There’s nothing quite so exasperating as a puzzle with a missing piece. At least that’s the way puzzle enthusiasts feel. Most others generally regard avid puzzlers as slightly deranged and are not at all sympathetic to the missing piece problem.

But it is a problem because there’s no way to know that a piece is missing until the very end. Unless you count all the pieces beforehand. And who does that? Rarely would even a dedicated puzzler bother, especially for a 500 or 1000 piece picture.

So there you are. A picture that is 99% complete but missing one or two pieces. Sure you can still match it up to the box cover. But there’s no feeling of satisfaction. It’s an unfinished symphony that begs a resolution.

Jesus took the Rock and the Sons of Thunder up the mountain to pray. Peter, James and John felt honored to accompany their teacher. Jesus often prayed in solitude; climbing into high territory, entering into God-space wrapped in his prayer shawl, his head respectfully covered.

On the mountaintop they arranged themselves among the stones, finding comfortable places to pray. Perhaps it was the effort of the climb, or the recent increase of desperate people needing healing, cleansing, or to have demons cast out, but they were weary. Their eyelids grew heavy.

They never found adequate words for what happened next. Jesus, in crackling light. All desire for sleep gone. Hearts pounding, they saw that Jesus was not alone. With him were two others.

It came to Peter, James, and John that these were Moses and Elijah. Not by their appearance, but because of the conversation they were having with Jesus. About his exodus. Recalling Israel’s departure from captivity, and the freedom found in God. Who else would say such things?

It was as if the ground itself began to tremble under the disciples. They needed to tether this moment, and themselves to something firmer. Thinking quickly, desperately, Peter thought of the huts they built and occupied each year to recall their ancestors’ desert journey with God. It seemed appropriate enough. We can build you each a hut, he began to say.

But suddenly the air thickened around them, like a cloud, but somehow weighty. Marooning each one within a bright cell. And then a voice, resonant, deliberate, authoritative, mighty. The sound of God. The disciples did not need ears to hear. The words came into their minds: This is my son whom I have chosen, listen to him.

Then the mist rose. Jesus stood near them, alone. What on earth had happened? They left the mountain without speaking further.

For the disciples, Jesus was a puzzle with many pieces. Following Jesus was a matter of slowly assembling the puzzle. Cleansing people through baptism. Learning how God’s law is rightly kept, and how it is tragically broken. Feeding desperately hungry people with bread and fish; giving cool water to the parched. Healing. Defying demons – especially the human kind.

They were building, bit by bit, an unexpected image. They were expecting to see the image of Israel’s longed-for righteous ruler. The very picture of the Messiah as illuminated in the scriptures. Gold-edged and suitable for framing and treasuring.

The disciples had come a long way in understanding Jesus. While they were content to continue following, learning, and practicing, Jesus said he would not be around much longer. All they had was now. Yet the puzzle of Jesus was still disturbingly incomplete.

On the mountain, three disciples were given a key missing piece of the puzzle. It was, on one level, disclosing the full identity of Jesus. Beloved, son, God-with-us.

On another level it was the unveiling of all created-ness itself. Moses and Elijah, Jesus and the disciples, all together in a moment. Dissolving fixed notions of relativity. Rearranging molecules, atoms, particles. Revealing the continuity and inter-relationship of everything.

Mystics know these things. They also know that to try to describe them to anyone blind to everything but what is here and now is an exercise in futility. No human language is flexible or inspired enough to fully convey what the mystic sees and hears.

Arguably, human sin is a matter of shortsightedness. Of being unable to see the whole picture. Deciding that there is no greater or better image than what we see with our eyes or make with our hands or tools. Buying into the rhetoric that this is all there is of life. We must get what we can out of it. Thinking that the end always justifies the means. Being unmoved when one’s actions cause injury to others.

Jesus protested against it all. He did it intentionally and relentlessly. Moving people and changing hearts. Showing that justice enacted in love is the whole of the commandments, and necessary to counter evil. Taking disciples beyond their limitations. Teaching them to live fearlessly and to hope endlessly.

The three disciples had their minds – some would even argue their brains – altered. In the moment they saw and comprehended everything that Jesus represented, and the whole truth of what he taught. The blessed and beautiful swirling interplay of every single thing.

This experience would leave the disciples breathless and aching for more. It would shape them for the rest of their lives. Their story is in three of the four gospels. It is that important in shaping Christian faith and our commitment to a vision of interrelatedness right down to our particles. Meaning that to care about our neighbors is to care about all creation – every blessed piece.

We may never know the mystic’s full vision or have a mystical experience, but we can listen to what they say about it. And following Jesus should alter us too. Putting before us an image so unimaginably beautiful that we will accept nothing lesser, and will commit ourselves to helping others see its glory too.