God’s glory: on the mountain or in the mundane?

by Jeremy Lie

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And they were all amazed at the greatness of God (Luke 9:43).

Read Luke 9:28–36 (37–43)

Welcome, reader, to a week of easy readings, clear teachings and non-confrontational Jesus moments. (Can you sense the sarcasm here?) I am, of course, kidding. The readings this week can be tough to excavate and require us to show patience, curiosity and the ability to hold things in tension as we make our way through them. But, as always with Jesus, there is a gospel through line in the heart of these passages, like gold veins running through ore. So, grab your theological pickaxe, and let’s dive in.

Today’s reading pins two ‘glory stories’ right next to each other: the Transfiguration and the healing of a demon-possessed boy. These stories come immediately after Peter declared Jesus as the Messiah and Jesus’ promise that some of the disciples would physically see the kingdom of God in their lifetime (verse 27). Verse 28 directly ties these two sequences of events together.

So, what do we see of God’s kingdom reality in today’s reading? Could Jesus have been talking about his transfiguration, referring to the fact that Peter, James and John would witness Jesus on the mountaintop in his glorified form? Or was Jesus talking about the healing of a young boy suffering from seizures and mental illness? The text tells us that the crowds were also ‘amazed at the greatness of God’ at that moment.

I think it is one of those curious ‘both, and’ moments where we learn that God will reveal ‘Godself’ in unique ways depending on the people involved and the circumstances they find themselves in. In our Old Testament Scriptures, God appears to Moses in a storm of lightning, thunder and fire. Yet, to Elijah, recovering from depression and exhaustion, God does not appear in thunder and earthquakes but in a gentle whisper. We worship a God who is not limited to mountaintop experience (lest we go scaling mountains looking for them) but who comes down the mountain to meet us in the mess of life as we know it. God gets involved in our lives, concerns and needs.

So, the question is: how might God show up next? Are we willing to posture ourselves toward possibility – the possibility that God might show up in new and unexpected ways that may be foreign to us but are attuned and sensitive to the situation we find ourselves in?

We pray, Heavenly Father, help us not to box you in. Please help us to remain open to the myriad ways you might show up in glory. We thank you for being a God whose heart is for us and whose movement is toward us. Help us to respond in kind as we give our hearts to those in our lives in desperate need of your grace and move toward them in love. Amen.

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