February 10, 2015

Mark 9:2-9

 Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. Then Peter said to Jesus, ‘Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.’ He did not know what to say, for they were terrified. Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!’ Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them anymore, but only Jesus. As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.

Radiance

I cannot write, O Lord, as one who wonders how it is that your clothes shined brighter than any light on earth. I have seen light shining through eyes that love and faces alight with joy.

I have felt the penetrating gaze of souls filled with a loving presence that I knew was you, burning bright within them, a lighthouse shining in the darkness, filling my heart with immense love and drawing me home.

I have seen it. I have felt it, and it leaves me speechless, although I am compelled to say or write something to express the wonder of your light alive in this world and its people.

Even in me. There are moments I know that my eyes are alight and my heart shines with the fullness of your light, moments of utter oneness with you when there is no space between us because you fill me and every word I say.

Thank you for these moments when I know you so near, filling me. It is then that I most know you as the Presence of that Light who has neither beginning nor end, the Source of all light and love that shines in this world.

And it is then that I know myself and your desire to transfigure me … that my life, too, may be a beacon of the light you are.

Help me to hold fast to the moments when your light shines and illumines my whole being so that when darkness comes, when suffering and feelings of separation appear—yes, when crosses must be born—that I may not forget the light that shines from your eyes on me … and in me, the light that raises from every death that comes.

Pr. David L. Miller