I thought I knew him. I did, of course. Knew him well. I’ve even told you about him. He was my dad. But once in a while, he surprised me. It was in my early twenties, thinking about grad schools, and I knew my range of choices would be somewhat broader if I had my US passport. Dad’s dad, my grandpa was born in Colorado, and that had given my dad US citizenship. He never bothered to get a passport but now, if I could prove that he had lived in the states for 12 or more years (which he had), I could get him a passport. And most importantly, if I could get him a passport, I could get Luther a passport. He agreed to help. He brought me a bunch of old letters and papers and we began to search for “proof”. As I went through the things, I came across an old newspaper clipping. There was a picture of a young organist with jet black hair, playing a great pipe organ. The title was simply, “Local Organist Plays Carnegie Hall.” I read it, mildly distracted and soon discovered that it was talking about my dad. “And you never mentioned this...???” Jesus’ disciples were pretty sure they knew him, and knew him well. And then the Transfiguration happened. Now they were “seeing the real thing,” and this was clearly so much more than they thought they knew. This weekend we’ll explore the Transfiguration as an event that shows us something a little bit more about who Jesus really is to us, let’s us see the real thing, if we’re looking.
Pr. Luther