This Sunday, the lectionary invites us to read Luke 9:28-36. The English Standard Version, and most other translations, supply the passage with the heading “The Transfiguration.”
The Transfiguration is at once simple and perplexing. There are parallel accounts in Matthew and Mark.[1] What Luke tells us before he introduces the passage is important.
Jesus had picked out Twelve men to be his disciples, his workers. Chapter nine begins with Jesus giving them “power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases” and sending them out “to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal.” They were very successful.
Stories about their work reached the “king,” Herod Antipas, who’d put John Baptist to death. Herod was perplexed by rumours that Jesus was John back from the dead. He wanted to meet Jesus. Jesus didn’t want to.
Jesus moved to Bethsaida. To have a debriefing session with the Twelve – whom Luke calls apostles. In Bethsaida, thousands came to him.
He “spoke to them of the Kingdom of God and cured those who needed healing.” He multiplied five loaves and two fish. He fed 5,000 men and more. Each apostle picked up one basket of leftovers.
Then they were alone again with Jesus. He asked them whom the crowds thought he was. They answered that some said he was Elijah, resurrected. Others said he was one or other of the prophets of old, resurrected. Then he asked them whom they thought he was.
They had probably discussed him before, among themselves. Peter answered for all of them, “The Christ of God.”
Luke – whom, we must remember, was not there and was writing based on his reading and interviewing – says Jesus responded sternly. He told them to “tell no one.” He referred to himself as “The Son of Man,” and told them he must suffer, be rejected, and be killed. And would rise again.
Then, he added, ominously, that each of them should take up his cross and follow him. They must have been doubly stunned by this. First, because they probably thought they’d be picking up more leftovers.
Second, because crucifixion was a very shameful punishment. Only those who were considered threats to the state were crucified. And anyone who spoke positively about a crucified person would himself face crucifixion.
The call to take up the cross was a call to defy the state. A call to do things which would make him or her an enemy of the government. Jesus stressed this. He said: “what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?”
Finally, Luke comes to today’s passage. We, like Herod, are perplexed by it. Because Jesus decides to go up to a mountain to pray. But leaves nine of the Twelve behind. He takes only Peter, James, and John. And Luke doesn’t tell us they prayed along with Jesus.
Luke tells us instead that Jesus prayed, and while he did so,
“the appearance of his face was altered, and his clothing became dazzling white. And behold, two men were talking with him, Moses, and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.”
Luke tells us the three apostles had been asleep and caught only the tail-end of what happened. He adds that Peter offered to build tents for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. Presumably so that they could continue their conference. Luke says Peter spoke without knowing what he said.
Then comes what I think is the heart of the account:
“a cloud came and overshadowed them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud. And a voice came out of the cloud, saying, ‘This is my Son, my Chosen One; listen to him!’ And when the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and told no one in those days anything of what they had seen.”
Later, John in his gospel,[2] and Peter,[3] in one of his letters, would write that they “beheld his glory.” They probably meant Jesus’ transfiguration on that mountain. The glory came together with the direct witness, the voice, of God, the Father. Jesus was the Son, the Chosen One. The Christ.
Their response on the mountain was confusion and fear, terror. They were confronted by a mystery. A cosmic mystery. They were enveloped in the mystery. The Messiah, the Healer, the Liberator, would die as an enemy of the state. The Messiah, the Liberator, would be raised up from the dead.
The other nine apostles must’ve grilled the threesome every day about their mountain trip. But they never spoke about it. Until after Jesus died, returned, and re-commissioned them to go out and tell about him and command people to become his disciples, just as they had been.
As I wrote three years ago, Fearing and glowing is what Transfiguration Sunday is about.
Whom do you say Jesus is?
[1] Matthew 17 and Mark 9.
[3] Peter uses the word “glory” more than any of the 12 whose works are in the Bible. The apostle Paul, who was not among the Twelve, was confronted by Jesus on the road to Damascus. The confrontation blinded him. It is therefore no surprise that Paul speaks of “glory” more than any other New Testament author.
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