“28 About eight days after Jesus said this, he took Peter, John and Jameswith him and went up onto a mountain to pray.29 As he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning. 30 Two men, Moses and Elijah, appeared in glorious splendor, talking with Jesus. 31 They spoke about his departure,[a] which he was about to bring to fulfillment at Jerusalem. 32 Peter and his companions were very sleepy, but when they became fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men standing with him. 33 As the men were leaving Jesus, Peter said to him, “Master, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” (He did not know what he was saying.)
34 While he was speaking, a cloud appeared and covered them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud. 35 A voice came from the cloud, saying, “This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him.”36 When the voice had spoken, they found that Jesus was alone. The disciples kept this to themselves and did not tell anyone at that time what they had seen.”
Today is the day that the Church celebrates The Feast of the Transfiguration of Jesus Christ. The Transfiguration narrative is one of the richest and most mysterious stories passed down by the early Christians. It’s so weird and wonderful that unlike all the other major narratives from the gospels, it wasn’t given its own feast day until the eighth century.
I love this story. Its mystery is matched only by its realism. All the details, none of them putting the disciples, the ones who pass this story on, in a good light point to a real and tangible event. But it is so beautifully, breathtakingly strange.
Take a moment, step into the shoes of Jesus’ friends. Stand with them on the mountain with their friend as he is surrounded by the glory of the Lord, the actual Lord! His actual face is actually shining! His actual face! And two of the most important people in the history of their faith are right there with him! This is what theologians like to call a Moment of Revelation. Jesus revealed himself entirely. Everything about who he was and where he came from was revealed to his three closest friends on that mountain. His humanity, his divinity, everything was shown to them in that moment. In that moment they saw the very image of God. This was something they were still reflecting on for years to come (see 2 Peter 1:18).
So, we can all agree that the Transfiguration of Jesus Christ is a moment of unsurpassed weirdness and beauty in the history of our faith, but here in a community of LGBT+ Christians, unsurpassed beauty and weirdness is what we’re all about. Each of us engages in profound Moments of Revelation throughout our lives. Created in the image of God, created bi, gay, trans, lesbian, queer, intersex, aspec, nonbinary, when we disclose these aspects of our identity we are disclosing part of the glory of the Lord in us. These are our own personal Moments of Revelation. We stand partially transfigured before those with whom we choose to be our own LGBT+ selves.
Revelation of who we are is our calling. Revelation of who we are as LGBT+ folk is revelation of the glory of the Lord within us. Like Jesus, our transfiguration is not the last Moment of Revelation. Jesus continues to reveal himself in different ways to different people. We come out, normally like Jesus to a few friends at first, and the journey begins, but we are presented with the choice to reveal ourselves to others every single day. We can take great comfort in the fact that we serve a God who did not choose to reveal himself utterly to everyone all the time in the way he did in the Transfiguration.
But like Jesus our Moments of Revelation are not alone. We stand alongside those LGBT+ heroes of our faith, we stand with Ruth and Naomi, the Roman Centurion and his partner; with Felicity and Perpetua, Sergius and Bacchus; with Galla and Benedicta, Venantius Fortunatus; with St Aeldred of Rielvaux, Marbod of Riennes; with all the nameless LGBT+ heroes of our faith throughout history. They are our Moses and Elijah. They are the richness, the background of our own transfiguration.
So go, stand proud with your LGBT+ siblings, as much as you can find space where you can be the weird and beautiful person you were created to be, shine forth the glory of the Lord in the world. Make your own Moments of Revelation and value and treasure those of others.