As Transfiguration Sunday approaches, we linger with the story twice—this week in Luke and next week in Matthew—because it reveals something essential about how God works. The disciples who accompany Jesus up the mountain have not earned the privilege. They are not spiritually superior. They are confused, often missing the point, and in this very moment they misunderstand what is happening with Moses and Elijah. The invitation to climb comes before their understanding, before their maturity, before their readiness. God does not wait for perfection.
This is the scandal and beauty of grace. In a world where everything must be earned, God’s love is not a reward for righteousness but sustenance for starving souls. Through a Wesleyan lens, this connects to the movement of grace. Prevenient grace goes before our awareness. Sanctifying grace unfolds over a lifetime. But justifying grace—the focus here—is different. John Wesley spoke of it as an experience, something that happens in a moment, like stepping through a doorway. It is the realization that God loves us not only in spite of our brokenness, but in a way that begins to repair us from the inside out.
Justifying grace awakens us to two truths at once: our lives are not yet what God intends them to be, and yet we are deeply loved and invited into growth. The mountaintop becomes a symbol of that awakening. When God invites you to the mountain, go.
That invitation may not look dramatic. It may come as a nudge to check on a neighbor in bitter cold, to share a meal with someone who is hungry, to care for creation, or to step into a ministry that stretches your comfort. It is often through these lived experiences of grace—going where we would not have gone, doing what we would not have done—that we come to understand both our need for grace and the depth of God’s love.
The disciples want to stay on the mountain, to preserve the holy moment. But the purpose of the experience is not escape; it is transformation. The clarity of God’s love is meant to travel with us back down the mountain and into daily life. The revelation becomes relationship. The encounter becomes embodiment.
We never grow in faith if we refuse the invitations that stretch us. And it is in those very moments—when we say yes—that our vision of God becomes clearer and our lives begin to reflect the love we have received.
The mountaintop matters. But what we do after we come down matters even more. And that is where the journey continues.
