Our series during Ordinary time will explore the revelation of God’s Kingdom through his Son. We will look specifically how the incarnation—the ministry, passion, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ—reveals the long-promised Kingdom of God breaking into human history demonstrating God’s love, destroying the powers that ravaged creation, and displaying the Messiah’s promise (to continue reading this essay, click on image above).
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YOUR KINGDOM COME
Pastoral Resources | 2025-26 Themes At-A-Glance
Week 42 — Harvest: The Messiah’s Transfiguration: The Kingdom’s Glory Revealed, Mark 9:2-10; 2 Peter 1:16-18
The Transfiguration is the moment God revealed the Messiah-King’s hidden glory, divinely certifying that Jesus of Nazareth is the true Sovereign of the Kingdom to come. Now through His manifestation on the mount, the Father’s own direct witness confirms everything the Gospel claims about Christ’s identity and His coming reign, a confirmation that rests on the eyewitness testimony of the apostles, not imaginary or invented accounts. We must allow our lives and ministries to proclaim a Messiah-King whose glory was seen and sworn to, which grounds our promise, hope, and preaching in credible eyewitness authority rather than religious sentiment and steadies us as disciples as we follow Him holding to the certainty of the Kingdom that is to come in fullness.
Invocation
Father of glory, we ascend in spirit to Your holy mountain, longing to behold the unveiled splendor of Your beloved Son and our Messiah-King, Jesus of Nazareth. Open our eyes to see Him, to rise above fable and fear, stilling lesser voices that would distract us from Him. Holy Spirit, let Your certifying Word settle upon us afresh — This is My beloved Son: hear Him — that we may listen, and worship the Father through Christ alone. Amen.
Gloria Patri
Glory be to the Father,
And to the Son and to the Holy Spirit:
As it was in the beginning,
Is now, and ever shall be,
World without end. Amen, amen.
Chronological Scripture Readings for Today
These Scriptures allow us to read through the entire Bible in one year in chronological order.
Sunday: John 8.21-59; Luke 10.1-11.13
Lectionary Readings for Today
Our readings from the Psalms, the Old Testament, the Gospels and the Epistles are taken from the Revised Common Lectionary for this week.
Psalm: Psalm 103:1-13
Old Testament (or Acts [during Eastertide]): Genesis 50:15-21
Gospel: Matt. 18:21-35
New Testament: Romans 14:1-12
Click here for all of this week’s Scripture readings
Psalms and Proverb for Today
These Scriptures allow us to read through the Psalms and Proverbs each month.
Sunday: Psalm 13, 43, 73, 103, 133 and Proverbs 13
The Unveiled Glory of the King, God’s Beloved Son, Mark 9:2–10; Matthew 17:1–2; 2 Peter 1:16–18
On the holy mountain the veiled glory of the incarnate Messiah broke forth in visible splendor before three chosen witnesses, Peter, James, and John, and that same event — later confessed by Peter not as “cunningly devised fables” but as the testimony of “eyewitnesses of His majesty” — stands as the Father-attested and certified unveiling of glory of King Jesus of Nazareth. The Transfiguration offers us a clear and definitive prophetic preview of His identity as God’s Chosen Heir and of His Kingdom’s coming glory.
Reflection
In His Transfiguration, Jesus of Nazareth unveiled the veiled glory of Himself as the incarnate King, certifying before chosen witnesses that He indeed is God’s beloved Son and rightful Heir. The Father’s own voice authorized Him as the One to whom we should listen, and the key figures of both the Law (Moses) and Prophets (Elijah) discussed the importance of His exodon (departure) through the Cross. Therefore, let us cling to our faith as followers of Jesus in the attested glory of the apostles and the Father, ordering our whole lives according to His Story beneath His supreme authority.
Engaging God’s Word Today
When the glory faded and “Jesus only” remained, the disciples were left with the Son alone and the Father’s charge to listen to Him. So today, in your own life, where are lesser stories, voices, monuments, or memories competing with the simple command to listen to and follow Christ, above all other stories?
Nicene Creed
We believe in one God, The Father Almighty,
Maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible.
We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Begotten Son of God,
Begotten of the Father before all ages,
God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God,
Begotten not created, of the same essence as the Father,
through Whom all things were made.
Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven
and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary and became human.
Who for us too, was crucified under Pontius Pilate, suffered and was buried.
The third day He rose again according to the Scriptures, ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and His kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and life-giver,
Who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
Who together with the Father and Son is worshiped and glorified.
Who spoke by the prophets.
We believe in one holy, catholic, and apostolic church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sin,
and we look for the resurrection of the dead
and the life of the age to come. Amen.
The Lord’s Prayer
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory for ever. Amen.
Doxology
Praise God from whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him all creatures here below;
Praise Him above ye heavenly host;
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen.
Benediction
Father, thank You for the revelation of Jesus of Nazareth as Your beloved Son, the one to whom we should hear. Let me go forth from this time with you today affirming the apostles’ eyewitness testimony of His majesty, assured that the King whose glory once blazed in their presence shall come again on this earth in that same glory and splendor. May the Father who named Him beloved name us as His own; may the Son Jesus Christ be our guide and master, and may His coming glory steady every step we take in life until we behold Him face to face in the Kingdom to come. Amen.
Scripture Memory for this season
1 Peter 2:9-10, The Church as Visible Sign: Locus and Agent of the Kingdom
9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
Scripture Engagement
As disciples of Jesus, the Churches of Christ the King strongly seek to engage the Scriptures to discover the centrality of Christ and his Kingdom in the prophetic and apostolic writings. You will find a rich treasure of resources on engaging Scripture at the Center for Scripture Engagement of Taylor University.
Books We Are Reading this Church Year, and When
• The Most Amazing Story Ever Told, Dr. Don Davis (during season of Advent)
• Get Your Pretense On, Dr. Don Davis (during season of Christmas)
• Destined for the Throne, Paul Billheimer (during season of Epiphany)
• The Presence of the Future, George Eldon Ladd (during seasons of Lent, Holy Week, Easter and Ascension)
• Who Gets to Narrate the World?, Robert E. Webber (during seasons of the Coming of the Holy Spirit, and Headship)
• Kingdom, Church and World: Biblical Themes for Today, Howard Snyder (during season of Harvest)
• The Gospel of the Kingdom, George Eldon Ladd (during the seasons of Hope and Remembering the Saints, Exalting the King)
Book Reading Reflection: Kingdom, Church and World: Biblical Themes for Today
In Jesus Christ peace becomes not only visible; it becomes specific. Watching Jesus, we see what peace really means: Martha and Mary, John and the disciples, blind Bartimaeus, Zacchaeus, and Cyrus. Clearly, peace is relational. It is always a pattern of peace with, or peace between, or peace among, as these examples show. Since the Bible sees the world ecologically, with all aspects of creation linked to all others, peace in the kingdom sense necessarily reaches to the “harmonizing” of every reality and relationship under God’s authority.
The peace passages in the New Testament underscore this concreteness. In Ephesians 2, Paul says Jesus has destroyed the “dividing wall of hostility” between Jew and Gentile. Peace here is specific: Jesus creates a new reconciled community where Jews and Gentiles meet as sisters and brothers in one new peaceable family. Throughout his writings Paul carefully notes that it is not just the Jew-Gentile hostility but all hostility, which has been overcome by Jesus. So now “there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). This is the great practical application of peace in the New Testament, the key link between kingdom and church. The kingdom breaks in now through a community of believers where peace is the trademark. In God’s kingdom plan peace is both the final goal of the kingdom and the present experience of the community of Jesus’s disciples.
Jesus is the key. He has brought peace between God and humankind. He reconciles through life, death, and resurrection. “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1). Through repentance and faith, men and women are born again into a restored fellowship with God and with sisters and brothers in Christ. Having been reconciled, they are called to work out and live a life of peace. They are to be a reconciled and reconciling fellowship.
~ Snyder, Howard. Kingdom, Church, and World: Biblical Themes for Today. Wipf and Stock Publishers, Eugene, OR: 2001. Electronic Edition. Location 21-22.
On Eagles Wings Prayer Focus: A Long Time Comin‘
The Messiah’s Call to Discipleship: The Kingdom’s Demands (rich young ruler), Mark 10:17-27, Luke 18:18-30
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