June 22, 2025
Christ the Looking Glass
2 Cor 3:1-6, 17-18
Rev. David Germer
This morning we are beginning a new sermon series: How Can I Keep from Singing? We’ll be looking at and talking about hymns that you suggested and submitted, for the next 9 weeks. This will be a wonderful way to lift up and celebrate some of the music that means a great deal to our community, as we welcome Elizabeth LaJeunesse, who will be with us in worship beginning next Sunday!
About 30 hymns were submitted, so we can’t dive deeply into all for them, but we’ll try to sing as many of them as we can, during the series.
I’ll get to today’s hymn in a few minutes.
First, let’s hear our second text, which is from 2 Corinthians, chapter 3. Some of Paul’s richest and most complex theology is found in this book. Paul and the congregation he founded in Corinth are writing letters back and forth; he’s instructing this group of new Christians on how to live out their faith in the midst of the messiness of daily life, and he finds himself in a position of needing to defend his ministry – why he’s done certain things the way he has, what his credentials are, even his rights as a pastor. It seems that at least one member of their community stepped out of line, and Paul is urging forgiveness – for the sake of reconciliation with that person, for the good of the community, and also for the sake of the witness that forgiveness is for others who are watching.
Here’s where chapter 3 picks up. Listen for God’s Word.
Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Surely we do not need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you or from you, do we? You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by all, and you show that you are a letter of Christ, prepared by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets that are human hearts.
Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are qualified of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our qualification is from God, who has made us qualified to be ministers of a new covenant, not of letter but of spirit, for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 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, for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.”
The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
I’ve cut out some of the middle of that passage, because it’s just too much to unpack, and it’s the kind of thing you don’t want to read without taking the time to unpack it. Read without more context and time it can sound demeaning to and dismissive of our Jewish siblings, almost like “Christians get it, Jews don’t.” So for the sake of time I’ll just say I think that that reading would be an unhelpfully reductionistic way to read the text, which is emphasizing our need for the Spirit of God to reveal truth to us; it’s not those who have certain information or are extra smart who get to know Jesus. It’s simply a work of the Spirit.
The “unveiled faces” is a reference to Moses. He came down from Mt. Sinai with the 10 Commandments on tablets of stone, his face glowing with the glory of God, so much so that he had to veil his face, so the people wouldn’t be freaked out (which would be the natural response to seeing someone you know suddenly appearing with a shining or glowing face).
That’s what had to happen, then, back when God was reacquainting himself with, making himself known again to the people of Israel, after 400 years of slavery in Egypt. And as God revealed Godself to them, the fullness of God’s identity, the light of God’s presence… was too much. The people couldn’t take a face-to-face encounter with God, but they also couldn’t even take a face-to-face encounter with someone else who was just in the full presence of God.
But now, Paul says: not so. Now (and this is that last verse again) “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, for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.”
In other words – in fact the words Patrick shared in his extremely helpful sermon on the Trinity last Sunday, citing John Calvin – we could say that “God the Father is like the sun the source of all light and energy; Jesus is like the rays of the sun – the same essential light reaching us in a form we can actually receive; the Spirit is like the warmth of the sun – the power that makes these rays of light not just illuminating but warming, life-giving, effective, transforming for us.”
Paul sees that this deep, complex and mysterious theological truth is the most helpful thing in guiding the new Jesus-followers of Corinth in living their daily lives.
“But Trinity Sunday was last week, so why are we delving back into this today, when we are beginning this new series on hymns?”… would be a fair question for you to ask.
A story will begin to get us to the answer.
I recently read this story, attributed to Garrison Keillor, that I learned yesterday may be a misappropriation, or drastically altered… but the story I read goes like this:
A man who was missing for years after a plane crash (think the movie Cast Away or the show Lost) was found by himself on a remote island, and he was showing his rescuers around his island and the life he’d created, when they came to a ramshackle little hut with some log pews and a stacked-stone lectern and carefully whittled cross. “That’s my church,” he beamed, with pride. 10 minutes later on the tour one of the rescuers noticed they’d walked by, without stopping, another structure with similar features, and she asked, “what’s that?” The man gave an uneasy side-glance, rolled his eyes, and said, “Oh. That’s the church I used to go to.”
It’s amusing, and it’s absurd, but only mildly absurd, and at least somewhat familiar and believable, right? It’s an incisive commentary about how we want to make our churches, our communities, probably our spouses and families in our own images… and even were we to exceed, it’s not quite what we were looking for…
But that’s a whole other sermon. I tell the story now, because my guess is that one thing that those two desert island churches had in common… is that he sang “Be Thou My Vision” at both.
I don’t think you could find a church, that sings any form of hymn, that doesn’t have this song in its hymnbook. In fact, if you were to look up “greatest hymns of all time,” one of the first results you’d come across is a list from Classic FM that give 15 hymns, the likes of which are “How Great Thou Art,” “Love Divine,” and “Amazing Grace” … at Number 2. Number 1? “Be Thou My Vision.”
It is so beloved, by so many. Why?
There are fascinating and complex background stories of the writing of both the lyrics, and the tune of this song. It was about a page of my sermon until this morning, when I realized the best thing to say is simply that the song as we sing it today was a team effort by men and women over possibly a millennia and half, and you could say that the exact truth of many aspects of that history is a bit veiled. Google the history if you’re interested; I’d rather spend this time reflecting on the song itself.
Now I’m completely out of my depth, when it comes to articulating what makes the song so musically beautiful. So I asked some experts (who are actually in the room this morning), and their names are Jeremy and Garrett, why this song is so beautiful.
Jeremy said, “The melody is rather gentle and yet it can really broaden out. It is more lyrical than rhythmic. It reminds me that God’s vision does not need to be forced or pounded into being, but rather often comes in gently, maybe almost unnoticed, eventually it blossoms and soars.” I mean come on, Jeremy! That is so good, isn’t it? When I read that I knew that that exactly describes what is happening but never would have thought of that or been able to articulate it that way.
Garrett, slightly less poetic, but as insightful and more succinctly, noted “the melody follows a clear line, like you could play connect the dots with it. The highest note is almost exactly at the golden ratio, about 2/3 of the way through.” Like me, you may not know exactly what that even means… but what both helps me understand is that the Slane tune perfectly fits with the message of the words. And the song is loved in equal measure, I think, for both music and lyrics.
We’ll of course sing it after the sermon, but let’s look at “Be Thou My Vision” first, together: hymn 450. I’ll read a verse and then offer just a little rephrasing, a mixture of commentary/translation.
Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art;
Thou my best thought, by day or by night;
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.
God, may I see all things in and through you.
By comparison – nothing else matters.
If I thought of nothing but you – it would be enough.
When you are with me, I see by your light.
Or as today’s Psalm puts it:
“For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light.”
Or as Patrick and Calvin put it: the triune God working together allows us to see by God’s light.
Or as Paul puts it: by the Spirit, Christ lifts the veil.
We continue:
Be Thou my wisdom, and Thou my true Word;
I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord;
Thou my soul’s shelter and though my high tower;
Raise Thou me heavenward, O Power of my power.
The first line echoes the first fully developed thought from Paul in the Corinthian letter exchange, from 1 Corinthians: may we know nothing but Christ crucified – foolishness to the world, but God’s deepest wisdom and truth. May we understand all, only through Christ.
Then, line 2 is almost a baptismal confession and formula: I am with you and you with me – I belong to God; God I am yours.
You protect me and lift me up.
Verse 3:
Riches I heed not, nor vain empty praise;
Thou mine inheritance, now and always;
Thou and Thou only first in my heart;
High King of heaven, my treasure Thou art.
“Where your treasure is, there your heart will be.”
You know who said that? Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount.
And we sing: my treasure is You, ruler of all that is.
Now I want you to notice something here, as we come to the final verse.
When we sing these verses, we are expressing both deep longing and glorious truth of life in Christ.
Do you see that? In verse one: God, be my vision and way of thinking, AND, it is by your light that I see. Through you all becomes visible, clear, beautiful.
Look at verse 2. Again – it’s a prayer, a plea, that turns into a worshipful acknowledgment of who God is, and who we are, in God.
Verse 3 is written as a statement of how things are… but it too, if we’re being honest, I think expresses that combination, again, of longing and reality. It’s true… but not always as much as we wish. Other things compete with God, in our hearts.
You see this whole song is a prayer that, in it’s singing, God’s answer of “yes, it is so,” becomes apparent, abundantly clear.
That’s why I think this song is so beloved.
Let me say that again. This whole song is a prayer that, in it’s singing, God’s answer of “yes, it is so,” becomes clear.
And the final verse:
High King of heaven, my victory won,
May I reach heaven’s joys, O bright heaven’s Sun;
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my vision, O Ruler of all.
Our King who rules has done it, fully.
The humble worship and prayer we start with… leads us to this celebration of God’s victory.
And this verse flips the order: truth first.… that gives way back to the simple prayer at the heart of the hymn: asking God that we might see all things through Jesus.
And to be clear, we are asking to see all things through Christ:
the choices before us that we must make;
our neighbors and how we are called to love them;
our enemies and how we think about and respond to and treat them;
injustice throughout history and happening in real time;
even ourselves, with whom some of us can be extremely uncharitable, and others may be tempted, the other way, to be overly content or self-satisfied –
all these things, Paul teaches us, and we lift our voices to sing, with this hymn… should be seen in and through Jesus, who is our light and our life.
We’ll affirm our faith, after singing, with these incredible lines from one of the most beautiful and overlooked documents in our Book of Confessions, the 2nd Helvetic Confession.
The section concludes: “Let Christ therefore be the looking glass” (the mirror) “in whom we may contemplate our” own place in Christ. (The word there is actually “predestination” but that fraught word opens up a lot of unhelpful ideas, so let’s stick with what it means in that context: our own place in Christ, or “God’s vision for us.”)
That’s what this song does – holds Christ up, that we may see ourselves in him, and see all things through him.
So it’s a song we can sing at all times.
God is our light – even in the darkness. Especially in the darkness. It’s no accident this is a beloved funeral hymn – holding us up, inviting us to see even death through Christ, illuminating our way.
I think it’s no accident that this hymn and sermon follow a week eleven of us spent in Memphis, serving and playing together, but also encountering – up close – the realities of the evil of racism, at the National Civil Rights Museum at the very site of Dr. King’s assassination and while learning about and seeing lynching sites.
Christ’s life and light, through the Spirit, shows us that God’s vision is for equity and justice.
It’s no accident we sing this hymn in direct response to yesterday’s news (of the U.S. bombing Iran), still unfolding, which may for some bring a sense of relief or even hope, and for many others likely may alternatingly bring out intense sadness, anger, horror, confusion, and fear. Christ’s life and light, through the Spirit, shows us that God’s vision is of and for peace, humility, neighbor and enemy love.
Friends, Jesus Christ, the living God, is our light, today, as much as yesterday, as much as 100 years ago.
May we see the light of Christ, and see him as though looking in a mirror, as we are being transformed into his likeness. May we see clearly, with unveiled faces. May Christ be our vision, our wisdom – the looking glass through which life and God and the truest things about our very selves are illumined and made known to us. Amen.