Reflections on Transfiguration

The Feast of the Transfiguration still falls on 6th August - I say still because this August date has become a bit of a poor relation in terms of feasts and festivals. This is not helped by the fact that we now also celebrate the Transfiguration on the Sunday before Lent begins and so to repeat the exercise on a weekday in August can seem a little extraneous.
However, weekdays in August have their benefits. Apart from thinking about Autumn programming, Harvest and the Nativity Play (yes really!) there is not a whole lot going on at this time of year in many churches. And so it was that I found myself contemplating the Transfiguration in the middle of London today. A London buzzing with Olympics and visitors.
We often hear the the glory of God in the Bible is something to be stood back from, God's glory and holiness are dangerous. But this is not what the Transfiguration is about, this glory which frightened the prophets - it is about a revelation of God, an incarnation of God which is for the here and now. Whilst there is so much more to know of God that we can ever see in this lifetime - this revelation of glory as Jesus is changed before the eyes of the disciples on the mountain should remind us that glory and wonder are part of who God is with us, of how God interacts with us.

Too often we take on the attitude of many of our buildings, old and dusty with a certain quaint charm a voice of yesteryear - this is not the Transfiguration spectacle of light and revelation. And the even better news is that this is only a taster of what is to come in the Gospels themselves - we are not just Transfiguration people but we are Resurrection people. In a city full of excitement and spectacle lets not forget who we are or the glory which God reveals to us and in which we revel not just twice a year but every day.