Genesis 12:1-4a; 2 Timothy 1:8-10; Matthew 17:1-9
Just as the Temptations of Our Lord are always to be found on the First Sunday of Lent, so the Transfiguration invariably forms the centrepiece of the Second, before the Gospels go their separate ways in the three year cycle of readings from the Third Sunday of Lent onwards. Why should this be? Why is the Transfiguration considered to be so significant in Lent as to be set before us year after year?
A simple answer is that each of the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) covers the Transfiguration, but that does not explain why it is always regarded as an aspect of Lent. Why does that happen?
Thinking about it, we can see that the Transfiguration looks forward both to Jesus’ Passion and Death, and to His Resurrection. Luke’s Gospel, which we read in Year C, specifically states that Moses and Elijah were speaking with Jesus about His “passing”. Significantly too, the three disciples Peter, James, and John, who witness the Transfiguration are the same three whom Our Lord will take forward with Him to be the closest witnesses of His Agony in Gethsemane. Having witnessed the glory, they must also witness the anguish.
Indeed, we can surmise that those three were chosen to see the Transfiguration in order to prepare them for the Agony. If that is the case, it wasn’t entirely successful. Just as they were overcome by fear at the sight of the transfigured Lord, so also they were overcome by fear at the sight of that same Lord in agony: they couldn’t cope, and took refuge in sleep. Both on the mountain of glory and in the garden of anguish, Jesus must come to them and encourage (put fresh heart into) them, the difference being that in Gethsemane, He has to do it three times.
There, then, is the link between the Transfiguration and the Passion, but where is the connection with the Resurrection? Generally, the Transfiguration is regarded as a foretaste of the Resurrection. At Cana, at the instigation of His mother, Jesus had anticipated His “hour” (ho Kairos) by letting His glory be seen, “glory” being a word which indicates divinity, the presence of God. Now, on Mt. Tabor, the hour is anticipated again, as the cloud covers them with shadow, that cloud from which God spoke to the Israelites in the wilderness, the cloud which both concealed and manifested the glory, and which now does so again: that glory which will be completed by the Resurrection.
“That’s all very well,” you may say, “but how does it concern us?” Perhaps it is a matter of the Transfiguration moments in our own lives, about which I have spoken before. These are the moments of sheer joy, the moments when we realise, perhaps for a fleeting interval, that life is worth living, that—just for now—I am deeply happy.
They may fill us with a consciousness of God’s presence, or they may be, to the outward observer, completely mundane. They may not occur often, but I hope and trust that everyone experiences them at some point. Among the more obvious “God moments” I can recall nipping into Lancaster Cathedral on my way back to work during my dinner hour in 1968. I became overwhelmed by an awareness of Jesus’ presence in the tabernacle. I had always believed in this: now I was conscious of it beyond any possible doubt, and this proved to be one of the key moments in my sense of vocation to the priesthood.
Less obviously God-related, but clearly God-given, were the childhood walks with Mum and Dad on a Wednesday afternoon or evening (Wednesday being half day closing in the shop); times of sheer bliss. Or, perhaps, the most seemingly mundane of all, leaning on a railing close to the River Lune while acting as a marker during a cross country race in my first stint as chaplain to Our Lady’s HS, Lancaster, in 1985, when I found myself reflecting on the sheer joy of my dual role, in the school and in St. Mary’s parish Morecambe, a situation which I knew would not last, but which, at least for the time, I could savour to the full.
I trust that these have indeed been glimpses of the promise of sharing in the Resurrection. Have they helped me to cope with the times in the Garden of the Agony? I trust that they have. Perhaps today you might recall and reflect on your own Transfiguration moments and the effect they have had, and will have, on you. I trust that you have had such moment, and that you will have more.
