The planetary parade is over. Last Friday night was the best opportunity to see seven planets across the night sky. Ok, you needed binoculars or telescope to see two planets (Uranus and Neptune) but the other five (Mars, Jupiter, Venus, Mercury, and Saturn) were visible – provided clouds and buildings didn’t get in your way. The next similar alignment is in 2040. Yes, it seems that we are stationary and the universe moves around us but such an earth-centric reality is no longer our cosmic picture. We are a very small dot in an expanding universe. But it is still marvellous to see or sense the heavens in all their glory.

I remember seeing Saturn for the first time through a telescope and was simply mesmerised by the clarity of the image and especially the rings – at a diagonal when I saw them. On another occasion, I remember lying on a small boat on a very hot night off the west coast of Turkey and simply watching the stars and a planet or two – but being more surprised at the number of satellites I could see passing overhead. The night sky in western Queensland was so filled with dots of light that one can definitely see the Milky Way. Recently in Australia one night, I did look up, for old times’ sake, to see once again the Southern Cross. ‘The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork’ (Psalm 19:1 ESV).

The night sky – as spectacular as it is with no light pollution on a mountain – would have become invisible when Jesus was transfigured and also with Moses and Elijah who ‘appeared in glory’ and spoke with Jesus. In the accounts of the transfiguration we always get a sense that Jesus was the brightest – that his light was brighter than anything else – and such intensity draws your eyes to him (even if you’re squinting or shielding your eyes). The glory of the heavens is now on a mountain and the world is no longer the same.

And yet the message of that moment was for the disciples to listen to Jesus and Jesus did not come down the mountain transfigured. In Christianity eyes always give way to ears. We are seeing people who follow Jesus by listening to him! The Church has never made a big thing of Jesus’ transfiguration, important and special though it be – because the light from Jesus then makes the cross of Jesus even more awesome. On the cross, Jesus was transfigured by pain and suffering and the heavens ‘closed’ – not even dots of star light – and in the darkness of abandonment, Jesus completed what he came to do. “It is finished!” he said as he gave up his spirit. And by the light of an empty tomb, we now see the glory of God most clearly in Jesus and his cross! He is light in all our darkness. He is life in this world – especially when things go so wrong and we become afraid. He is mercy and forgiveness when we are perplexed and repulsed by evil – what we do and what is done to us. And Jesus still doesn’t use our eyes to come to us but our ears. And for those who listen to Jesus and follow him, perhaps Irenaeus’ description of a Christian and the goal of God is worth hearing, “The glory of God is a human being fully alive”. How precious you are in the whole universe to God!

GS