Matthew 17:22

This is one of three times in the Gospels — the written accounts of Jesus' life — where Jesus directly tells his closest followers that he is going to be handed over to his enemies and killed. 'The Son of Man' was a title Jesus regularly used for himself, drawn from an ancient Hebrew prophecy about a figure who would come with great authority. The setting matters: the disciples had just come down from a mountaintop where they'd witnessed an extraordinary vision of Jesus transfigured in radiant light, flanked by two towering figures from Israel's history. Now, in the ordinary countryside of Galilee — the rural region where most of them had grown up — Jesus says plainly: betrayal is coming. The gap between that mountaintop and this moment is jarring on purpose.

Jesus, you faced betrayal with open eyes and didn't run. When I'm tempted to avoid hard truths about my own life, give me something of that same courage. Meet me in the ordinary days when the mountain feels far away and the valley is close. Amen.

Imagine the whiplash. You've just watched your teacher glow like the sun on a mountain, flanked by Moses and Elijah — two of the most iconic figures in all of Jewish history. You stumble back down, still blinking. And then, in the plain light of an ordinary afternoon in Galilee, he says: someone is going to hand me over to be killed. Jesus doesn't hide what's coming. He doesn't soften it or wait for a better moment when they might be more ready. He walks toward betrayal with his eyes completely open — and he trusts the people he loves enough to tell them the truth. You may not find comfort in every hard thing heading your way. But there's something worth holding onto here: this is a Jesus who faces the worst with clarity rather than denial, who doesn't pretend the valley isn't there just because the mountaintop was real. When the ordinary, unglamorous days come — and they always do after the mountain — he's already there, walking ahead, eyes open.