Transfiguration Sunday, 2022

 Each of the synoptic gospels records Jesus’s experience of transfiguration on the mountain with Peter, James, and John. Each has a different spin on the experience. Mark’s gospel indicates it was for the benefit of the three disciples. Luke’s gospel (this year’s lectionary gospel) indicates the experience was for Jesus’s benefit. Of course, the experience was for all involved, Jesus and the three disciples … and us.

Jesus had taken the disciples north of the Sea of Galilee into the region of Caesarea Philippi so that he might teach them without the distraction of the ever-present crowds. From there, he journeyed to Jerusalem, knowing what would happen to him there. It was at Caesarea Philippi that the disciples, for the first time, acknowledged to Jesus that they believed he was the messiah. Affirming their understanding, he began to teach them about what he would experience in Jerusalem at the Passover celebration: suffering, rejection, death, and resurrection. Of course, they could not understand, much less embrace, what he was teaching them. What he described was outside the realm of their understanding of the messiah. In their minds, following the world’s way of thinking, the messiah would be a warrior king like David, defeating their enemies and reestablishing the nation as a dominant world power. Naturally, they resisted what he was teaching them.

“About eight days after these sayings” at Caesarea Philippi (Luke 9:28), Jesus took Peter, James, and John with him to a mountain to pray. There, on that mountain retreat, Jesus was transfigured before the three disciples. “And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white” (Luke 9:29). They saw Jesus fully immersed in the glory of the spiritual realm. It was as though the veil that separates the physical and spiritual realms was pulled aside so that they could see the reality of the spiritual realm that infuses the physical. They saw Moses and Elijah with Jesus, talking with him.  

Luke alone identified what Moses and Elijah were discussing with Jesus. “They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem” (Luke 9:31). They were talking with him about his death. The experience was for Jesus’s benefit. Moses and Elijah were there to support Jesus as he grappled with the death that awaited him in Jerusalem. Their presence is a metaphor for the Hebrew Scriptures, commonly known as the Law and the Prophets. Moses represented the Law; Elijah, the prophets. The teaching of scripture validated Jesus’s understanding of the suffering he faced. In addition, the spiritual realm in whose light he was bathed validated his understanding. The ways of God were the ways of self-giving love, the ways of the servant. In his death, as in his ministry, Jesus went against the thinking of the world, challenging the ways of the world. He rejected us-them thinking that used power over others for personal benefit. He embraced the servant ways of God. As he set his face toward Jerusalem (Luke 9:51), he drew strength from these two resources — the teachings of scripture, his personal relationship with God as Father. He would draw on them again when he prayed in Gethsemane just before his arrest.

The transfiguration experience was not just for Jesus. It was also for the three disciples. A cloud overshadowed them and a voice spoke to them from the cloud. The cloud was a metaphor for God. God spoke to them, affirming their understanding that Jesus was indeed the messiah. “This is my Son, my Chosen” (Luke 9:35). The words are from the psalm used in the coronation of a new king, Psalm 2. Then the voice commanded them to listen to what Jesus was teaching them about his death. “Listen to him!” (Luke 9:35). The same two resources Jesus drew on for strength — scripture, a personal experience of God through prayer — called them to embrace the different way of thinking Jesus was teaching them.

The transfiguration experience is for our benefit, as well. It calls us to move beyond the way the world trained us to think: us-them, better than-less than, power over the other for personal benefit at the other’s expense. It calls us to learn from Jesus the grace-based, servant ways of God. It calls us to quit resisting what Jesus taught. The transfiguration experience reminds us that the Spirit guides our understanding of the scriptures so that we see in them the ways of God that Jesus taught. It reminds us to cultivate, through prayer, our own personal experience of God and of the Spirit’s presence in our lives. The transfiguration experience calls us to prayerfully seek God with an open, teachable spirit rather than stubbornly holding to the way the world trained us to think and live. Just as Jesus grappled with his impending death, the transfiguration experience calls us to grapple with our own death — death to our ego-centric, merit-oriented self that the world created. The transfiguration calls us to find our true identity in Christ as we embrace the servant ways of God he taught.