Transfiguration

The Feast of the Transfiguration sneaks into summer time and often slides by without much mention. I think this might be because we get the chance to read the story on the Sunday before Lent begins in the Revised Common Lectionary. Whilst I like many of the revisions which the RCL has brought - this habit of pushing everything onto Sundays at odd times of the year drives me a little insane. My brain does not like having to think too hard about Transfiguration six months before it is programmed to on Aug 6th.

Anyone who has seen the sun bursting through clouds and bouncing off the ocean will appreciate the power of light. One of the facets of this feast is , most definately, the power of light. We were near the coast a few days ago and the light was strange and eerie, it seemed as though a mere few feet of light was constantly threatened by a dark looming cloudy canopy. It was almost magical.

As a photographer light is something I pay a lot of attention to. Even when I do not have the camera I see the streaks and shadows. I notice the way it plays with who and where we are.

I wonder what the light of Transfiguration was like - a harsh light, a bright light certainly, a light which frightened or comforted? Light can do all these things. Perhaps, like light from behind the clouds, the disciples knew what they were seeing was only what was spilling out of Jesus onto the mountain top.

Too bright and the light will burn. One August 6th there was a bright light in Hiroshima - to bright, devastating. Disfiguration - and not from a mountaintop but from the skies.

For some reason the dates are the same - celebrating God's careful revelation for all time and repenting of our terrible destruction of God's gift of human life in a nuclear attack. Kind light and terrible light. Light leading to life and light resonating death.

The mountaintop is where Jesus meets us. Where Jesus is revealed to us. God's power to build up or destroy is shared with us - it is up to us how we use what God gives.