Regarding a Miracle

FEB 2026

Matthew 17:1-5

Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became the brightest light. Suddenly, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. Then Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will set up three tents here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!”

This is very similar to last week’s Scripture, but I would like to offer a slightly different take on it this week. Reading it here, I am struck by the fact that so often, too often, we simply don’t know how to regard a miracle, resulting in us saying and doing things that fail to align with what’s actually occurring before us. It’s as if we attempt to normalize it, and in so doing, we miss the reverence and respect it deserves. We have to acknowledge that it’s a little foolish of Peter to offer to set up three tents, two of which are for entities that are there only as spiritual beings. Spirits don’t really need a tent to sleep in, but I think Peter was so overwhelmed by what was a miraculous experience that, while his heart was in the right place, he didn’t really know how to handle it all in the most responsive way.

And let’s face it, we have all been there, perhaps not in a situation so extraordinary as this one described in today’s gospel, but in the face of a more ordinary garden-variety miracle, we are sometimes prone to misattribute it to something more mundane or disregard it out of hand altogether. We say it is merely a coincidence, or attribute its cause as being something other than divine intervention. And this is very easy to do, for rarely does God let his hand show so evidently as in today’s gospel. We would do well not to diminish the circumstantial rarity of things that happen to us. This includes our ability to shift from ego thinking to that of God and love, for that shift alone, despite its commonality, is a mark that the Holy Spirit has intervened, based on our willingness to allow our minds to be changed at all. And those small changes are the root of greater things, for they shift things at a causal level, which will eventually result in different effects in the circumstances.

The other point I find interesting in today’s gospel is when the voice from the cloud says of Jesus, “Listen to him!” During his life, up to the present day, people ignore this simple command, attributing all sorts of personal bigotry onto Jesus when the truth is he neither lived nor preached this viewpoint. People want to ascribe their own judgment and hatreds onto Jesus in an effort to make them seem righteous when, in fact, they are anything but.

Jesus was notable for his inclusion of all manner of people. He took to his heart those whom some would condemn as great sinners. There is no such thing as an undesirable to Jesus. And rather than damning those who sinned, or persecuting or shaming them, Jesus consistently showed the greatest of compassion and saw sin as an error to be corrected, not a reason to cut someone off or diminish them in his own mind. Had he done so, his story would be completely different.

According to the Bible, Jesus said at one point that he was not there to alter the Scriptures but to fulfill them. Yet alter them he did. Prior to his coming, God was perceived as an entity of wrath, jealousy, vengeance, and every other projection of human failings ascribed to him by the writers of the Old Testament. Jesus fundamentally changed this regard, insisting that God the Father was a God of perfect love. That was the good news he shared. Also, prior to Jesus, the Buddha had offered an immutable system of cause and effect. 500 years later, Jesus added that while there was cause and effect, in a moment of grace, this could be altered or transformed. For Jesus believed in grace, something we don’t offer one another as much as we should, especially in these troubled and troubling times. Grace is akin to mercy in that both share a root in forgiveness. Forgiveness is a cornerstone of Jesus’ teachings, for only through releasing others may we ourselves be released from the harm that is inflicted by ego thinking. And only through that process can we hope to be released from hellish thoughts to heavenly ones. Thoughts of peace and love and joy and all the other byproducts of a healed mind.

So let us take up Jesus as a true example rather than dismissing them as being so above us that it simply is ridiculous to try to emulate his manner of being for it is not ridiculous. Jesus himself insisted that all he could do we would one day be able to do as well and more. While it may seem out of reach, there is something to be said for aiming high, as the willingness and striving for it bring us closer to the mark every time we make a sincere effort to love one another and ourselves as God loves us. GO LOVE!