A New Face
Summary
It is quite possible to know a number of things about someone without knowing that person at all. Then we may have a new insight about someone. Peter, James and John certainly had such an enlightening in their mountaintop experience with Jesus. But these three apostles were not the only ones invited to a mountaintop experience of Jesus. We too, are invited and those who accept find a new face on the Jesus they thought they knew.
Have you ever thought that you really knew someone well? And then, perhaps to your own embarrassment or better yet, to your wonderful surprise, you discover something about that person that far exceeds your expectations. Through one experience or another, you discover that you really only knew that person on the surface. Now you see into the beauty that makes that person who he or she really is. We hear of people, and perhaps you are one of them, who become the best of friends with someone they previously did not like at all. When this happens, we are able to put a new face on a person whom we mistakenly thought we already recognized.
Husbands and wives who have grown in love often marvel at how little they really knew of each other when they married and went off into life together. Sometimes a man and woman planning to marry, and having been together for a year or two, tell their pastor they know “everything” about each other. The pastor can only let them find out the reality in time. Knowing things about someone is not the same thing as knowing the person.
Some new insights come gradually. Some happen rather quickly as the result of a memorable experience. But even these instant insights need an ongoing growth in the relationship to really take hold and make a difference. Peter, James and John did not come down from the mountain with nothing more to learn about Jesus. Far from it, they had to continue to
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