1 March 2015 - blaze of glory

And he was transfigured before them, 
and his clothes became dazzling white, 
such as no fuller on earth could bleach them.

Let your radiant light shine on us, O LORD.

We need your light, Jesus. We need to bathe in your radiance.

Without your light we run away from the cross. We can't make ourselves understand what rising from the dead means because we can't accept the cross that precedes it.  From a human perspective it appears to be futility and failure.

But with you we can be confident. We can go boldly forward. When we face crosses we often feel abandoned. But you reveal that you are for us and not against us. You go forward to embrace the cross first for us so that we can realize that you are with us as we face our own crosses. The Father does not spare even you, LORD Jesus. He wants us to know that he holds nothing back. If he gives us even you, his beloved Son, for our sakes, "how will he not also give us everything else along with" you?

When we realize that you are with us we too can "not withhold" anything from you. For Abraham, Isaac is the whole world. He is everything you ever promised him. But Abraham is still able to surrender your blessings back into your hand when you ask him. He can only do this because he knows that you are for him. He probably can't understand why you ask something so difficult. Yet even at such an impossible trial he remembers the deeper truth of who you are.  He can still remember your light shining even in the darkness of the cross of hardest test.

And so we need your light LORD. We need you to blaze into our hearts this truth of who you are. We need to see the glory that you had before the world was created (cf. Joh. 17:5). Glory like this is something that worldly circumstances can't change. It is glory that the darkness cannot overcome (cf. Joh. 1:5). This is who you are, Jesus. And you are on our side.

There may be circumstances which obscure this light. We cannot stay on the mountaintop. We still have to face darkness. But now we can believe even when we say "I am sorely afflicted" just as Abraham does.

We are confident that the cross leads to the rising from the dead. If you ask Isaac from us it is only because you are able to give him back. If you yourself go to die it is to live again and to share that new life with the world.

I will walk before the Lord, in the land of the living.