By Amanda Hines
In my college days, I would periodically make the three-and-a-half-hour drive between Starkville, Mississippi, and Huntsville, Alabama. The most efficient route connecting these two places put me on a lot of backcountry roads running through a few small towns that were most definitely speed traps.
Over four years, the more often I would drive this route, the more familiar I became with the scenery — the twisting roads, the farmlands, the tall trees, the water tower that signaled me to make a turn onto a different two-lane road, and, of course, where the police would station themselves with radar guns. And while these things gradually became recognizable, an element that always made me marvel was when the sun would peek out between the clouds.
You know what I’m talking about. It’s those picturesque moments on a road trip where it looks like heaven is peeking out from above the clouds to shine on something off in the distance. I like to imagine God cracking open a window in a house to catch a glimpse of what’s going on here on earth. And likewise, I get to see just a small glimpse of what God might be revealing to me. In the seasons when my life felt like it was on autopilot, those road trips functioned as invitations to pause and marvel. To lean into the wonder that exists around me. And to still be surprised at what the God of the universe continues to reveal.
God’s revelation can be found throughout the Bible. This morning, we recognize Transfiguration Sunday, which marks the final day in the season of Epiphany in the church calendar. Epiphany began with Christ’s baptism affirming his divinity and start of his earthly ministry. And Transfiguration Sunday again reveals Christ’s divinity and serves as a bridge leading us into the Lenten season. The paraments in the worship space have been changed to white, and in our Scripture today, we will hear an echo of the words spoken at Jesus’s baptism — “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased.”
As you prepare yourself for worship, may you rest in the affirmation that you, too, are God’s Beloved. God is pleased with you and takes delight in you. May the words, music, prayers, Scripture and message be reminders that Christ is here, and there is wonder waiting to be discovered.