Why the Transfiguration Matters — Bible Reflection for Monday, November 17

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Matthew 17:1-13

The Transfiguration

     ¹After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves.² There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. ³ Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus.

     ⁴ Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.”

     ⁵ While he was still speaking, a bright cloud covered them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!”

     ⁶ When the disciples heard this, they fell facedown to the ground, terrified. ⁷ But Jesus came and touched them. “Get up,” he said. “Don’t be afraid.” ⁸ When they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus.

     ⁹ As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus instructed them, “Don’t tell anyone what you have seen, until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”

     ¹⁰ The disciples asked him, “Why then do the teachers of the law say that Elijah must come first?”

     ¹¹ Jesus replied, “To be sure, Elijah comes and will restore all things. ¹² But I tell you, Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but have done to him everything they wished. In the same way the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands.” ¹³ Then the disciples understood that he was talking to them about John the Baptist.

At their meeting last week, the members of our board of deacons were discussing an article they had read by the journalist David Brooks. Brooks was describing his journey of faith from his roots in a Jewish family to his current life as a ‘Jewish follower of Jesus.’ It was interesting to note that his journey of faith has included a number of what we might call “numinous” events. That’s to say events that have a kind of supernatural character. Or at least that feel that way.

A surprising number of Americans say that they’ve had experiences that seemed to fall into the supernatural category. I say “a surprising number” because more Americans acknowledge these supernatural experiences than call themselves ‘religious.’ I suppose that’s why so many of us designate themselves as “spiritual but not religious.”

The deacons’ discussion reminded me of a lecture I once heard in which a respected New Testament scholar said he had written an article about people’s supernatural experiences. He said that once the article was published, people from all over the country started getting in touch to tell him about experiences they’d had. And lots of them were active church members who said they didn’t tell anyone about their experiences because they were afraid others would think they were “crazy.”

So think about what that suggests – that people in our time are more open to the idea of supernatural experiences than people of the past, but that practicing Christians think that their reports of these experiences will be regarded with suspicion by other believers.

I suppose the connection to today’s reading might be apparent. The reading is Matthew’s account of the Transfiguration, a story in which the disciples were confronted with the fact that Jesus was (and still is) more than just a carpenter and a provincial rabbi. He’s a supernatural being. So the transfiguration is a story about God revealing to humankind the true supernatural nature of Jesus.

One of our Reflections for last week was the story in which Peter became the first disciple to say that Jesus was the Messiah. Then Jesus had told them what His role as the Messiah entailed – he would be killed on the orders of the Hebrew religious leadership and raised from the dead. Jesus also told the disciples that those of us who follow him need to be willing to lose our lives, too.

In the transfiguration, God revealed to three core disciples that Jesus is a supernatural being who is the fulfillment of “the law and the prophets.” (That phrase generally means the history of God’s relationship with the Hebrew people as it’s reported in the Old Testament.) So Jesus was revealed as more than just the revolutionary patriotic leader the Hebrew people had come to expect. He was shown to be a figure from another realm who was here to establish a new relationship between God and humankind.

In the story, Jesus is identified as the beloved Son of God, with the authority to speak for him. And we’re commanded to listen to Jesus. That means more than just being quiet when he speaks; it means actually doing what he says.

We’ve pointed out in the past that the Gospel of Matthew is understood to have been compiled for Jewish readers, to explain to them how Jesus connects with their history and traditions. This passage is a good example. Matthew shows us the theological images and symbols in the story. It takes place on a mountaintop, where God often chose to meet the Hebrew people. And the mysterious cloud that appears around Jesus and the disciples reminds us that God would often speak out of a cloud during his encounters with Moses and other Hebrew leaders.

And of course, the appearance of Moses and Elijah in the story is significant, too. Moses was the one through whom God communicated the Law. And Elijah was considered to represent all the prophets in the history of the Hebrews. So those two figures symbolized the law and the prophets Jesus said he had come to fulfill. Of course, there was a prophesy that Elijah would return to announce the coming of the day of the Lord. And when John the Baptist appeared, he showed up wearing the same strange clothes and eating the same odd diet as Elijah – all of which probably tells us why Jesus connects John the Baptist with Elijah in this reading.

The bright glow that comes from Jesus in the story was understood by the Jews to be a manifestation of God’s glory on earth. They called this bright light the ‘shekinah.’ So by showing Jesus glowing with this light, God was showing the disciples that Jesus wasn’t just another insightful rabbi – he actually shared God’s divine nature.

The story of the transfiguration has a lot of important symbols in it. But when you have a story in the Bible in which God speaks, the most important thing to pay attention to is what God actually says. All the bright light and historical figures tend to distract us from the message God is communicating in the story. And that message is that Jesus is his Son and we’re commanded to do what he says. So if you forget everything else about the Transfiguration but that, at least you’ll remember the most important thing in the story.

Let’s pray. Lord, we thank you for what you revealed to us at the Transfiguration, and for coming into the world with the holy power and mystery that was revealed that day. Help us always to remember that Jesus was and is a divine being – a part of the Trinity who came into the world to teach us things that we are meant to hear – and to obey. Amen.

Every Blessing,

Henry