‘This is my son’
Day 349, Saturday, July 26
Luke 8:40 – Chapter 9
Today’s reading includes the event we call the Transfiguration, when Peter, James and John see Jesus speaking with Moses and Elijah.
Now that you have read the parts of the Bible that have the stories of both Moses and Elijah, has your perception of the Transfiguration changed any?
The Bible says the three “spoke about his departure.” What do you think they might have been saying?
Moses, of course, personifies the law and Elijah personifies the prophets, but in many ways their respective teachings were very different.
At the core, the Mosaic law was about justice and obedience, but much of it was consumed with ritual and symbolic sacrifice. Elijah often had little patience with such things. Yet this passage shows that both of them approved of and were approved by Jesus.
To the extent the Transfiguration was for the benefit of the disciples who observed it, it clearly puts Jesus in line with the biblical record and both the law and the prophets.
God himself also witnesses to the authenticity of Jesus as a voice from heaven says, “This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him.”
While not identical, this is similar to the affirmation God made when Jesus was baptized, which Luke records as “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.

-Rev. Mark Fleming

Saturday meditation

Job 11:13-20
“Yet if you devote your heart to him and stretch out your hands to him, if you put away the sin that is in your hand and allow no evil to dwell in your tent, then, free of fault, you will lift up your face; you will stand firm and without fear. You will surely forget your trouble, recalling it only as waters gone by. Life will be brighter than noonday, and darkness will become like morning. You will be secure, because there is hope; you will look about you and take your rest in safety. You will lie down, with no one to make you afraid, and many will court your favor. But the eyes of the wicked will fail, and escape will elude them; their hope will become a dying gasp.”

Prayer focus
Lord, lead us to understand how Jesus is the fulfillment of both the law and the prophets.