enveloped

Opening Prayer:  Lord Jesus, help me to follow you up the mountain today, so that I can see you as you really are and encounter you in a way that changes everything about me.  Help me to never settle for less than that.  Amen.

Scripture: Mark 9:1-8

Journal:  What is God say to you through the Scriptures today?  What is his invitation to you?  How is he longing to envelop you?

Reflection:  It is a scene we have all probably tried to imagine a time or two.  But even as great as our imaginations are, it is also a scene to which we could probably never fully do justice.  I’m not exactly sure what Mark meant when he wrote that Jesus was transfigured before them, but I’m pretty sure that it was pretty glorious.  In fact, I’m sure his description was completely inadequate to describe the wonder of the actual event.  Sometimes words just aren’t enough.

But it’s what comes next that really captures my attention.  For, right after Peter unveiled his plan to construct three tabernacles in honor of the three distinguished guests, a cloud appeared.  It came down and enveloped them.  It surrounded and encompassed and engulfed them.  And from the midst of the cloud, a voice spoke: “This is my Son, whom I love.  Listen to him!”

That’s the part I would really love to have seen with my own eyes.  They were enveloped.  Can you imagine?  It is the same word the angel Gabriel used when he described how the Spirit would come upon Mary at the conception of Jesus and overshadow her.  Thus, it was surely an encounter of unspeakably intimacy.  Being enveloped by God always is.

You see, God doesn’t just want to communicate with us from afar, he wants to get up close and personal; closer than we could ever ask for or imagine.  We were made out of the overflowing intimacy of the Holy Trinity.  Thus, God longs for intimate encounter with us, his creation.  He made us for union with himself.  And somehow we have to come to believe that this enveloping was a foretaste of that.

“The Lord’s unfailing love,” say the words of the ancient prayer, “surrounds the man who trusts in him.” (Psalm 32:10) Can you believe that we have a God who longs to envelop us?  A God whose deepest desire is to be intimately connected with us.  A God who surrounds us and comes upon us and overshadows us.  A God who will not settle for a distant, nodding acquaintance, but one whose greatest desire is to “quiet us with his love and rejoice over us with singing.” (Zeph. 3:17)

Prayer

Closing Prayer:  Lord Jesus, come and envelop me today with your unfailing love.  Seize me with the power of your great affection.  Capture my heart completely and change my life.  Amen.