For the past couple of weeks northern
Life is like that. We try to get on with our everyday routines and responsibilities, but some of us are less able than others and the rest of us just try to give them a little help or find them some respite. Together we manage and we all look forward to the time when things will get better.
On the mount of Transfiguration Jesus was revealed as glorious, attended by holy men of the past (Moses and Elijah). It was an awe-inspiring sight. Peter, James and John get to see it, and Peter babbles something about making a memorial. At that moment a cloud descends and fog hides everything. As the cloud envelops them, Luke records that the three disciples are afraid. But as everything becomes fuzzy and obscured a voice speaks to them: “This is my Son… listen to him.” (Luke 9:28-35).
In Eugene Peterson’s “Under the unpredictable plant” he tells us that as we go about the dull routines and unattractive responsibilities of life we are “witnessing to the transcendent in the fog and rain.” Helping each other while we ourselves are struggling to survive is burdensome. We wonder when we’ll get some relief. But those are the very moments when God is speaking, when we are “witnessing to the transcendent.”
Wouldn’t it be more efficient if things were clear all the time? Couldn’t we get so much more done for God’s Kingdom? But God knows we don’t work like that. When things are clear we’re likely to be like Peter, idolizing the nostalgia of the glimpse of glory. It’s as if we need the fog and smoke to humble us, to force us to keep from looking back, to make us more aware of the present, helping each other out in dependence on God’s grace. It’s in the haziness of everyday life and the burdensomeness of helping each other that we come to see God most truly, that we hear him most clearly.
