The Light, Glad and Terrible
“The appearance of the glory of the Lord was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel.”
This is a contemporary icon of the Transfiguration by the versatile Ukrainian iconographer Mikola Ribenchuk. The dark colors of the icon (versus the more traditional bright ochre background) fit the “mood” of the season we are entering: the somber shadows of Lent — to say nothing of the violence currently endured by Ribenchuk’s homeland. And yet, the start and the heart of the season is the incandescence of the Transfiguration: itself a reflection of the Cross that is to come. From that light, in and through Christ, illumination flows to the Disciples, who find themselves disoriented (literally! look at them falling down that mountain!) by the Word of the Cross, even as they are illuminated by it.
One thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
— The Apostle Paul (Philippians 3:13-14)
Sixth Sunday of Epiphany \ World Missions Sunday
Texts for this Week
Prayer
O God, who before the passion of your only-begotten Son revealed his glory upon the holy mountain: Grant that we, beholding by faith the light of his countenance, may be strengthened to bear our cross, and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Blessed Assurance
Among the many hymns of the prolific Gospel hymnographer Fanny Crosby, Blessed Assurance is among the most remembered and most beloved. Departing from the complexity of much of Victorian hymnody, her more sentimental style reached a different audience than much of the classic 19th C English hymnody, being more popular among Baptists and revivalists along the American frontier than the establishment churches in England or the States. With this, it seems unlikely she had the Transfiguration in mind when she spoke of the “visions of rapture” that “now burst on my sight” in v. 2, but the image fits; and it by no means inappropriate to acknowledge this kind of ecstasy as a dimension of our Christian experience … and the assurance that attends it.
Crosby herself is a remarkable character, blind from a young age, with gifts more libel to be exploited than appreciated. (She published many of her songs under a pseudonym, and would make only a couple of dollars per new composition!) Yet she produced over 9,000 hymns, with a smattering of secular poetry and songs for other purposes, with what seems like an unflagging personal devotion.
This video, meanwhile, is a nicely produced contemporary performance of the hymn from the husband-wife Christian music duo, “Sounds like Reign.” Lindsay Kirkland sings the hymn to her baby, with her husband Brackin (and large tribe of children) somewhere off the set. The heartfelt performance and rustic aesthetic are a good match to Crosby’s pious lyrics, and seem to reflect no small amount of nostalgia for the revivalism of the American frontier.
