Then a cloud came, casting a shadow over them;
from the cloud came a voice, "This is my beloved Son. Listen to him."
This morning the Father’s voice is heard on the mountaintop in an intense spiritual experience named Transfiguration. And we eavesdrop on an intimate conversation, as the Father names his Son beloved. Baptized into Christ, we have been baptized into this belovedness. This is our blessed truth, our indelible dignity with Jesus, in Him, through Him. We hear today with Jesus the voice of the Father’s eternal love and good pleasure, the pleasure of the Father in the Son with the Spirit. This is our truth, we are beloved in Him. Far beyond our foolishness and frailty and sins and tendencies toward sin, our belovedness in Christ is a dazzling reality that nothing can eclipse. Nothing can separate us from the Father's love. As Jesus prepares for his self-offering on the altar of the cross, we are given a glimpse of his resurrected radiance, the radiance of the Father's love for his beloved Son.
photograph by Brother Jonah