The Transfiguration of Our Lord is the last Sunday before Ash Wednesday, and so therefore, the last Sunday before Lent. It’s a feast that both culminates the season of light after Epiphany and opens the doorway to the next season on the church calendar. For centuries, Lent has been a time of baptismal preparation and renewal—a season not of self-improvement, but of dying to our old self so that God’s work of new creation might take deeper root in us.
The Transfiguration stands at this turning point, a moment of dazzling glory that does not remain at the mountaintop but leads down into the valley, toward the cross. Is it possible that what the disciples saw that day was not just a glimpse of who Jesus is, but a glimpse of what God is doing in the world—even in us? The old ways are passing away. Something new is breaking forth, not as a return to what was, but as the beginning of what will be.
Listen today with all this in mind. The voice from the cloud speaks to us, too: Listen to him. What Jesus does is for us. What Jesus reveals is for us. What Jesus will accomplish is for us.
Let us pray. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your site, oh Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
You take flour, water, yeast, and salt. Nothing special. You mix them, knead them, let them rest. At first, not much happens. But then the yeast wakes up. It stretches, breathes, makes little pockets of air inside the dough. You shape it, set it in the oven, and something wonderful takes place. The raw dough is gone. What comes out is bread—warm, fragrant, whole. It isn’t just better dough. It’s something else entirely.
Today, Peter, James, and John don’t know that’s what they’re seeing on the mountain, but it is. They climb up with Jesus, the same Jesus they’ve walked with, eaten with, laughed with. And then, before their eyes, he changes. He shines like the sun, his clothes brighter than anything on earth. It stuns them. They don’t know what to say, so Peter blurts out something about tents. Because that’s what we do when we don’t understand. We try to hold onto the moment, put it in a frame, keep it still. But this—this isn’t a moment to be captured. It’s a glimpse of the new thing God is doing. A flash of resurrection before death even comes.
And then there’s Moses and Elijah. Standing there, with Jesus. Not as ghosts, not as shadows, but as themselves. Moses, who led God’s people out of Egypt, who spoke with God on another mountain, whose face shone with reflected glory. Moses, who died outside the Promised Land, whose grave no one ever found. Elijah, the prophet of fire, the one who stood alone against the prophets of Baal, who was carried away in a whirlwind, never tasting death. The Law and the Prophets. The ones who bore witness to God’s work through the ages. And now, they stand with Jesus, whole and alive. Because in him, they are already caught up in what’s coming. The promise they carried is no longer just a word spoken in faith. It’s standing before them, breathing, shining.
Then the cloud rolls in. The voice speaks. The same voice that spoke at the Jordan when Jesus was baptized. But this time, it doesn’t just claim Jesus as beloved. It commands something. Listen to him. Not look at him. Listen. Because what he’s about to say, what he’s about to do, is the heart of it all. The light on the mountain is dazzling, but it’s not the end of the story. It leads somewhere. Down the mountain. To Jerusalem. To betrayal, suffering, a cross. The glory they see now will be swallowed in darkness. But only for a time.
Because what they see in this moment isn’t just brilliance—it’s resurrection. It’s the truth that even in suffering, even in death, new life is coming. As St. Paul says, “Do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”
And now, we turn toward Lent, a season of baptismal preparation and recommitment. We strip things back, return to the basics. We pray, we worship, we give, we serve, we learn. Not to make ourselves better, but to be made new. We let go of the things that dull our hearing, the things that turn our eyes away. We listen. Because baptismal transformation isn’t about trying harder. It’s about following. It’s about trusting that what happened on the mountain wasn’t just for Jesus.
It was for us.
And baptism too is for us.
Nancy, you are my beloved daughter. With you, I am well pleased.
Eric, you are my beloved son. With you, I am well pleased.
Jen, you are my beloved daughter. With you, I am well pleased.
But here’s the thing about baptism—it’s not just a moment, not just a splash of water and a word spoken over us. It’s a life. It’s dying and rising, over and over again. It’s being shaped by the Spirit, carried where she leads, sometimes to places we never expected. Lent presses that truth upon us. It asks us to look at our lives, to ask what needs to die so that something new can rise. Not so we can be perfect, but so we can be real—real before God, real with one another, real in the love that calls us beloved even when we struggle to believe it.
And we don’t do it alone. Lent is not just a solitary journey. It’s a time when we walk together, shoulder to shoulder, carrying one another’s burdens. It’s a time of communion—yes, with God, but also with all his children. The church throughout the world, the ones sitting beside us, the ones who have gone before, the ones who will come after. And nowhere is that communion more real, more tangible, than at the altar. There, in the bread and the cup, the mystery of God’s love is laid bare. There, God meets us, and we meet God. There, we are bound to Christ, and in him, to one another—across time, across space, across even the veil of death.
We enter Lent because God is making us new. Lent: a time of repentance, turning back to what matters, turning back to our relationship with God, his creation, and his children—fellow sisters and brothers in the human family, all made in his image. And the promise that shines from the mountain, the promise that carries us through the wilderness, through the cross, through the grave, is the same promise we hear at the table: Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.
God says it of Jesus. And because we are joined to him, God says it of us too. You are my beloved. With you, I am well pleased. The voice from the cloud is not a distant word, not some far-off declaration for another time, another place. It is for us. It is now. The light of transfiguration is the light of our own resurrection. It is not a polishing-up, not a mere brightening of what was. No, it is something deeper, wilder, truer. It is not just an improvement. It is not just a second chance. It is a new creation.
The old has gone. The new has come. This is the promise. This is the hope that carries us down the mountain, through the valley, into the wilderness, onto the cross. And beyond it. The road ahead will not be easy. It never is. But we do not walk it alone. The Spirit leads us, Christ goes before us, the Father’s voice still speaks. And when all is said and done, when the dust of death has settled, when the long night has passed—there will be light. Not just the glow of what once was, but the brilliance of what has never been before. A world made new. A people made whole. The beloved, shining in the love that called them from the very beginning.
So take heart. Lift up your eyes.
But don’t just look.
Listen.
And follow.
The Rev'd Daniel W. Spigelmyer, Jr. 