Jesus, today we celebrate your transfiguration.

You remind us that you are powerful and holy.

We cannot completely understand you,

but you do teach us that you are our God and you love us.

We praise you, holy Lord!

We glorify you, almighty King!

We exalt you, Son of God!

Thank you for showing us who you are.

In your name we pray. Amen.

Triune God of glory,

we marvel at the splendor

and majesty of Jesus,

whom saints and angels,

priests and prophets worship as Lord.

We marvel that this Lord

set his face toward Jerusalem

and chose the way of suffering and death.

We marvel that this way

of suffering and death

would become, for us,

the way of life and hope.

Oh, the depths of the riches

of the wisdom and knowledge of God!

How marvelous are your ways, O Lord,

surpassing all human understanding.

2 In splendor and majesty

your Word was revealed,

the hope of Israel,

transfigured in glory.

In splendor and majesty

he set his face toward Jerusalem,

choosing the way of suffering and death

that would be majestically transfigured

into the way of life and hope.

Brian Wren (b. 1936) is English by birth, American by choice, Reformed by Tradition, Presbyterian by membership, United Methodist by marriage and Emeritus Professor of Worship, Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, Georgia. He is a writer, preacher, worship leader and designer, and internationally published hymn-poet, with entries in most recent denominational hymnals in North America, Britain and Australia. Some of his hymn poems have been translated into Finnish, French, Japanese, Mandarin, Spanish and Korean.

Cyril V. Taylor (b. Wigan, Lancashire, England, 1907; d. Petersfield, England, 1992) was a chorister at Magdalen College School, Oxford, and studied at Christ Church, Oxford, and Westcott House, Cambridge. Ordained a priest in the Church of England in 1932, he served the church as both pastor and musician. His positions included being a producer in the religious broadcasting department of the BBC (1939­1953), chaplain of the Royal School of Church Music (1953-1958), vicar of Cerne Abbas in Dorsetshire (1958-1969), and precentor of Salisbury Cathedral (1969-1975). He contributed twenty hymn tunes to the BBC Hymn Book (1951), which he edited, and other tunes to the Methodist Hymns and Psalms (1983). He also edited 100 Hymns for Today (1969) and More Hymns for Today (1980). Writer of the booklet Hymns for Today Discussed (1984), Taylor was chairman of the Hymn Society of Great Britain and Ireland from 1975 to 1980.