Our passage (Matthew 17:1-8) could be describing Jesus being transformed from the ordinary to the divine. Or was Jesus always divine or just enlightened?
As one person said: “Every once and so often, something so touching, so incandescent, so alive transfigures the human face that it’s almost beyond bearing.”
Was this such an example, just like the examples given by others?
In the Gospels, we are at that point between Jesus’ public ministry, amidst his folk in Capernaum, the land of the Gentiles, and his journey towards Jerusalem. His journey started from a land rich in diversity, a mixture of people with roots in Assyria, Israel and also Romans but this is where Jesus started.
On the 6th Day
We heard that it started on the 6th day – in fact it is the only time this occurs in the New Testament. We might have had six days of creation, and Moses spent six days in God’s presence before he had the Word from God: here what we understand as the Transfiguration occurs on that 6th day. Recall that in the Genesis myth, humanity was created on that 6thday, whereafter Jesus starts his divine ministry to the Cross. It’s not like a computer re-boot, is it?
He’s joined by Peter, James and John. What might we have looked for if we had, puffing and panting, had walked up the mountain?
They saw that Jesus had changed materially in front of them. He becomes radiant, his face shines and his clothes are like washed in Daz. They saw Moses and Elijah, the prophets from the past in their midst. They represented what followed on from the Torah: the Law and the Prophets – called the TaNaKh. This was an acronym derived from the names of its three divisions: Torah (Instruction, or Law, also called the Pentateuch), Neviʾim (Prophets), and Ketuvim (Writings). Both Moses and Elijah also had divine encounters on the Mountain. And then that voice, the same voice that had echoed across the Jordan with John the Baptist: “This is my dearly loved son. Listen to him.”
What might be your response to hearing that?
Yes I would be terrified as well. Wouldn’t you? A son of God… that’s only used for Emperors. This was more than a phrase – it had political overtones. The passage also follows the bit where Jesus says ‘He would die and some of his followers might also perish’. But we hear “Don’t be afraid” albeit Moses and Elijah are no more. Where did they go?
This Transfiguration – the word only ever used elsewhere once in Romans 12 and 2 Cor 3 – highlights to this particular band of disciples that if Moses and Elijah were evident, then perhaps resurrection might be ok to believe. These storybook characters were there, in front of them, if not only briefly. The Greek word for departure is exodos. Moses was key to that previous Exodus and his face was radiant upon meeting with God. Moses is the Law. Elijah’s departure from Earth was also notable. Elijah, the prophet, did not die, but rather entered heaven alive “by fire,” “in a whirlwind,” carried away in a chariot of fire. Alongside Enoch, he is the only other biblical character taken bodily into heaven. This passage is known as “Elijah’s departure,”. Could it be interpreted as a prefiguration of Jesus’ own Ascension into Heaven alive, once resurrected?
Here, we have the Law and the Prophet – the TaNaKh with Jesus.
What might we have discussed on the trek down the Mountain? Yes, we might have regretted not getting a selfie with Moses and Elijah, or seeing if Jesus, transfigured, would have been seen in all that glow. The disciples had seen God in the ordinariness of life, when they least expected it. Do we do that as well?
What might it mean?
In our passage from Matthew’s Gospel today, the phrase ‘took up’ the hill can also mean in the original language, sacrificed. Ouch.
What might we take up/sacrifice for God? What might we be willing to sacrifice within our current life for the life beyond this moment? I wonder if Jesus was thinking that as well?
When Jesus had been talking about the Cross and his death, all too much for the disciples ears, he is now trekking down the mountain. It’s like we are journeying with Jesus in life, our life. Jesus, transfigured, divine, is still with us. He’s not taken away, aloof but near, approachable and seeking to be with us at every step on our journey.
Transfiguration was only celebrated in the 4th C in the eastern Church and from the 9th C in the western church. It comes just before Lent. It marks that time when Jesus was known, following Epiphany, and Lent, when Jesus sought the way forward to Jerusalem.
Over to us
It isn’t merely a Christian time of the year. It is a moment when we too can be transformed, like we have heard today, of that revelation of seeing God in the ordinary. When we see, touch, feel, experience the divine nature of God in the mundaneness of our lives. Where God’s light breaks in and reveals something different to us, to take us along that road, our journey of life.
Will we let that light in, so we might see God in all aspects of our life?
Very helpful Bob thanks
Thank you, hope all is well
I found it interesting and I enjoyed it thank you Bob