Last Sunday after Epiphany B

[RCL] 2 Kings 2:1-12; Psalm 50:1-6; 2 Corinthians 4:3-6; Mark 9:2-9 “Then God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” These words from the creation story are recalled in the reading today from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. The apostle writes, “For it is the God who said, ‘Let light shine out of…

[RCL] 2 Kings 2:1-12; Psalm 50:1-6; 2 Corinthians 4:3-6; Mark 9:2-9 What a beautifully strange and wonderful story we find in Mark today. Our gospel reading tells of Jesus’ transfiguration, an event recounted by all three of the synoptic gospels. There’s a lot to unpack here. There’s the presence of Elijah and Moses. There’s the…

Come, Holy Spirit, let us go up to the mountain. Open our ears to hear God’s voice in the clouds. Open our eyes to see God’s glory shine through the veil. Open our hearts to trust that God is always with us on the journey, so that when we come down from the mountain, we…

Recall the last verse from our reading today in the ninth chapter of the Gospel of Mark: “As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus gave them orders not to tell anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead.” The mission of the church is both foreign and…

The transfiguration of Jesus is perhaps the definitive mountaintop experience. Here on the top of a mountain, Peter, James, and John are left with no doubts as to Jesus’ credentials. In this account from the Gospel of Mark, Jesus is filled with the radiance of the presence of God with his “clothes becoming dazzling white,…

This last Sunday of Epiphany completes a cycle of readings in which we experience God’s engagement in the world in many forms. From the arrival of the magi to the call of Samuel, from the call of the disciples to the teachings in the synagogue, from the healing of the widow’s son to the raising…

Today the whole church celebrates World Mission Sunday. This observance always comes on the last Sunday of Epiphany, and intentionally, as this is also the Sunday when we recall the Transfiguration of Jesus, just before he begins his final entry into Jerusalem. He has been out in the world, having emerged several years before from…

In today’s world we are bombarded with noise. In the urban areas, we live with the constant hum of the traffic on the highway; car horns on the streets. In the rural areas, we live with the constant distant natural noise of developers and hunters. In our offices, we live with “white noise,” a constant…

The season of Epiphany has been long and instructive this year. The church has had time to hear many of the great works of Jesus’ ministry, and there has been time for us to reflect on how God is at work through them. This Sunday the message focuses on God at work through Jesus outside…

“…that we, beholding by faith the light of His countenance, may be strengthened to bear our cross.” Collect for the Day It has always seemed to most of us that the key to understanding the Transfiguration which is described in today’s Gospel and which is the center of our worship this morning is the “light”…