How a trans man shines bright like a diamond, and other stories. (Listen here.)
What a weird story. Jesus goes up a mountain with a couple of his mates. Then he cracks his neck like a glow stick and lights up, and his friends see him talking to a couple of dead dudes. This story raises about a zillion questions, like, How did Jesus’ face and body light up? What about his clothes? How did the disciples know the other blokes were Moses and Elijah, and why them? What on earth is a ‘bright cloud’? Why were the disciples terrified? Why did Moses and Elijah disappear? And why did Jesus want the experience to be kept secret until after the resurrection?
These are all great questions, but I’m not going to answer any of them today. Instead, I’m going to riff off the song Sia wrote for Rihanna and what it means to see the life in your eyes, so alive, beautiful, like diamonds in the sky; and I’m going to tell you about a friend of mine who is radiantly alive. But first, I need to do some groundwork.
Some preachers say Jesus lit up just because he was divine. I can’t agree. If this was true, he would have born as an orb of light and been done with it. And if we read our Bibles more widely, we discover that Jesus is not the only one who shines bright like a diamond. In Luke’s version of this story, Elijah and Moses light up, too. And in Exodus 34, we are told that after Moses had a chat with God, his face shone. In fact, because he hung out with God so often, Moses took to wearing a veil to shield people from the brightness. I hope I don’t need to say that neither Moses nor Elijah was divine.
In any case, earlier in Matthew’s story we find Jesus announcing that, after all the rubbish has been sifted out, ‘the righteous shall shine like the stars in the kingdom of their father.’ (Matthew 13:43). And before that, he compares us to city lights and table lamps, and tells us to let our light shine before others (Matthew 5:16). In other words, all who enter into the kingdom of heaven in this life and in the life to come will shine bright, like diamonds in the sky!
And maybe you’ve seen it from time to time: someone who is so radiantly alive that they seem to glow. And maybe you’ve experienced this sense of glowing yourself. Because what happens to Jesus on the mountaintop is not unique. Instead, I suggest it’s a revelation of what it means to be a human person radiantly alive in God.
To the people who wrote what we call the Bible, humanity is wounded and scarred, complex and messy, yes, but it’s also beautiful, glorious, wonderful. We are made in God’s image in all of God’s kaleidoscopic glory, but that glory can get pretty muddied. So Jesus became human in order to clean us up and fully unite us with God: but he never got rid of our humanity. Instead, our humanity is transfigured, or changed.
Our faith tells us that Jesus enters the world as a baby requiring constant burping and nappy changes and care. He becomes a boy who is told off by his mother for wandering away from the group on a family holiday. He grows up into a teacher and healer who amazes and enrages people through his work. Some become so angry that he is arrested on trumped-up charges, tried, sentenced, mocked and humiliated (which is code for raped). Then he is executed by the state.
After three days in the tomb which is also a womb, he blasts out into the world in new and different form. It takes a lot for his disciples to recognise him. In each encounter, they need some combination of teaching, breaking bread, blessing, breathing peace, showing scars and commissioning for them to see him as he truly is: the Christ, the life in his eyes, so alive. Yet at no stage has he lost his humanity: it is part and parcel of who Jesus is, was, and becomes. He is both fully human, and fully divine.
This is the paradox at the heart of our faith: to see Jesus’ divinity, you must pay attention to his humanity, and this means paying attention to his suffering, persecution and death. To truly see the light in his eyes, you need to see the light go out for a time.
And so transfiguration is crucifixion’s twin, indeed the stories parallel each other. On the mountain, we see Jesus in glory; on the cross, he is revealed in brokenness. On the mountain, his clothes are shining white; on the cross, his clothes have been stripped away. On the mountain, Jesus stands between Moses and Elijah, the law and the prophets; on the cross, he hangs between two violent criminals, two outlaws.
On the mountain, we see the bright cloud of God’s presence; on the cross, it’s the dark cloud of God’s absence. On the mountain, Peter wants to build a visible monument; near the cross, Peter denies that he knows Jesus and hides away in shame. On the mountain, a divine voice claims Jesus as the beloved son; beside the cross, a pagan soldier declares that this man is God’s son, indeed. These stories are twins, echoing each other, meant to be heard together. For behind transfiguration lies the shadow of the cross, and beyond the cross lies glory.
This is all very well, but by now you’re probably going, ‘Nice bit of literary analysis there, Alison, but so what??’ So I would like to give you an icon, if you like, of these stories, which I hope will reveal their power in an ordinary human life. To be clear, an icon is not an idol; it’s not a thing to be worshipped. It’s just a little image, a picture, an insight into a glimpse of God.
My icon’s name is Wenn. Wenn is a friend of mine, a trans man, and he has the most beautiful radiant faith. Wenn’s the guy I call when things are falling apart, because I know he’ll pray for me. He’ll tell me that God knows our cares and is working things out, and that I just need to wait on God’s sweet time. I have never known someone who trusts God quite so completely and so easily. Nor have I ever known someone with such a capacity for forgiveness. I have never heard Wenn be unkind, not even about the people who have hurt him immensely.
Wenn has maintained his faith through times of trial, and his life hasn’t been easy. He’s a trans elder. This means he has lived through a period of history when being trans was intensely difficult. He’s been faithful through enforced hospitalisation, and through multiple attempts to change him by psychiatrists and by the exodus program. Thanks to the courageous witness of Wenn and many others, these attempts are now illegal in Victoria, because we have come to understand how harmful it is to demand a person be someone and something they’re not.
Wenn has been faithful even when another church rejected who he is, withheld communion and showed him the door. He has been faithful through many decades outside the church with neither pastor nor Christian community. And he continues to be faithful now that he has found a church which cherishes him and his wife.
For a very long time, Wenn tried to be what he is not. He married and had kids: but, as hard as he tried, this relationship was not for him. At first, he thought he was gay, but that never really felt quite right. Eventually, he came to realise that he is trans. He came out of the shadows, transitioning socially, chemically then surgically. So he is different to how he was before. His name has changed, and so have his pronouns. He is bulkier, with wider shoulders. His face and jawline are more defined; he has a beard now. And yes, he has both physical and emotional scars.
He’s changed, yet he is still the same person. And like Jesus, Wenn has known the depths of human suffering. Like Jesus, he has been persecuted, rejected, mocked. Like Jesus, some parts of Wenn have been put to death: parts of his body, parts of his name, parts of his presumed social role. Like Jesus, Wenn has been resurrected into a newness that is a continuation of the old, yet looks a little different.
And Wenn is now radiantly alive. Whenever he talks about faith or prays with you, he glows. A trans man living in the presence of God, he has known deeply the metaphor of the cross. And yet or maybe because of this, he shines beautiful, like a diamond in the sky. And through his extensive writing and public speaking, through his activism, his research, his teaching and his compassion, like the resurrected Jesus Wenn shows his scars and breathes peace everywhere he goes; his very life is a blessing.
As we continue to be transfigured by our encounters with God, may every one of us shine bright like a diamond, like Wenn, like Moses, like Jesus. Amen. Ω
Where & when: Wurundjeri country, Biderap (Dry Season). This week, several MUC-ers reported snakes in their gardens; indeed, it is the season of reptilian activity!
Reflecting on Matthew 17:1-9 with Manningham Uniting Church, 15 February 2026 (Transfiguration Year A) © Alison Sampson, 2026. Wenn has written and spoken publicly about his experiences including in Wenn. B Lawson Transitioning Together (London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2017) (https://www.silvereye.com.au/transitioning-together/prod6392), and yes, of course I talked with with Wenn this week and he very graciously gave me permission to share his stories. Learn more about Wenn here. ‘cracked his neck like a glow stick’ is stolen from a post by Father Nathan Monk found here. Photo by Lena Balk on Unsplash.
Alison and the whale 