bible and theology on The Transfiguration

The Light of the Transfiguration of the Lord is not something that comes to be and then vanishes, nor is it subject to the sensory faculties, although it was contemplated by corporeal eyes for a short...

Radiant Christ, You are Mystery You are Holy You are God Give us eyes to see you and your glory Eyes to see your sustaining and saving Eyes to see your future and your now Eyes to see and to follow. A...

Save us, Glorious Christ, from every false understanding and motivation Save us from the temptation to just stay on the mountain Save us from the temptation to never engage Save us from the temptation...

Remember that vision on the Mount of Transfiguration, and let it be ours, even in the glare of earthly joys and brightnesses, to lift up our eyes, like those wondering three, and “see no man any more,...

[The Redeemer] illustrates the purport of life as he descends from his transfiguration to toil, and goes forward to exchange that robe of heavenly brightness for the crown of thorns.

In the time of Jesus the mount of transfiguration was on the way to the cross. In our day the cross is on the road to the transfiguration. If you would be on the mountain you must consent to pass over...

Almighty God, we too often live in fear. Fear drives our self-preservation, our self-centered decisions, and prevents us from comprehending the wonder of your presence among us. Like Peter, we would d...

Christ did not enchant men; He demanded that they believe in Him: except on one occasion, the Transfiguration. For a brief while, Peter, James, and John were permitted to see Him in His glory. For tha...

Wherever you turn your eyes, the world can shine like transfiguration. You don’t have to bring a thing to it except a little willingness to see.

It is as strange a scene as there is in the Gospels. Even without the voice from the cloud to explain it, they had no doubt what they were witnessing. It was Jesus of Nazareth all right, the man they&...

Loneliness comes over us sometimes as a sudden tide. It is one of the terms of our humanness, and, in a sense, therefore, incurable. Yet I have found peace in my loneliest times not only through accep...

New Testament Mountains Like the Old Testament, the New Testament has plenty of references to mountains.  There’s the Sermon on the Mount, obviously.  Jesus often went onto hills or mountains to pray...

For purposes of practicality and relatability, this series considers the Sea of Galilee to be a lake and classifies other fresh or mostly fresh water locations together under the same banner. Th...

The crucified Jesus rises from the tomb, and though transformed, appears to his disciples and is identified by them as the one who lived among them. He is then taken up into the luminous cloud of God’...

Frederick Farrar, in examining paintings depicting scenes from the life of Christ, first suggests that the ascension would be better left unpainted. But pondering why artistic renderings of the ascens...

The glory of Christ is such, that it is of a transforming nature. It’s of a powerful nature: it changes all that behold it into the same image; it reaches to the bottom of the heart, to the most inner...

God of light and truth, you are beyond our grasp or conceiving. Before the brightness of your presence the angels veil their faces. With lowly reverence and adoring love we acclaim your glory and sing...

In this excerpt, the French monastic leader Frere Pierre Marie, shares an interpretation of Jesus as the true prodigal son—bringing all of us home with him: He, who is born not from human stock, or ...

Amazed, bewildered, they are gathered around him, whose pondered resolution comes to rest, withdrawing him from all the ties that bound him--a stranger gliding by with thoughts unguessed. He feels tha...

The transformation from water to wine is of course meant by John to signify the effect that Jesus can have, can still have today, on people’s lives.  He came, as he says later, that we might have life...

Pastor: Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the ange...

The two thieves appear to be representatives of two opposing directions. One of them founders on the cross; the other is raised up by it. The story of the repentant thief does not teach that every sco...

Leader: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, Darkness was over the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. People: Centuries before Jesus walked among us, Th...

The incarnation has often been described as “The Great Exchange,” whereupon God took on human form so that we might participate in God's divine life (through the Holy Spirit). In a sermon on the n...

In the end, the hope of transformation is anchored in the presence of a God who is utterly familiar with all the dark and light within us—and is not afraid of it. Recall the words of Macarius…“The hea...

Lord, high and holy, meek and lowly, Thou hast brought me to the valley of vision, where I live in the depths but see thee in the heights; hemmed in by mountains of sin I behold thy glory. Let me lear...

Leader: As it is written in the prophet Isaiah, "See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way; People: the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the ...

Far from being a largely irrelevant item in terms of Christian experience, the ascension is that facet of the Christian mystery that is most near to those living the life of faith. St. Paul, in emphas...

Origen, in the third century, had a great analogy. He told of a village with a huge statue—so immense you couldn’t see exactly what it was supposed to represent. Finally, someone miniaturized the stat...

Reflection Most of us are familiar with the words attributed to the Roman Emperor Julius Caesar, “ Veni, Vidi, Vici .” I came. I saw. I conquered. That is the way of imperial rulers in their conquest...