This coming Sunday is the Last Sunday after the Epiphany, “Transfiguration Sunday.” As I begin my sermon prep, I found this stanza from a poem by Mark Jarman:

I want to believe that he talked back to them, his radiant companions,

And I want to believe he said too much was being asked and too much promised.

I want to believe that that was why he shone in the eyes of his friends,

The witnesses looking on, because he spoke for them, because he loved them

And was embarrassed to learn how he and they were going to suffer.

I want to believe he resisted at that moment, when he appeared glorified,

Because he could not reconcile the contradictions and suspected

That love had a finite span and was merely the comfort of the lost.

I know he must have acceded to his duty, but I want to believe

He was transfigured by resistance, as he listened, and they talked.

Read the entire poem here: Transfiguration, by Mark Jarman (1982)