When I first became a Christian in the early 80's, I was taught that Jesus died on the cross to atone from our sinfulness and only those who accepted Jesus as their savior would be spared God's eternal wrath.  The more I read scripture, prayed and worshiped, the greater the dissonance I experienced between this view of God and the God of love I saw in Jesus. For the past decades I have been wrestling with how to understand, and articulate, an alternative understanding of the Cross of Christ and its role in our salvation. This sermon uses the the Transfiguration story as a starting point for understanding the Crucifixion.