Musing #19 - A Personal Essay

Good evening, everyone! I have something new to share :-). As you can see from the title, I am posting a personal essay that I wrote. It was suggested to me that I take a scene from Matthew and rewrite it, as if I was right there with Jesus and His disciples. I found it to be a fun project, and I hope you enjoy! Leave your thoughts in the comments; can you tell which scene I chose to rewrite? ;-)

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            My head is pounding from the sun beating down upon me. Trekking my way up this high, steep mountain in the middle of a hot afternoon makes my legs feel like jelly. When will we reach the top? I’m tempted to shout. I swallow, swipe a hand across my sweaty forehead, and plod on.

          Suddenly, Jesus pauses. He stands in front of us and doesn’t move.

          My breath catches in my throat. My mind tickles with the thought that something strange and very memorable is about to occur. Pain and weariness momentarily forgotten, I straighten up and wait with expectation.

          Vivid light radiates from Jesus’s face, and His clothes flash white. At the brightness of it all, my eyes close without my telling them to. When my eyes open again, a glorious, breathtaking sight awaits me. I gasp and stumble backward in shock. Moses? Elijah?

          It can’t be! But the two men stand there, right before me, one on either side of Jesus. And wonder of wonders, Jesus is talking to them both!

          “Lord,” Peter is saying, “it is good that we are here. If you wish, I will make three tents here, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.”

          I look up, for, while Peter had been speaking, a cloud—a bright cloud—had overshadowed us.

          “This is My beloved Son, with Whom I am well pleased,” a Voice says from the cloud.

          My eyes nearly pop from their sockets. My hands fly over my mouth. I listen, scared almost to death yet awed beyond belief, as the Voice continues to speak, “. . .listen to Him.”

          Peter, James, and John fall down, faces to the ground. They shake, terrified. My knees feel like water, and I collapse beside them. “Lord, You are truly a God of miracles,” I whisper.

          As we make our way back down the mountain, Jesus instructs us to keep all that we’d seen a secret until “the Son of Man is raised from the dead.” I walk slowly behind the group, pondering all that I’d just seen.

          I’d heard talk of Jesus’s power. He healed people who were demon-possessed or ill. He could tell the blind to see and the lame to walk. But that’s all I thought it’d been. . . talk. Until now—when I’d seen it for myself.

          I work to get my saliva past my thick, dry throat and glance at Jesus. I don’t think I’ll ever be the same after seeing what I’ve seen.

          Over and over, I visualize that bleach-white look upon Jesus’s face and garment. I hear again that voice coming from the clouds, and I become lost in thought.

          Elijah and Moses are dead. They’re history. But there they’d stood, right in front of me. Alive. And talking. I shake my head. Too terrific to be true. But I had seen it!

          I ponder over that voice that came from above. “This is My Son, with Whom I am well pleased; listen to Him.”

          It’d truly been God who was speaking. And His “Son” is Jesus. God said, “Listen to Him.” Yes! Listen to God’s Son. Jesus is truly a miracle-worker, a generous Savior. He can bring even the dead to life.

          In my mind’s eye, I picture Moses and Elijah standing just as they had only a few minutes previous. They, too, were white as a sheet, and very much there. Could it maybe had been possible they’d been ghosts?

          I shake my head. It doesn’t matter. Jesus had still pulled them into life. Through the power given to Him through the Spirit, He’d worked a true miracle.

          If faith can do that for Him, I decide, I want that kind of faith.

          And I stop right here to ask the Lord into my heart—such as I never had before. Sure, I’d known before that I needed a Savior. I’d known I needed to tithe and follow my parents around as they performed their sacrifices in the temple.

          But it isn’t until now that I realize just how great and powerful Jesus was. He hadn’t talked to Moses and Elijah in private. He’d taken a few of his disciples—and me—along, just to show us.

          My heart feels clean and new, and I smile and hurry so that I can catch up with the others.