What’s life like for you at the moment? Is everything ‘coming up roses’? Or is it in ‘the pits’? It could well be somewhere in between. And even if we are on the ‘rosy’ side of that scale, things can unexpectedly take a ‘nose-dive’ any time.
In Mark chapter 8 Jesus foretells that He is headed toward certain rejection, great suffering, and death. By anyone’s judgement, ‘the pits’. Yet in Mark 9 Jesus ascends a mountain and is transfigured with heavenly glory. This is plainly one of the highpoints of His career.
This is the Gospel: Jesus descends into the extreme ‘pits’ of our lives – the greatest suffering and loss we can know because of our brokenness and sin- but does this for us to rescue, forgive, heal, and transfigure our lives. This makes them new, fulfilled, beautiful, all as a gift of His grace.
Peter, James, and John were truly stunned when they saw Jesus transfigured; it must have been a mind-blowing thing to see. But what stunned them more was that they were looking at their true selves– what Jesus was making of them in Himself.
When we look at Jesus’ transfiguration, we can and need to see exactly what the disciples saw: our lives, our brokenness healed and made glorious by grace. That will lift us out of whatever ‘pits’ we may find ourselves in.
Grace and cheers, Jonathan.