Lesson 50: The Glory Below (Luke 9:37-45)

Jesus’s ministry was full of both beauty and mystery. The fact that He was Lord over all creation and could see into each and every soul, correctly assessing the motives of anyone He interacted with, and direct people in a certain way even though their understanding of His words were sometimes destined to be lost on them, lends to the mystery that sometimes surrounded His work. He is seen in this account healing a man while calling the people present part of a twisted generation and then calling for the attention of disciples that had His words concealed from them. What must be understood is that Jesus had an understanding of reality that nobody else had, and though he had shared the transfiguration experience with Peter, James, and John just a short time before, they and others were still struggling to really grasp this “new” reality and what it meant for ministry to the suffering while not on their “mountain-top” experience. Pastor Daniel emphasizes that the key point of this text is that “God’s majesty is not only revealed on the mountaintop; God’s glory is also revealed in the transformed lives of people who have been shattered and then restored.”

Summary by Seth Kempf, Bethany Community Church Staff