Anticipation
Transfiguration Sunday – Glory Revealed February 15, 2026
Scriptures: Exodus 24:12-18 Matthew 17:1-9
Message: Anticipation Layperson Deb Beutel
Deb Beutel, Layperson
Last week we were called to action by the text from Isaiah. And we discussed that sometimes that action is simply praying and waiting for God to reveal his plan. With everything going on around us today, we should be in constant prayer for discernment and wisdom and for God to reveal his plan and vision for each of us, our families, our community and our churches.
I believe that even though we are experiencing some financial challenges at the moment, that God has a plan for the Bethel Emmanuel Charge. But, I also believe this is something that we as a congregation and a charge need to be praying about fervently. Today is Transfiguration Sunday. So let’s talk about that and how our texts today continue to encourage us and remind us that while God always answers prayer, sometimes we need to be patient while we are waiting for the answer to those prayers…..
I recently learned that the Feast of the Transfiguration was celebrated first by the Eastern Orthodox Church beginning somewhere around the sixth century. However, in the Roman Catholic Church, regular and required observance of the Feast of the Transfiguration was not established until 1457 under Pope Calixtus III. While we could explore what this means about the differences between the Eastern and Western churches, what strikes me most is how this singular event recorded in all three Synoptic Gospels eventually became recognized by the worldwide church (even among Protestants in the centuries that followed) as fitting for a feast day, that is, a day of particular importance and celebration.
Though we do not call them “feasts,” Christmas and Easter are feast days in the liturgical calendar shared by Christians across denominations, countries, languages, and cultures. However, for the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Feast of the Transfiguration is a set date in August. So why do we United Methodists observe Transfiguration Sunday on the Sunday before Ash Wednesday? There are likely a number of reasons, some theological, some logistical, and others political, but I want to emphasize here the narrative and theological bridge that Transfiguration Sunday offers us into Lent.
The Transfiguration is a foretaste of the glory of Resurrection, a revelation of Jesus’ divinity that has been hidden, yet is no less real. The Transfiguration does not erase Jesus’ humanity but demonstrates the union of full humanity and full divinity in the person of Jesus. So let us revel in the mystery of Christ’s glory and then descend back down the mountain to begin the journey to the cross, the tomb, and the Resurrection that will begin in just a few days.
Week after week, we believers continue to pray for God’s kingdom to come and for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. And we are a part of that working of will. As we pray that prayer, we are signing up again to be a part of the redeeming force at work, reconciling the world to God. It is a high calling, but we are up to it.
Our presence attests to that. So, embrace the moment as we worship today and everyday. But, at the same time we are also waiting for the chance to walk in the light of the Lord. That is partly what today’s text is about. Unfortunately, the fact of the matter is that we aren’t good at waiting. It isn’t in our cultural DNA. I’ve lived in other parts of the world for a time and discovered that other nations, other cultures, do the waiting thing a whole lot better than we do. We want everything right now. Fast food wasn’t fast enough, so we put in drive-through windows. (By the way, shouldn’t that be “drive-by windows”? I’ve always wondered about that.) Prepackaged meal preparation wasn’t fast enough, so now we put it in a microwave.
Most of us don’t like standing in line, do we? Have you ever been guilty of jumping from one line to the next, hoping that the new one would go faster, only to discover that the original line actually started moving. And then felt like you lost some competition! Are we there yet? It seems these days we are always in a hurry to do something or go somewhere. I learned a lot about differing perspectives on time when I have been in Sierra Leone Africa on Mission Trips. There, people literally spend almost the entire day simply doing mundane tasks to stay alive, shopping for fresh food because they lack refrigeration, cooking over an open fire because there is no electricity. The idea of “leisure time” is a concept very foreign to most people in Sierra Leone. You see there is a saying in Africa that goes something like this, “In Africa no one has a watch, but everyone has time. But, in America, everyone has a watch but, no one seems to have time.”
But, here in America, we are so impatient and we still hate to wait. There was a commercial many years ago with that theme. The jingle was sung to Carly Simon’s song, “Anticipation”.
And we all got to watch with great anticipation how slowly Heinz Ketchup came out of the ketchup bottle because it was so thick, tomato filled and so very worth the wait. That commercial, and that song stuck with me. Because it is true. We hate to wait. As a culture, as a people, as individuals, we hate to wait, unless it is for something extra special, and even then, we hate to wait. Patience may be on a list of virtues somewhere, but it isn’t one we cling to very well. At least most of us.
Maybe because it is forced upon us so often, this need to wait; that’s why we balk at it so much. And we aren’t the first ones. And just last week in our message we talked about the need to sometimes be still. So now we have a combination of being still to hear the quiet voice of God, (literally taking no action but, trusting that God has got our backs) and the need to wait patiently. A quick glance through the Exodus text will convince us that there is nothing rushed about this encounter with the glory of God. God says to Moses, “Come and wait” Moses says to the elders, “Wait until we come back.” Moses is six days in the cloud before God speaks. Then Moses is forty days and forty nights on the mountain while everyone waits. And you know what kind of trouble comes about because of the waiting.
Then Matthew starts our Gospel text with the words “six days later.” Six days? After what? After Peter is called Satan. Six days after Jesus told him that he was hindering the progress toward the kingdom. Those had to be the longest six days in Pete’s life, at least so far. It’s about to get worse, but that’s a story for another time. For now, he’s just hanging out, dodging the glances from the rest of the disciples, who alternate between accusing him and being glad it wasn’t them. A long time to wait.
Then Jesus calls him out, and he isn’t sure whether he is in for another chewing out. Instead, it is a field trip. Up a mountain they go, the inner circle – or the remedial class. It depends on how you look at it. What happens up there defies description. Words escape any thinking mind. So, Peter speaks. Sigh. Is he making up for what happened six days ago?
Who knows. Maybe he is just filling an awkward silence with his own inappropriate thoughts. But this time, he doesn’t get called out. He just gets overlooked. Or over spoken, perhaps, as another voice resounds from the cloud: “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him” (Matthew 17:5 NRSV.) Was this worth waiting for? That’s the question, isn’t it? It seems like it was worth the wait for the disciples. They were transfixed by the experience. Of course, afterward, they were told to wait some more. They probably appreciated it, since it meant that they didn’t have to try to explain what they had just witnessed to anyone else. They could dwell on it, reflect for a while. Pray on it, and maybe something would occur to them. Maybe they would begin to grasp that glory revealed is sometimes more subtle than we realize.
You can’t help but notice the clouds in both of these texts. Clouds speak of presence, but also of obscurity. They saw but didn’t really see. How often does that happen to us? Just When we think we’ve caught sight of something, or just when we think we have figured Something out, a doubt arises. That goes back to last week’s message as well about the dangers of getting too comfortable with “our plan,” and not be willing to see the differences however subtle that there might be in “God’s plan”. A question gets asked that we can’t answer. An activity happens that weighs heavily upon us. There is too much that obscures our vision. Too much information overload, social media, news, fake news. There is too much that makes us hesitant, uncertain. We don’t see as clearly as we would like. Out of the cloud, there came a voice. That’s the amazing thing about this story. Well, ok, that is one more amazing thing about this story. It wasn’t out of certainty that glory was revealed.
It was from the cloud that the voice spoke, that instructions were given. It came after the fumbled attempt to make some meaning, to provide some permanence to this incredible event. It came when shame rose up. What was it that came from the cloud? A declaration of love, and a simple instruction. We try so hard sometimes to make things complicated.
We want something deep, something profound, something obscure. Instead, we get parental love and an invitation to pay attention. That’s it? Well, no. We get the instruction, “Listen to him” is more than just hearing the words. It’s more than just nodding along and Slapping him on the back and saying, “Good words, Preacher!” “Listen to him” means Shaping yourself around his words. It means reading the WORD and knowing what is Godly vice what is not. It means taking his words into your soul, letting them take root and grow into a life worthy of the gospel, as Paul says. “Listen to him” means letting the picture he paints of the kingdom be the vision by which you guide your life. Perhaps it means to be patient and know that God has this fight whatever it is.
Knowing that sometimes we are to take a pause and reflect and listen for that still quiet voice. Behind it, all these words and all this life, is the declaration of love. That’s where the glory is revealed. It’s not the light show at the top of the mountain; it’s not the devouring fire; it is in the simple statement, “This is my beloved son.” It is in the affirmation, “With him, I am well pleased.” When welisten, when we take in his words, we too are God’s beloved. And we will continue to wait as God has instructed because much like the anticipation of that deliciously thick Heinz ketchup hitting out French Fries, the wait to walk in the Light and Glory of the Lord is so very worth it! And while we as a church and a charge wait for the DS and her staff to help us to determine God’s plan to revive this church, this charge in spite of the current financial challenges, we need to pray fervently and know God has got this, he has our backs, he has a plan and a vision for the future of the Bethel Emmanuel charge. So while we wait with Anticipation for God to reveal the Glory and the answers to our queries about God’s plan and vision for Bethel and Emmanuel, remember that although we cannot see the answer through the clouds yet, perhaps we like the disciples will begin to grasp that glory revealed is sometimes more subtle than we realize. And as we continue to pray and to wait as God has instructed, much like the anticipation of that deliciously thick Heinz ketchup hitting our French Fries, our wait to walk in the Light and Glory of the Lord is so very worth it!