Mountain Top Encounters—Lectionary Reflection for Transfiguration Sunday (Matthew 17)

Matthew 17:1-9 New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

17 Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. ² And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became bright as light. ³ Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. ⁴ Then Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will set up three tents here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” ⁵ While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” ⁶ When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. ⁷ But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.” ⁸ And when they raised their eyes, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone.

⁹ As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, “Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”

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                As we saw in the first reading for Transfiguration Sunday from Exodus 24:12-18, divine encounters tend to take place on mountain tops. There’s something about being in spaces where the air is thin and the busyness of life in the world seems far away that seems to open a person up to spiritual things. Moses went up Mount Sinai to meet with God and Jesus climbed the Mount of Transfiguration (perhaps Mount Hermon) and while there heard God’s confirmation of his ministry. Perhaps you, the reader of this reflection, have had spiritual encounters while in the mountains or the desert/wilderness (another frequent place of encounter). Thus, Transfiguration Sunday serves as a point of remembrance that makes those encounters real once more.   

                The story of Jesus’ transfiguration offers us a word of witness/testimony as to the deeper story of God’s presence in the world. With Peter, James, and John, we are invited to ask: Who is Jesus? What is his connection to God? How is my connection to Jesus a connection to God?

                As we ponder these questions, it’s useful to note that while the disciples have been with Jesus for some time at this point in the story, and while they know that there’s something different about Jesus, they’re still very much in the dark as to his true identity. If we step back a chapter in Matthew’s Gospel, we read about a conversation Jesus has with the disciples where he asks them who they believe him to be. Peter boldly responds to the question by making the Good Confession: “You are the Christ, the son of the living God” (Matthew 16:15-16).  Many of us have made a similar confession, only to follow Peter in demonstrating our own lack of understanding of our confession. 

                In this story, Jesus goes to the mountain to pray, taking with him three of his disciples (Peter, James, and John). While he is there on the mountain his countenance changes and he began to radiate light. Matthew tells us that his face shone like the sun and his clothes were as bright as light. At that moment, as he was transfigured there on the mountain, two figures from the long past appear to him. They are Moses and Elijah, who represent to us the Law and the Prophets. Their presence serves as a witness to Jesus’ place in the larger story that we find in the Old Testament. It’s worth noting that in both cases there is no record of their deaths. They were and then they were not!

                While this is taking place the three disciples are watching all of this transpire. They had to be overwhelmed by what they saw. First Jesus’ countenance turned as bright as the sun and then Moses and Elijah appear and begin talking with Jesus. These events bear witness to Jesus’ identity, but we’re not finished yet. Being overwhelmed by what they had observed, Peter spoke for his companions and offered to build shrines to/for Moses and Elijah. Whether it is a shrine intended to honor the two saints of God or a shelter for them, we don’t know for sure. In any case, while Peter was checking to see if these two figures required a place to stay, a voice from heaven rang out, declaring: “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!”   

                As we ponder what happened here, let us hear this word from the medieval Orthodox theologian Gregory Palamas, in whose sermon for Transfiguration Sunday spoke of Jesus' identity in relation to the Father and the Holy Spirit:

But the Father and the Holy Spirit were invisibly accompanying the Lord. The Father bore witness with His voice that Christ was His beloved Son, and the Holy Spirit joined His brilliance to Christ’s in the radiant cloud, and showed that the Son was of one nature with the Father and Himself and united in Their light. For Their wealth consists in Their oneness of nature and in the unified outburst of Their brilliance. [St. Gregory Palamas, The Saving Work of Christ: Sermons by Saint Gregory Palamas (p. 41). Mount Thabor Publishing. Kindle Edition].

As Palamas notes, the event of Transfiguration allows us to see something as to Jesus' identity. He shares with Father and Spirit something of their nature (one substance to use Nicaean language).

                As we bring this season after Epiphany, a season in which the focus is on the light of God revealed in Jesus, we conclude with a question as to Jesus’ identity today. It seems as if the battle lines have been drawn up dividing those who emphasize the Jesus of history and those who embrace the Christ of faith. Some wish to emphasize Jesus’ humanity and those who want to emphasize his divinity. Of course, the message of the Council of Chalcedon is that Jesus is fully human and fully divine. Thus, it’s not an either/or but a both/and. We needn’t discount one or the other, but rather understand that sometimes we’ll emphasize one or the other. As we ponder the message of the transfiguration it is worth keeping in mind Paul’s dictum that we currently “see in a mirror dimly.”  In moments like this, when we can break through the membrane that separates us from the divine, we have the opportunity to see God “face to face” (1 Corinthians 13:12).    

                As we ponder the story of Jesus’ transfiguration, it is worth pondering the question of why Moses and Elijah are present.  What role do they play?  We’ve already noted that they represent the witness of Scripture, that is, the Law and the prophets. With that in mind, I’m reminded of Karl Barth’s idea of the three-fold Word of God.  Scripture as God’s Word bears witness or points to the Word that reveals God most fully, that is, Jesus, the Christ. While that witness is profound and essential, for it reminds us that Jesus’ identity is rooted in his Jewish heritage, one more word is added to that witness. This witness comes from God, who speaks from the cloud that envelopes Jesus.

                From the cloud, the heavenly voice declares: “This is my son the beloved . . . listen to him.” These are the same words spoken to Jesus at his baptism (Matt 3:13-17). This word reflects the coronation formula found in Psalm 2:7:  “I will tell of the decree of the Lord: He said to me, “You are my son; today I have begotten you” (Ps. 2:7). All of this, as Alan Culpepper offers, implies that “the authority of Moses and Elijah has passed to Jesus; he is the one they are to hear. Jesus could have no higher authorization as the messianic interpreter of the law and prophets than this” [Matthew (NTL), p. 326]. The message is clear. Peter, James, and John needn’t build shrines but rather listen to Jesus, as he has what we need to hear.

                Returning to what I wrote at the beginning of this reflection, I agree with theologian Douglas John Hall that we needn’t choose between the Christ of Faith and the Jesus of History.  He identifies himself with those who cannot embrace either pole exclusively, feeling “that the historical Jesus and the Jesus Christ of Christian experience must be held together.” This is, he believes, “what the account of Jesus’ transfiguration would have us affirm.” 

[I]t intends to confess that these untutored, down-to-earth men and women who left everything and followed him, hardly knowing why – that these same persons, later, knew that they had been drawn to him because, for all his obvious humanity, something radiated from him that spoke of ineffable and eternal truth.   [Feasting on the Word: Year A: Advent Through Transfiguration, Vol. 1, (WJK), p. 454, 456]

Looking back at the life of Jesus, his later disciples began to see more clearly who he was and is and will be. While the search for the historical Jesus might have scholarly value, at the end of the day the Jesus we have is the one revealed in Scripture and interpreted through tradition. That Jesus is understood, in light of Chalcedon, to be fully divine and fully human. There are times when we should focus on the teachings and actions of the historical Jesus because we have often marginalized his teachings as revealed in the Gospels. That doesn’t mean we need to marginalize the witness that in Jesus the fullness of God dwells bodily (Col. 2:9).

                As Jesus and his three companions descended from the mountain, according to Matthew, he instructed his companions to say nothing of their experience until after the Son of Man had risen. That word carries over Mark’s concern for the messianic secret. According to Mark, and here in Matthew, not everyone is ready to know the full story. It is only after the resurrection that the full meaning of the transfiguration would be understood. Since we have been let in on the secret revealed in the transfiguration, and living post-Easter, we have before us Jesus’ question to the disciples concerning his identity. Peter answered the question by declaring, rather boldly, “you are the Christ, the Son of the Living God” (Mt.16:16). According to Matthew, he made that confession before experiencing Jesus’ transfiguration. As we reflect on the message of the Transfiguration of Jesus, who do you say Jesus is? What is your confession after hearing the divine confirmation of Jesus’ identity? How might we heed his voice? Might he direct us back to the Sermon on the Mount, which we encountered in the prior weeks?

                As we contemplate these questions, I will leave you with a word about the mystical nature of what happened on the Mount of Transfiguration. Orthodox theologian Vladimir Lossky offers this word that is worth pondering on this Transfiguration Sunday. Remember Lossky wants us to understand the mystical nature of our encounters with Jesus.

At the moment of the incarnation, the divine light was concentrated, so to speak, in Christ, the God-man, ‘in whom dwelleth the whole fullness of the Godhead bodily’. That is to say that the humanity of Christ was deified by hypostatic union with the divine nature; that Christ during his earthly life always shed forth the divine light—which, however, remained invisible to most men. The Transfiguration was not a phenomenon circumscribed in time and space; Christ underwent no change at that moment, even in His human nature, but a change occurred in the awareness of the apostles, who for a time received the power to see their Master as He was, resplendent in the eternal light of His Godhead. The apostles were taken out of history and given a glimpse of eternal realities. [Lossky, Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, p. 223].

 Image attributon: Anonymous. Transfiguration, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=58833 [retrieved February 13, 2023]. Original source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/anthonylibrarian/2665222854/in/photolist-54vXUb-Gast7i-pibA31-nMPLFp-DiYbvY-7GRRnF-9F94G-7WzSMB-3Hbtvf-Gvcg2B-b5E7Ep-eMMjqD-7ytjdu-5X6jJ5-e826Cp-2dQDQh4-2aq5JCn-7Ujm4n-2b87HTG-yTMDCi-9MbhF4-c1DP6q-21pybAu-pz6yLj-84jv2e-26vvkjL-q6Ln1-21rFuTa-56DMRo-Nq7YYE-DGKvLC-ZEcpHw-E263Bm-EU52A7-ZkJBWf-96X1i3-cZHVJm-dLkAPY-8mgMdp-ZEcoWS-AwdWn3-eAWtec-fxmadC-6RGkTR-8n7MFZ-dzpGg-e76zfu-uR52G-5fHgNe-ZkJBMC.