Dear Congregation,
This Sunday is Transfiguration Sunday. I really like this reflection on this unique event and thought I’d share it with you. I hope you’ll be present in worship in the Garden Chapel, whether in-person or virtually on Facebook. This is also the last Sunday before the liturgical season of Lent begins on Ash Wednesday. Again, I hope you’ll join me in the Garden Chapel for worship at 5:30 p.m. on February 17th. It will also be live streamed on Facebook.
This Sunday is also St. Valentine’s Day with its focus on love. Let us remember that God is the essence of love. In the words of scripture, “…God is love”. (1 John 4:8)
May you experience and share the transformative power of God’s love.
In Christ’s love,
Pastor Candy
Mark 9:2-9
Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them.
Reflection by Quinn G. Caldwell
Don’t you wish you were better-looking? Seriously. Don’t you wish you weren’t so wrinkly? Or so fat? Or so thin? Don’t you wish your teeth were straighter? Or whiter” Don’t you think you’d be better off if you were prettier?
If you just buy what they’re selling, they say, it’ll be so. If you just order what they’re advertising. If you just get it, use it, smear it on, you’ll finally—finally—be happy. And doesn’t what’s in our medicine cabinets right now prove that we’re willing to give it a shot?
When it was time to reveal who Jesus was, they say that Jesus’ appearance changed. They say he was transfigured. They don’t say whether he was cute, or had good skin, or hair with body that lasted all day. What they say is that he was beloved, and that he glowed.
Have you met people like that? People so full of God and all that’s good in this world that they glow? And you don’t know if they’re pretty or ugly, plain, or extraordinary…all you know is that they shine.
What if there was no medicine cabinet full of products? No emollient, exfoliants, whiteners or moisturizers, no all-natural ingredients, no pro-vitamin B5 complexes? What if there was just God and you and a whisper: “This is my child, my beloved”? How would you look then?
Prayer
God, make me so full of your love that it shines from every pore—even if I haven’t exfoliated. Amen.
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