Transfiguration

When I was a child, some August evening on the Feast of the Transfiguration, I heard a sermon which has stayed with me. I am not sure where the idea came from - the preacher or a book but it was simple - on this day we recall the Transfiguration of Christ - that great moment when Jesus shone with glory on the top of a mountain. But somehow, on that same day, 65 years ago there was another bright light - but one which disfigured our planet and our humanity - that light was the horror of the first atom bomb being dropped on Hiroshima.

I can never spend August 6th without both of these themes running through my head - the glory of God and our inhumanity towards each other. Somehow there must have been tears in God's heart even at this moment of revelation and rejoicing.

The Christian life, when lived well, is rarely monotone - rarely do we get to sit back and simply bask in the mountaintop - Peter tried, remember, he wanted to build shelters, to stay in that moment. But his call and ours is to return, down from the height, into the world, a world which holds both grace and dis-grace.

So on this day we not only behold God's glory incarnate in Jesus, but we see ourselves and rejoice that despite our ability to disfigure God's revelation to us is still just as real and just as present as it was in that moment which the disciples witnessed all those years ago.