Russian novelist Fydor Dostoevsky wrote, "God and the devil are at war in the universe and their battlefield is the human heart." Just after Christ's transfiguration one of these skirmishes is to be seen.

When Jesus was transfigured, the entire mountain shone with the radiance of heaven. Moses was there. So was Elijah. And when Peter found his voice, he said, "Master, it's good that we are here! Let's build!" But Jesus pointed them back down the mountain where they were immediately confronted with a little boy in the awful throes of demonic possession. And it was a messy affair, fraught with convulsions, shrieks, and finally, failure on the disciple's part.  Certainly we'd all prefer the transfigured mountaintop to the complicated valley of human need. Yet Jesus calls us down the mountain…