It’s amazing how often you can listen to a verse, and yet completely miss the point. I have a problem with OCD which makes me feel incredibly guilty for things I’ve done in the past. Whether what I worry about was sin or not, the point is that if we have repented, Jesus has taken the pain of our sin.

Peter is Alastair’s brother

It was a whisper that woke them, a summons as dusky and fleeting as the blue dawn wind. “Come,” said the Christ, and Peter woke first to follow. Stumbled to his feet and nudged his closest friends. “The Master has something to show us,” he mumbled, clapping a wakeful hand onto John’s shoulder. James rose too and the three of them shivered in the cool, dim light, and stumbled after their Lord as he, without further ceremony, beckoned them to follow. Down through the sleep dim streets, their feet slapping the cobbled stones until their way led up the waiting mountain.

Not a word did Jesus say as he led them, not a glance to betray the goal of their climb. Only a smile, and the old call to follow, again, with no hint of their journey’s end. And they followed, with feet, and even with hearts, for he walked within the reach of their stumbling, always waiting for them when they lagged even a small way behind.

John, pensive as always, and James in his usual stolidity, walked with heads down in thought. But Peter walked with face turned upward, with eyes fixed just ahead on the form of his master. And in his mind the thought was stirring that perhaps, just perhaps, Jesus was taking them to show them something really glorious. After all, it had been he, Peter, who just a few days before had so steadfastly proclaimed his faith that Jesus was indeed the son of God. Peter felt rather gratified by this memory. He felt that he had proven the strength of his faith.

And so he walked eagerly, up, up into the limpid light of the new morning as it fell on the quiet mountain. With their steady climbing, they reached the top quickly, and Jesus stopped. He stood and closed his eyes to feel the rush of the dawn wind blowing up from the valleys below them. The three men beside him gulped in the fresh air and tried hard to enjoy the moment, but it was with eagerness that they met the opening of their lord’s eyes. Jesus stepped toward them.

“I have come to show you something, and yes Peter,” he turned and looked him full in the face, “you will see a bit of glory”.

Jesus smiled, and Peter leaned barely forward with a sudden puzzlement. For once again, he had caught that look in Jesus’ eyes, that knowing compassion, as if Peter were unaware of what was awaiting him. Peter did not particularly like that look. He did not want pity, and besides, what grief could there be in a vision of glory? He cast his doubt aside as, without a word more, Jesus stepped back.

And then there was light.

As sudden and blinding as new creation, the brightness swirled around them and they could no longer see the mountain, or even Jesus, for in an incomprehensible blaze of glory, God stood before them. Of course, they had always known Jesus to be the son of God, but it was different now. Heaven was right in front of them, the whirling beauty of the invisible world suddenly present to their flesh and blood sight. Song there was, and a constant quiver of movement for the air was alive with lyrical voices and the rush of a living light that touched every fiber of their being. In that instant, they saw the truth of all that Jesus had spoken in the long past months, for he became all He said He was before their eyes. Moses and Elijah appeared on his left and right, as heavenly witnesses to this unheard of revelation.

Peter especially was in ecstasy, his heart pounding with the thrill of his surety, his joy in seeing the truth of what he had chosen to follow. Surging with his usual zeal, he stepped bravely forward and spoke to the magnificent figure he knew to be his lord, offering to build a tabernacle for him. But even as his eager voice disturbed the faint music, there was a sudden crack as of lightning fire, and he was stopped mid-sentence. There was a quickening rush, and the advent of a new glory as brooding and fearsome as a mighty storm. It came like the untamed wind, thrumming through the air round him, challenging his desire to build walls around the beauty before him.

This glory was fearful, a blue and crimson magnificence that sent Peter to his knees. Peter forgot about building as the presence of the Holy One of Israel surrounded him. The voice of God the Father cracked down in a thunder of holiness and the earth trembled before Him. The light became brighter, the voices and music not louder but deeper and the men felt as if new dimensions of sound were opened to them, throbbing through regions within them that had never before been touched.

God, the Father, present in His awful goodness, spoke through the whirl of the storm and His words were simple:

“This is my Son with whom I am well-pleased. Listen to him!”

The majesty was so great, the sense of holiness so overwhelming, the three men could no longer bear to look. They cried out and covered their faces, bowing down, huddled against the friendly earth. But Peter wept. For the glory he had so desired to see was a devastating glory, an impossible beauty that filled him with an unexpected dread. He had presumed to understand God, supposed himself wise because of his bravado of faith. But in that moment, he was suddenly terrified, as the dark faces of his many sins crowded suddenly round him.

The delightful beauty of Christ had thrilled him, the terrible beauty of the Father convinced him that he would surely die. And he knew with a final knowing, that no work of his, no proclamation of belief, no offer of honor would ever assuage the depth of his unworthiness. He crouched lower, his fingers dug into the earth and simply wept.

But in that instant, at the very inception of those fearing thoughts, a hand was laid on his shoulders. A still voice, a quiet voice said, “don’t be afraid”. Peter fought the anguish in his breast, wanting to grovel, unwilling to lift his face. But the words of the Holy One still echoed in his ears, “listen”. And he did. Summoning all the grit he possessed, he pushed away the fear and obeyed. He lifted his eyes and saw…only Jesus.

Only the earthy, flesh and blood face of his lord, suffused with the the rising sun. The earth shattering glory was gone. Jesus, man again, stood alone and reached down with a sun browned hand that gripped Peter’s shoulder with a pounding strength. Peter and his companions reached out with grateful tears to be lifted to their feet by this human, touchable God. And he took them to his heart like the little children they really were. Held them as they ached with the glory and the truth of what they had seen.

They had been given their desire. They had seen the reality of heaven behind Jesus’ words. They could never doubt now. But as they trudged back down the mountain that day, they realized that beyond even the divine glory they had desired, they had been given a glimpse of a great mystery; the glory of God as man, holding them, comforting them. For the vision had ended, not in a blast of trumpets or a crash of lightning. Their once in a lifetime glimpse of heaven’s most magnificent reality had not finished with choirs of angels or the crash of God’s splendor. It had ended with the face of Jesus; human before them, the heavenly glory compacted into a single man with a beating heart.

The miracle was not the splendor, it was the man who had left the splendor behind for the sake of the children he loved.

As Peter walked, he felt a love that he had never known surging through his spirit. It was nothing like his previous love; that had been a love more like an admiration combined with a healthy dose of pride in his own choice. This was pure adoration, of the God who clothed his glory in flesh and lifted his children up from the dust.

Every time he prayed for the rest of his life, Peter remembered the glory, so different from what he had expected. For with each whispered prayer he approached the throne of glory where light and justice blazed and trembled. But when he reached the foot, it was always Jesus who met him, Jesus who emerged from the crashing beauty to take him by his shaking, human hands and give him the strength to carry on.

As he does to all who love Him.

Sarah Clarkson lives in Monument, Colorado and is quite simply, a lover of words and the God who made them. This love expresses itself in her writing and her hope to study English Literature at a yet-undecided university this fall. She muses on life, books and beauty at her blog Take Joy.

So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, “Have patience with me.” — Matt 18:26

The man who just prostrated himself before me and confessed himself a sinner is back on his feet and embracing me. He has squatted and bowed before dozens of other sinners in this little candlelit cathedral, as have I, and both of us have worked up a sweat. Tomorrow our legs will ache. This is one strenuous way to get ready for Easter.

The “Forgiveness Vespers” service is how Orthodox churches embark upon Lent. Western Christians begin with ashes on their foreheads. Orthodox Christians begin with their foreheads on the floor.

The service marks a high point on the Orthodox calendar. Worshippers step reverently into the cathedral, knowing that tonight their church will “change keys” and enter a period whose mood they often describe as bright sadness. Prayers are rising before dusk, but sunlight has left the church by the time the old archbishop invites his people to draw near for a heart-to-heart. He begins to talk of forgiveness.

Their Lord, he tells them, pursued their reconciliation unto death. His sacrifice should move them to go about forgiving with urgency, outside the church as well as within. The archbishop’s counsel: If you aren’t willing to forgive, don’t bother with Lenten fasting. It would be pointless.

Finally, he makes a general confession himself. He admits, for example, that he has often been guilty of impatience. For that and other failings, he is sorry. “My brothers and sisters,” he says before prostrating himself, “forgive me.”

And so begins the rite of forgiveness. Starting with the archbishop, the people form a receiving line that slowly winds around the church. Everyone prostrates himself or herself before every other person present, even strangers.

“Forgive me, a sinner,” each one says, and then bends low. The person opposite makes the same confession, the same gesture. Rising, they embrace and kiss. “God forgives, and I forgive,” each one says, or other words to that effect.

Because everyone participates, all inevitably stand face to face with those who know them best. Young fathers bow before their young children. Boyfriends and girlfriends ask one another’s forgiveness. A mother seeks pardon from her son. Husbands prostrate themselves before their wives, and vice versa. A few people, choked by emotion, cannot get the words out every time. Tears say what their tongues cannot.

Cynics may doubt the genuineness of all this; some doubt its necessity. One visitor a few years ago was bemused to see all those faces down and bottoms up. Keeping her seat, and her distance, at the back of the church, she quietly wondered aloud, “Do they really need that much forgiveness?”

A Christian answers yes, they really do – and not just for more or less public offenses in word and deed, but even for offenses committed in secret or in the heart. No sin, in Orthodox and other Christian thought, is absolutely private. Each represents a breaking of faith with the whole church, the whole human race. No one who believes such a thing means to deny that sin offends God above all. The idea is simply to affirm that sin also offends those made in the image of that God.

But shouldn’t people who think that way seek and extend forgiveness all the time, and not just one Sunday night in late winter? Any church that prays “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors,” week in and week out, knows the unanimous Christian answer. In the words of St. Paul, “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the young German theologian martyred by the Nazis, envisioned Saturday as a time when laypeople might regularly pursue reconciliation with one another before sharing Holy Communion the next day. “Nobody who avoids this approach to his brother,” he wrote, “can go rightly prepared to the table of the Lord.”

The Orthodox are exhorted, just before they sing the creed, “Let us love one another, that with one accord we may confess: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”

Right thinking without right relating, to paraphrase St. James, is dead. As the Orthodox see it, a simple rite of forgiveness at the end of evening prayer underlines that point and puts it in boldface. “Let us embrace one another,” they will sing in the wee hours of Easter morning. “Let us speak also, O brethren, to those that hate us, and in the resurrection let us forgive all things, and so let us cry: Christ is risen from the dead!”

A resurrection gospel puts those who believe it on their knees before God. Sooner or later, it puts them on their knees before one another.

Paul Buckley is a student at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, USA, and has been called an Eastern Rite Presbyterian.

I grew up in a Christian family, with all its blessings and curses. To me, the greatest blessing I think has been to be ‘clothed’ with lots of scripture: in memory, through singing of psalms and hymns, in attitudes taught at an age at which one is still very receptive of correction. A curse is — if I may call it so — that the transition from the confines of a Christian home to becoming a Christian in the secular world is a great challenge. Children can and may rely in a sense on the faith (-fulness) of their parents and teachers, as they grow up they then do have to grow and mature in their ‘own’ faith. On some, leaving this context suddenly has the effect of stripping those hard-wrought clothes from them, in their first years of, for instance, entering university, and leaving them naked and exposed. It is one of the stronger reasons I believe every Christian needs to live in the context of a church. It is a dangerous venture to rely on however much effort in reading the bible and the practise of faith, while being isolated from any church.

At the time I went to university, and consequently had to leave the home of my parents, I was also faced with this challenge. I became a member of a local church and had to make friends with brothers and sisters there. At that time, being a member of a Christian students association was of crucial importance for me. However much I was blessed with support and friendship, it was a time my faith was tested and I underwent a great transition. I was a believer and a follower of Christ before, during and after, but it was a time during which I had to become so in a manner no longer dependent upon my parents. Not to become independent, but rather more dependent on God and on those through whom He blessed and continues to bless me. I discovered that my strengths were my greatest weakness; because when I needed them most I could not rely on them. During those times, my great weakness threw me back on God and that became my greatest source of strength.

As I moved out of the context of the place I grew up, my interest in its roots grew as well. Among all the ‘dis-coverings’ I made thus far, I think the trilogy of Klaas Schilder on Christ has been the greatest blessing. He opened up the gospels to me in a fresh way, about 70 years after he wrote it. The past couple of years I read one of the three volumes as Lent-activity, although this year circumstances have made it difficult to keep up with it. I highly recommend reading them; they are very poetic (at least in the original Dutch, which has made translation to English very difficult). I also read in an interview that they have been a great blessing to James Jordan, to my surprise.

This morning a sermon given by Alastair’s dad reminded me of a number of chapters of the first part, “Christ in His Suffering” (surprisingly, he had not read them yet himself). Often when we think of the suffering of Christ, we think of the cross, the physical suffering of pain and having to bear the guilt of others. But certainly Matthew for instance, stresses that great suffering came from those whom were the closest to Him. It is a painful contrast, to read in Matthew 26:

“When Jesus had finished saying all these things, he said to his disciples, “As you know, the Passover is two days away—and the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified.” Then the chief priests and the elders of the people assembled in the palace of the high priest, whose name was Caiaphas, and they plotted to arrest Jesus in some sly way and kill him. But not during the Feast, they said, or there may be a riot among the people. While Jesus was in Bethany in the home of a man known as Simon the Leper, a woman came to him with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, which she poured on his head as he was reclining at the table. When the disciples saw this, they were indignant. “Why this waste?” they asked. “This perfume could have been sold at a high price and the money given to the poor.”

Jesus was preparing to fulfil all that the Passover feast pointed towards. His closest friends, in denial of what Jesus tells his disciples in the opening of the chapter, think Mary’s act is a waste. This is only one of many instances where the disciples betray Jesus, where they deny his ministry and more than often are worried about themselves (e.g. about who would be the most well-off with what Jesus was going to accomplish as the Messiah they thought Him to be). I wonder if there is greater agony known to mankind, than to be betrayed by those whom you love best. Nevertheless, Jesus loved them and in his love rebuked them and taught them, and loved them until the end.

Nevertheless also, the disciples did love their master. Peter being first among them… repeatedly grieved his Master deeply. What the writers of the gospel portray to us in the way Jesus was treated by those around him, friends and enemies, is a portrait of someone who was lonely in the highest degree possible, but amazingly unceasing in His love. It casts a light on what prayer to His Father meant. It casts a light on our own love for Jesus. Our love is always a love of response to Him, who loves us even though we have betrayed Him and are still capable to do so despite of our love for Him.

My strength is certainly not my love for Him, in the sense that I would be able to rely on it. But I receive my strength from Him, because when I have betrayed Him in my weakness and am discouraged in being his servant, He said: Feed my lambs, take care of my sheep, follow Me!

Elbert Baas currently lives in Stoke-on-‘sunny’-Trent and is a member of Hartshill Bible Church, where Alastair’s father is a pastor. That is where he found a great friend in Alastair, when first visiting Stoke for a placement during his studies for 4 months. He is married with Annewieke, but not with their son Aron, who is now 5 months. He grew up in the Netherlands, but not in ‘Holland’. He obtained a bachelor degree in applied physics and is finishing a PhD thesis in biomedical engineering, in which he presents a methodology to study how growing bone tissue responds to local strain in a test tube. Later this year they hope to move back to the Netherlands so Elbert can set one year apart to study the ‘Calvinist’ legacy of Herman Dooyeweerd in depth, by taking part of the Master course ‘Christian Studies of Science and Society’ at the Vrije Universiteit of Amsterdam. He enjoys cycling, photography, playing guitar, knitting (yes, real men knit), juggling, origami, reading philosophy, theology and Alastair’s blog. smoking his pipe or acigar (the latter preferably with whisky or cognac, and most important, in good company), programming. Elbert also blogs infrequently at http://www.theelepel.blogspot.com, http://www.engelandvaarders.blogspot.com (Dutch) and has blogged at http://www.thecomposition.blogspot.com. Prayer is valued that he may receive further vision how to grow in love and understanding in life as father of a family and as a follower of Christ, and how to daily give shape to that in all of life, especially in being a sincere, honest, concerned and most of all humble scientist. And how to keep short and concise!

And he said to them, ‘Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.’ For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.” — Mark 6:31

I log off my phone and turn off my computer.
I take off my headset.
I pull free from my cubicle.
I go through the security door.
I ride the elevator down two floors.
I pass the front desk in the lobby.
I walk out of my office building.
I squint at the sun; it is noon.
I don my shades.
I am in my usual race to get through the parking lot
To my car,
Away from the building,
Away from my job
As quickly as possible.

I unlock my car.
It is oppressive inside.
I wait for a second and get in.
My AC does not work.
I start the car and back out.
I maneuver toward the exit.
I pass through the security gate.
I pull into the right lane of the driveway.
I pause.
I have been on autopilot for four hours.
What am I doing?
Where am I going?
Why, home, of course,
Right after I stop by Taco Bell.
Not today.

I turn left out of the right hand lane.
Good thing no one else was using the driveway.
I have an idea,
But it is not very clear.
I flip on the radio.
“I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I have become comfortably numb.”
Now I’m scared.
I close in on Old Canton Rd and realize where I am going.
I turn both the steering wheel and the radio knob left.
I’m not going the best way.
A circuitous route may be best right now.
I put the window down.
My hair gets messed up.
I start sweating.
Surprise, it’s hot in Jackson, MS.

I head up the Natchez Trace.
I kind of know for what I am looking.
I kind of don’t.
I pull off the road at a spot with which I am unfamiliar.
I have lived here for over five years.
How is it that I have not spent time exploring the Trace?
Too much time plugged in.
I pull off my button down and toss it in the passenger seat.
I put my hands on my hips and lean back.
The sun does its work.
I bend over.
My back cracks.
Aaaahhh.
Where to now?

The woods beckon.
Is it the woods?
Is it someone waiting for me in the woods?
Whoever or whatever, I move.
I reach out both arms and feel bark, rough.
Gravel under my feet.
Leaves over my head.
No fluorescents, no tile.
I have only my car keys.
I feel light without all my stuff.
Wind pushes through my sanctuary.
I breathe in down to my nethers.
Exhaling fully, I become lightheaded.
When was the last time I breathed in all the way?

A clearing appears.
The sun is unobstructed.
Grass spreads in a circle close to trees.
I know others have been here before.
A couple stealing a few moments.
An artist with his canvas or camera or sketchpad.
A Confederate soldier advancing or retreating.
A deer doing whatever a deer does.
I am not the first to occupy this space.
How many have come before?
How many will come after?
It is my spot for now.
I will gladly yield it to others.
When it is their turn.

I stride to the center of the patch.
I kneel down slightly off-center.
I lay down on my stomach.
I do not care about grass stains on my clothes.
I put my face in the grass and smell.
I run my fingers through it.
I embrace the ground from whence I was taken.
I am made of dirt.
I am rooted in the earth.
It is my home.
I am here.
I am nowhere else.
The world is spread beneath me.
The sky expands above me.

Wind
Grass
Trees
Sun
Dirt
Me
We are still.
We are present.
My breathing slows.
Savor the moment.
Savor the presence of the Other.
Close your eyes.
Open them again.
Murmur praise.
Then be quiet once more.

I hear a car’s horn.
I feel hot.
My arms are itchy.
Ouch.
A red ant bites me on the cheek.
That’s gonna look nice.
Lyrics from X&Y play in my head.
I need to check my email.
I haven’t had lunch.
I need to check my voicemail.
I don’t like to be quiet.
I am trying.
It is hard to be
Unplugged.

Jason Kranzusch lives in Jackson, MS, attends St. Stephen’s Reformed Episcopal Church, and blogs at axegrinder. This fall he begins his PhD program.