Living the Light

Monday 5 February 2024

Is It Possible, For Us To Be So Wondrous?

Isaiah 30:18

Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.

Acts of the Apostles 15:11

On the contrary, we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.

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Words of Grace For Today

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When it comes to knowing God’s Grace, we often think that those who have gone before us have done marvellous things, much more marvellous than we could ever do.

Yet, as we approach Transfiguration John Chrysostom reminds us that it is just the opposite. Jesus brings the greatest in their past before the disciples on top that mountain. Moses and Elijah. Pillars of faith, courage, and wonders.

Christ brings before the disciples the one who had died and the one who had not yet died. Both had lost their life, and had found it. Both had courageously withstood a tyrant: one the Egyptian, the other Arab. Both were simple, unlearned men. One was slow of speech and weak of voice, the other a rough countryman. And both were men who had despised the riches of this world. For Moses possessed nothing, and Elijah had nothing but his sheepskin. Christ brought these men before the disciples, for he wished them to imitate their courage of soul and their steadfastness in leading their people, so that they might be as gentle as Moses, possessed of the zeal of Elijah, and as devoted as both were. He brought these men before them in glory, that the disciples might surpass them. That Christ might uplift their courage against all such dangers, he here brings before them these two men who were such shining lights of the Old Testament.

[John Chrysostom, in Sunday Sermons of the Great Fathers, II, 54-55]

So we also are brought to see these two and all the other saints who have gone before us so that God my use us to do things even more wondrous, as we face the challenges of our days.