This Sunday, the lectionary invites us to ponder Matthew 17:1-9. The English Standard Version supplies the heading “The Transfiguration.”[1]
Matthew introduces his account with the words “after six days.” He wants us to know that six days earlier, Jesus had told them that if they wished to continue following him as they had for three years, they must prepare to die, in the most humiliating way possible: naked, bleeding, coughing, in agony for days; condemned as an enemy of the state.
Six days after crushing them with that remark, Jesus took Peter, James, and John, up a mountain. There, his “face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light.” Moses and Elijah appeared and spoke with him. A “bright cloud” overshadowed them. A voice from the cloud said “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him;” the same words, the same voice had spoken when Jesus was baptized by John Baptist. The disciples were terrified; fell on their faces and remained so until Jesus touched them and spoke the words, “Rise, and have no fear.”
Matthew also tells us the response of Peter, just before the cloud and the voice. Peter said it was good for them to be there, and offered to make three tents, one each for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah – if Jesus so-wished.
What’s the purpose of the transfiguration of Jesus?
The purpose of the transfiguration of Jesus was to lift the disciples out of the depression they had settled into after he’d told them they must expect to be crucified.
And he’d told them that after telling them they were persons of little faith, persons who’d been infected by the way of looking at the world which was taught and modelled by the legalists and opportunists of the time, the Pharisees and the Sadducees. (You can read about it in chapter 16.)
How did the transfiguration encourage them? It encouraged them in many ways. I’ll speak of just four of the ways.
First, it was on a mountain. Mountains symbolize going up to where God is. Mountains are where God had met the “great men of God” in the history of the Israelites: men like Moses[2] and Elijah.
Second, Moses and Elijah appeared on the mountain. Moses had stood up against Pharoah, in Egypt, on behalf of the Israelites. He’d delivered them out of slavery, and led them for 40 years, before they entered the land God had promised to their ancestor, Abraham. He’d also been God’s instrument for giving them the law, the commandments, the ark, the manna, the tent of meeting – all the things which defined them. Elijah had stood up against the oppressive king Ahab and his wife Jezebel, on behalf of the Israelites. Moses and Elijah were resistance leaders, fighters, against oppressors like the Romans of Jesus’ own day.
Third, the “bright cloud,” the voice, and the radiance, the glory, which attached to Jesus, were unmistakable evidence of the initiative of God. Because these had also accompanied the meeting of Moses with God.
Fourth through the words God spoke – and this is something we easily miss – God affirmed the kingship of Jesus over Caesar, over men and women who rule without regard for the will of God. Warren Carter, a bible scholar, historian and theologian, explains this very well:
“The term “son of God” commonly designated Roman emperors, both the adopted and the natural born. Augustus was the adopted son of the deified Julius Caesar. Other first-century emperors — Tiberius, Nero, Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian — were designated sons of gods. The term recognizes their roles as agents of the gods. They embodied exalted status and great power. They imitated the gods and enacted beneficial rule on their behalf. So, to call Jesus God’s son defines him as having similar roles and sets him in contestive and imitative relation to imperial claims.” (Link)
As I write this, there’s much news of protest by Malaysian Muslims over the visit to Malaysia of the Prime Minister of India – because of his government’s complicity in the oppression of Muslims in India.[3] I’ve not seen any news of Malaysian Christians protesting his visit because of his government’s complicity in the oppression of Christians.[4] Why the silence?
Why did Matthew tell us of the transfiguration? Why does he frame it as Jesus’ response to the depression his disciples fell into when they learned about the crucifixions in their own futures? Why does he tell us about Peter’s tent-construction proposal? Why was God so “political” in the way he addressed Jesus?
Could it be that we avoid recognizing God’s political naming of Jesus because we prefer to be on the mountain, camping and singing songs around the glory instead of spreading it like yeast?
Peace be with you.
[1] When we say something is “transfigured,” we mean it has changed into something more beautiful. The original text, in Greek, uses the word which gives English the word “metamorphosis,” the word we use to describe the emerging of a beautiful butterfly from a chrysalis, an ugly shell. There are four stages in the sequence which ends in the birth of a butterfly. First, a mother lays an egg. Second, the egg hatches; a caterpillar emerges, feeds voraciously for days, and sheds it’s skin a few times as it grows. Third, it attaches itself to something, forms a chrysalis, and over a few days, changes itself within the shell. Fourth, a butterfly emerges. When I read the story of the transfiguration, of Jesus, I wonder who chose the word “transfigure” to describe what happened.
[2] The Old Testament passage which accompanies today’s reading in the lectionary is Exodus 24:12-18. It’s the account of Moses leaving the people, going up the mountain, meeting God, and coming down with the Ten Commandments.
[3] Most explicitly in Kashmir. One example: At least 50 extrajudicial killings of Muslims reported in India in 2025: 23 by state actors, 27 by Hindu extremists.
[4] Most explicitly in Manipur. One example: Persecution high in India despite slight shift on World Watch List.
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