Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Today’s text

Mark 9:2-4

Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John and led them up a high mountain on their own by themselves. There in their presence he was transfigured: his clothes became brilliantly white, whiter than any earthly bleacher could make them. Elijah appeared to them with Moses; and they were talking to Jesus.

Reflection

Much is made of mountain top experiences. Too many sermons are preached urging us not to stay up there too long, lest we confuse the mountain top with reality.

But if you don’t mind, I am going to stay here, on the mountain top with Jesus, as he shines brilliantly white, glistening like crystal waters in mid-day sun.

I like who I am when I stand in this presence. I like what I feel and how I see.

I want nothing but to be with him and know that he is all I need. I sense, no, I am certain that life is to stand in the circle of the light shed from his apparition.

There is no fear there, no worries about self, no fears of life and death, even of one’s own death, for the brilliance of his shining reveals that all is life in him, awakening the joy of eternal life within one’s own being.

The mountain top is the place where life is awakened in the soul. It is not a flight from reality, but an elevation into the eternal life for which we were made and for which we are intended.

It is the place where God gives that which God most hungers to give--the divine life of the Holy Trinity, that dancing play of love and joy in which we simply know (finally) ourselves and the loving beauty of God.

The mountain top is not a flight into illusion but the only place we know what is most real and true.

What some call ‘real life’ is a drab imposter. Reality is what we see in the light that shines from the face of Jesus.

Pr. David L. Miller