Books and Light

books. books. and more books.

This has been a busy week here at the Gee home. My major task this week was to turn in a paper centering on the transfiguration narrative in Matt. 17:1-8. Here are a couple excerpts:

Having understood the gravitas and glory of the Son in magnificent display, God’s words ring powerfully into the hearts of all believers. “Listen to him.” That was God’s command to Peter; it is also his command for the reader. He has come to establish his kingdom through suffering. Yet the glory of Christ is at the center of the suffering, just as the Transfiguration scene stands between two “suffering” passages. What is more, in the same way that God’s words and very presence drove Peter and the disciples to their knees, so too must Jesus’ words draw us to our knees in humiliation and despair.

Christ has inaugurated an incarnate kingdom which finds its glory in God and the suffering that is incurred for His name’s sake. Matthew’s narrative acts to refute any hold the reader may claim on his own life. It draws the reader low by exalting the authority and glory of Christ. The reader may grasp the message of the transfiguration only if he is moved to listen to Jesus by embracing a form of glorification that is radically different from all that he considers to be great in this world. He must choose both to suffer with Christ and to lose his life for Jesus’ sake. Yet he may take comfort, knowing that just as Christ’s earthly body concealed his true glory, so too does the flesh of the believer conceal the fact that he, through identification with Christ in suffering, is “being transformed from one degree of glory to another”. Finally, though he may be terrified of the call of God on his life with its manifold and dangerous implications, he too may feel the tap of Jesus’ hand on his prostrated shoulders. And raising his eyes to the Savior, he can hear Jesus’ comforting words, “Rise, and have no fear.”

E-mail me for the full text if you want it. It is amazing to consider how deeply God's glory is linked to suffering.

transfiguration

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rhythm of light