Welcome to Things Unseen, where this week our theme is big moments in the life of the

Lord Jesus. We thought about Him being baptized at the Jordan and then about Him being in

the region of Caesarea Philippi. And I want to think today of Him being up in the

Highlands, traditionally on Mount Hermann, often called the Mount of the Transfiguration.

Just before the Transfiguration, Jesus said that some of the disciples would not see death before

they saw the Kingdom of God. Or as Matthew puts it, before they saw the Son of Man coming in

his Kingdom, or as Mark puts it, until they saw the Kingdom of God after it had come with power.

And these words are linked by the Gospel writers by our rare time marker. The Transfiguration

took place just a week after Jesus had said this. Perhaps his words include more, something

greater than the Transfiguration, but they surely certainly include the sight that the inner circle

of disciples saw, Peter and James and John. He took them with him and they saw a foretaste

of what was still to come. I imagine many of us have had that odd experience of feeling

that you've a sense of something that's going to happen and then it does happen. I remember

watching a Philadelphia Flyers ice hockey match years ago, when one of their star players

got the puck in his own half and began to make his way towards the opponent's goal. And

from up above where I was seated, I could almost trace in the ice where he would need to weave

his way through the defenders to get there. Now I'm certainly not a nice hockey expert,

but the amazing thing was he did exactly what I envisaged and scored a brilliant goal.

I felt a bit like a chess grandmaster seeing ten moves ahead. And in a way the Transfiguration

was like that. It was a moment that prophesied the future. It was a real, unique, historical

event, but it was also a glimpse of what was to come, a kind of preview of the final glory

of the Lord Jesus. Remember Jesus prayer in John 17 verse 24 that we would be with him

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