Read: Matthew 17:1-13
Jesus took with him Peter and James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. (v. 1)
Malcolm Guite, the Anglican poet and priest, describes the transfiguration of Jesus as a “glimpse of how things really are.” It’s a moment in which time seems to still, in which the veil falls from the world, and Jesus is revealed in all of his glory.
The two prophets with Jesus—Moses and Elijah—were also tested and confirmed on mountaintops. Moses descended from Mount Sinai with his face aglow (Exod. 34:29-35). Elijah stared down the prophets of Baal on the slopes of Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18:16-45) and encountered God on Mount Horeb (19:9-18). Now Jesus, robed in everlasting light, is identified by his Father as his “beloved Son,” who is himself that same God (Matt. 17:5).
The only response the disciples can muster is to fall on their faces in fear (v. 6). The weight of Jesus’s glory is simply too much for them to bear—or to understand, and yet he still shows them.
The same is true of us still. Christ does not ask us to comprehend him, yet he continues to peel the veil away and show us what lies beyond. It might frighten us sometimes, it might make us fall to the ground in terror and wonder and confusion, but even there we find the voice of Christ: “Rise, and have no fear” (v. 7). And then he lifts our weary heads and draws us up the mountain to show us the way things really are.
As you pray, ask God to guide you through your fear.
Justin Kuiper is a student from Holland, MI, studying English literature at Hope College. His own writing explores the many intersections of faith, storytelling, and the created order. Justin is a life-long soccer fan and plays on the Hope College soccer team.
