Transfiguration of the Lord 2023
Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14; 2Peter 1:16-19; Matthew 17:1-9
“This is my Son, the Beloved. He enjoys my favour. Listen to Him.” Where have we heard something like this before? Yes! Spot on! It closely resembles the Father’s endorsement of the Son at the latter’s baptism, the beginning of His earthly mission.
Why is it, effectively, repeated now? This is a new beginning, the beginning of the end which shall itself be a beginning. From this point onwards, Jesus is focused on His forthcoming passion and death, which will in turn bear fruit in His resurrection. As He, and the three who form His inner circle, are descending the mountain, Our Lord refers to His resurrection from the dead: soon, He will go on to provide the Twelve with the second prophecy of His passion.
Winston Churchill described the Battle of El Alamein as “the end of the beginning” of the Second World War. We might say the same of the Transfiguration in the context of Our Lord’s life and mission. It is a powerful and positive event, closing one stage in His life, and carrying the seeds of what lies ahead.
The Transfiguration unfolds in a manner which must have bewildered Peter, James and John. Firstly, they see Jesus in His glory, as something of His divinity is revealed to them. Then, two seminal figures from Israel’s past appear: Moses, representing the Law, and Elijah who represents the Prophets. Thus they find themselves in the presence of the great ones of their history and their destiny: no wonder Peter wants them to capture the moment, to enable them to remain in it. Have there been wonderful experiences in your life, which you wanted to capture and retain?
This awe-inspiring incident is to become more wonderful yet, as they are enwrapped in the Shekinah, the bright cloud which is the presence of God’s glory, and they hear the very voice of God. Now terror seizes them, as terror seized Abraham as he encountered the God of the covenant. Another question arises for you and me to ponder: have you known times of fear and awe, when you sensed that you were in a special moment; in the presence of something or someone beyond the humdrum experiences of every day? One of the gifts of the Holy Spirit is “wonder and awe” also described as “fear of the Lord”, so it is far from impossible that you should have experienced those times of dread which are also times of joy.
They pass, these moments, for us, as they passed for the apostles. What do they leave behind? Anticlimax, puzzlement, or a lasting and recurring joy because we have known them? Do they sustain us in darker times, or do we forget them, fail to trust in their return? What part do faith and hope play when our Transfiguration moments pass?
For Peter, James and John there has to be a re-assessment of all that they have known so far, of all that they have understood of their faith. Moses and Elijah are gone: in their place, the voice of God calls them to listen to Jesus. Could they grasp the significance of this, namely that the Law and the Prophets are fulfilled in and by Jesus, that it is on Him that they must now focus, in Him that they must now trust?
As they seek to understand, they must head back down the mountain into the valley of every day, before they will see Jesus in a very different light. These three who have witnessed the Transfiguration will also witness the Agony in the Garden, when the transfigured Jesus will be seen as the anguished Jesus, the Jesus who cries out to the Father who has spoken to them, the Jesus whose sweat will fall like drops of blood.
At that time, the strength, the confidence, the comfort which they might have drawn from the Transfiguration will fail them, and they will take refuge in sleep, later to take to their heels. Did something linger though, enabling Peter and John to follow their captive Lord into the High Priest’s palace? If so, Peter’s nerve would soon fail him again.
All of which brings us to the weekly question: what about us? Do we have our own Transfiguration moments when joy fills us, when God seems very close? Do they sustain us when we return to the valley of every day, and when we are led into the Garden of the Agony? If they fail us, then let us remember something else, that Gethsemane and Calvary led ultimately to the empty tomb, and to the glory which the Transfiguration, and our Transfiguration moments, prefigure.
