ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image.” (2 Corinthians 3:18 NLT)
Symbols carry memory and meaning far beyond words. The Church has always leaned on them—sometimes hidden in plain sight, sometimes dismissed or distorted. Yet the most powerful symbols are those that subvert the world’s expectations and draw us back to the radical heart of the Gospel. In this series, we’ll look closer at the sacred signs that shock, unsettle, and ultimately call us deeper into Christ.
Part 20: Halo / Circle. Funny how halos show up in all the wrong ways. One of my favorite examples comes from Mel Brooks’ History of the World, Part I. Brooks plays a fugitive hiding out as a waiter in a Jewish restaurant—only to end up serving the disciples in the Upper Room. After taking their orders and being shushed, Leonardo da Vinci barges in, insisting the scene won’t work unless they’re all seated on the same side of the table. He rearranges them, steps back, shouts “Freeze!”—and in that instant, Brooks is caught holding his serving tray perfectly behind Jesus’ head, forming an accidental halo. It’s absurd, irreverent, perfectly Brooks… and strangely revealing.
Because halos in art were meant to show divine radiance—yet over time, they’ve become props. Decorative. Harmless. A safe symbol that demands nothing and reveals nothing. But nothing in Scripture suggests that divine radiance is safe or sterile. When Jesus is transfigured on the mountain, His face blazes like the sun, His clothes turn white with unfiltered glory, and the disciples collapse in fear. Holiness does not politely glow. Holiness burns. Holiness exposes. Holiness reveals injustice and disrupts every false peace upheld by power.
Michelangelo understood this unsettling quality when he carved Moses with horns. Yes, it came from a mistranslation, but the effect was striking: true holiness is nothing like the sanitized halos we hang above our nativity sets. It is unpredictable, untamed, and always upends the status quo.
But halos also hint at something deeper—the circle. The shape of belonging. The shape of boundaries. The shape of who’s inside and who’s out. Humanity is always drawing circles: worthiness, purity, identity, doctrine, comfort. And the Church has drawn plenty of them too. We have fenced pulpits, fenced communions, fenced holiness itself.
But Jesus keeps redrawing those circles until they break open.
He touches lepers.
Blesses children.
Lifts women.
Eats with outcasts.
Honors Gentiles.
Invites the excluded.
Calls disciples from the margins.
Every circle drawn to keep someone out becomes the very circle Jesus expands.
I think about my friend Mark Miller—composer, justice-seeker, prophetic soul—whose song Draw the Circle Wide has become one of my favorites. Its simplicity is its brilliance. “Draw the circle wide… draw it wider still.” In one line, Mark captures the entire Gospel. God does not shrink circles; God expands them until every person knows they belong.
And yet, halos have often been co-opted by purity politics. Holiness became a behavior to perform, an image to maintain, a glow to admire. Respectability replaced righteousness. The Church began rewarding people who looked holy—those who fit the image—rather than those who lived compassionate, courageous, Christ-shaped lives. But Jesus never once pursued respectability. He never polished His radiance. He never curated His glow. He let His holiness disrupt rather than impress.
Still, the halo’s circular shape whispers a deeper truth. The circle is one of the oldest sacred forms in human history—no beginning, no end. The shape of resurrection. Of covenant. Of completeness. Of shalom. Scripture describes God’s glory in circular imagery: rainbows, wheels within wheels, arcs of light. And Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 3:18 that we are being transformed “from glory to glory”—drawn again and again into divine wholeness. The circle of holiness doesn’t just surround Christ; it gathers us too.
Put everything together and the symbol becomes clear:
Halos are not awards for the flawless.
Circles are not fences for the worthy.
Radiance is not a performance.
Wholeness is not a possession.
Holiness is not about shining above others—
it is about drawing others into the light.
Holiness widens every circle until those once pushed to the margins find themselves at home in its glow. Holiness lifts those the world overlooks. Holiness gathers, restores, and refuses to close.
And maybe that’s the real scandal of the halo: not that it crowns the holy, but that it invites the whole world into God’s radiance.
THOUGHT OF THE DAY
True holiness doesn’t draw circles to keep people out—it draws circles of light to bring people home.PRAYER
Radiant God, draw us into Your transforming light. Break the small circles we cling to and widen our hearts with Your compassion. Make us people who reflect Your glory with courage and welcome. Shape us into a community where all can find their place within Your circle of grace. Amen.
[i] Devotion written by Rev. Todd R. Lattig with the assistance of ChatGPT (OpenAI).
