The transfiguration was beautiful yet it was meant as an end, a promise, a vision. Its interruption of the present was to remind these disciples of what awaits their fidelity to the Son of God. The tough walk was necessary both before and after the transfiguration but would become irrelevant when the vision on the mount is realized.

The walk is not a promise of pain and suffering but a recognition that the world is not yet what it is created to be, a transformed place of divine presence. And to transform ourselves is to transform the world. To do this we have to recone with resistance to the transforming power of the Gospel. The cross, the suffering, the pain, the walk comes from this resistance. But like Apostle Paul assures us, Christ has already “destroyed death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.”

Wishing you a grace-filled Lent,

Shalom!