The Veiled Gospel
Mark 9:2-9
(Matthew 17:1-9)
2 Corinthians 4:1-6
There was woman I heard about years ago that had been blind for 50 years. “I just can’t believe it!” she gasped as the doctor lifted the bandages from her eyes after her recovery from delicate surgery in an Ontario hospital. She wept for joy when for the first time in her life a dazzling and beautiful world of form and color greeted her eyes that now were able to see.
The amazing thing about the story, however, is that 20 years of her blindness had been unnecessary. She didn’t know that surgical techniques had been developed, and that an operation could have restored her vision at the age of 30. The doctor said, “She just figured there was nothing that could be done about her condition. Much of her life could have been different.”
I remember when Laura received her first pair of glasses after years of progressively worsening vision. She was nearsighted. She couldn’t clearly see objects that were at a distance. I stood with her when she first put on her new glasses and looked across the street. She began to cry. She hadn’t fully realized how much of the world she had been missing. Her whole life changed instantly.
Our lives can be drastically different than we imagine when we allow the Great Physician to lift the veil between us and God through the transfiguration of Jesus Christ in our lives. Our spiritual vision can be restored.
Think of the plight of those unreached by the Gospel. How many will go on living in moral blindness unless they hear and receive the Good News of the Savior? And although many have already heard God’s message, some are still blinded to the truth of His Word. It is like a veil has been placed over their eyes. But there is a cure for such blindness. “The Veiled Gospel.” Let us pray…
At a wedding, during the bridal procession, the bride wears a veil so that her husband is the first to behold her loveliness. And as the veil is lifted, her husband sees her beautiful smiling face and her loving eyes that reflect her devotion to him and to the marriage. But the veil is always removed before the marriage is consummated.
The veil is symbolic of the spiritual and physical separation that exists between a man and a woman until together, they become one. In the same way, the Bridegroom of the Church wants to bring His bride: you and me, into His presence that we might become one with Him forever. But first, the veil over each of our hearts must be removed… (Click on title to see the rest of the sermon)