazzling bright in the presence of the Giver of Pure Light, was overwhelming---no, not just that, but frightening to his people since they were used to the darkness of doubt and idol making. He veiled himself to save those who were trembling at the brilliance of God's light, because they could not take the startling reality of what Truth and Beauty looks like. And, the curtain for the temple was carefully designed by God, given so that the people so afraid of what the Light might reveal about themselves, could be protected from the Holy of Holies, the place where God most fully dwelt.

It was Lovelight that made the countenance of Moses shine, and which those chosen could not see because it was so much more than humans could bear to see. And then, the Sun of Righteousness, the Bright and Morning Star came to dwell with us. Our knowledge of our own dark places and valleys and shadows and the hidden recesses of our hearts still cried out to be left alone, even when we witnessed how the clouds of hurt and heartache disappeared it his presence. But Love, you see, loves us as we are, but does not leave us there in our darkness, hidden. The Fairest One unabashedly asks us to let his light stream into all of that which fears to be seen, those cavernous places where we fear Love will finally find a darkness too dark for it to shine. He, we fear, might find that place within us that no one else sees because we hold the flashlight that aims only at those things we choose to reveal.

When that Fairest One hung on the tree, and his last human breath was breathed for all of those hidden places in you and me and in creation, God ripped the curtain away, ripped away any need for Moses to wear the veil because in the death of Jesus, those "thin places" where, once in a while we had seen the full glory of the Lord shine as a distant shimmering of what eternity is, now we know. Then by faith, now by sight. Love crucified, Light at sunrise. God forever intimately in all of what human beings feel, experiencing most of all the darkness and the shadow and the hidden places that the Fairest One took upon himself, all of it there on the cross where all of that dark died, and now no longer triumphs. We can, when we allow the Light of Love in, and sometimes even when we defiantly turn it away, we are in it sometimes because, sometimes in spite of who we are.

And in those times hen we are overcome by our inability to lift the veil between sin and forgiveness, between guilt and grace, between the Light and our darkness , we need another disciple to wake us up and remind us that that veil has already and for always been torn in two. God sends someone who will walk us away from that denial of Love. We need another to pray us through our fear so that we remember that that Light of love and forgiveness isn't some plastic picture ornament, but is real and yearning and forever. Praise you, God for those you choose to walk with us, who turn our hearts to Love and Light again! Praise God for Life, Praise God for Light, Praise God for the tearing and the ripping and his desire which has brought us into his presence, into his arms, into his marvelous Light.