Transfiguration Sunday (A) – Matthew 17:1-9
Preached at Christ Lutheran Church in West Boylston
Today’s Gospel story is one of those really memorable events that leaps off of the page and into our imaginations. Most Christians, hearing one of the Gospel’s versions of the transfiguration every year, are well-familiar with it. But despite that familiarity, I wonder if we’re really all that comfortable with it. To be sure, the transfiguration is a strange story, relating events that are far outside of our usual day-to-day experience. It’s a mystical, almost supernatural encounter with the Lord, and love it though we may, I’d bet most of us don’t quite know what to do with it.
The confusion begins even earlier, in the chapter just before this one in Matthew. Jesus tells his disciples that they, too, will have to carry their own cross, and then he gives us that enigmatic sentence: “Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.”
We usually take this to mean that Christ predicts the resurrection is coming soon, so soon that it will happen before some of those standing there pass away. And of course the problem with this is that it doesn’t happen. Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection and ascension comes and goes. The disciples live and die, and 2000 years later Christ has yet to come back. The resurrection has not yet happened. Since we know Jesus doesn’t lie, it begs the question: What is He really talking about here?
The answer is given to us in the story of the Transfiguration. He takes Peter and James and John up the mountain, and what did they get to see? There on the mountain they in fact see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom, just as Jesus promised.
Of course this gives us another problem. That mountain is hardly to be understood as the kingdom. After all, what is a mountain to one who possesses the heavens?* So, no, the kingdom of God isn’t fully there on that mountain, but the disciples get a peek into it, a tiny glimpse of what Jesus looks like when he comes fully in his kingdom.
There on the mount of the transfiguration, the Lord Jesus himself shone as brilliantly as the sun; his garments became as white as snow, and Moses and Elijah were talking to him. There he was, brilliant as the sun, signifying that he is in fact the light which John says enlightens everyone and is coming into this world.* The shining face of Jesus is a sign of the fullness of his glory, the true embodiment of God made flesh, unbearable to look at for all his power and majesty.
Matthew wants us to understand that this Jesus truly is the son of God, God present here among humanity, fully and bodily with us. That’s what Moses and Elijah are doing here. See, throughout history Christians have taken their presence to be a sign of the Law and the prophets, showing that Jesus Christ is their completion. Here, present on the mountain are not three beloved sons but one. Moses and Elijah, proclaimers of the word of God, are standing here now with the one who truly is the word of God.
That may be true, but I think something else is going on here as well. Both of these Old Testament characters are known for their encounters with God face to face on a mountain. Elijah running away from the priests of Jezebel, seeks God on Mount Horeb, and finds Him not in terrible power but in powerful silence. Moses, of course, receives God’s Law at Mount Sinai. The beginning of this narrative was our Old Testament reading today, and it stopped before telling us that when Moses came back down from the mountain, his face shone like the sun. Sounds familiar. It seems that the Transfiguration transcends time and space to bring Moses and Elijah face to face with God present in Jesus Christ—three mountains, three stories, one event spanning a thousand years. You can almost imagine Jesus transfigured, shining so brightly that it rubs off and makes Moses’ face glow as well.
So Peter and James and John do get to see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom, God’s kingdom which is beyond time and space. Peter proclaims this mystic transcendence is so wonderful that he wants to set up tents and stay for a while. I’ve heard a lot of sermons in my life where Peter is chastised for this, but I can’t say I blame him. If we had the opportunity to see Jesus in all his glory, if we truly got a peek into the full magnificence of the kingdom of God, we might not want the experience to end so quickly either. No, Peter is not shirking his responsibility. Rather, he has seen the Lord for all that He truly is, and he treasures his vision for all it is worth.
Certainly no tent building takes place, but perhaps Peter gets his wish anyhow. When the voice from the cloud blooms out Jesus’ identity as the beloved, the disciples fall to the ground, prostrate in fear and reverence. And Jesus, the transfigured one, the power and glory and majesty and might of God in his kingdom forever, reaches out to them and lifts them up. Jesus stretches out to them in love, and now he is not the only one on the mountain who has been changed. Jesus lifts them up and draws them into his kingdom, just as he will do it again at the resurrection, and now they too have been transformed.
Sisters and brothers, that is the beauty of the Transfiguration. This story, this festival, this day is not just about Jesus and what happens to Him. Transfiguration is about what Jesus does to each one of us. Again and again throughout our lives, Jesus reaches out to us and reaches deep into our hearts and transfigures us. And when we encounter the love and power of God incarnate in Jesus Christ, that brilliance rubs off on us, and just like Moses we are set aglow.
Two houses down from mine, the family who lives there has taken all of the snow they shoveled and piled it up into a single, enormous mountain, practically the height of the house itself. The other day as I drove by, the neighborhood children were sliding down it on sleds and innertubes, and it looked like so much fun that I had to pull over to the side of the road to laugh. Their joy snuck in through the windshield of my car and infected me and set me to glow with laughter. And in just the same way, that kingdom of God is sneaking in all around us, setting us to glow like Christ.
The story seems to end with a return to life as usual. But the return isn’t so much about Peter being unable to stay up on the mountain with Jesus, not allowed to set up tents and dwell in the glory. It’s that there is no point to doing so. In that beautiful moment, Peter has been changed, and the transfigured Jesus is now with him on the mountain, and in the valley, and where ever he goes.
And so it is no wonder that Peter and James and John come down the mountain with Christ. They go out to proclaim the word that God is here among us. That Jesus who is life comes down from the mountain to be killed. Jesus who is bread comes down to feed people and to be used up. Jesus who is the way comes down to grow weary on his journey. Jesus who is the fountain comes down to experience thirst.* Jesus, the power of God, pours out his power to transfigure the world into His kingdom. And Peter, and James, and John, and you, and I get to be witnesses and coworkers in that transformation.
May you see the kingdom sneaking in all around you. And may it set you aglow with the light of Christ. Amen.
* Sections adapted from St. Augustine Sermon #78 as translated by Edmund Hill, O.P. in The Complete Works of St. Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century. New York: New City Press, 1991.