Matthew, Mark and Luke all agree about the Transfiguration; both about what happened and when. It is at a turning point in their Gospels. Jesus has been wandering around Galilee, preaching and healing. He has had some followers but nothing approaching a coherent movement. He is plainly a highly charismatic character and has a life changing effect on people, not only because he heals their diseases and disabilities. We are told that he was not the only miraculous healer operating, but he did seem special. He also occasionally made some outlandish claims, all of which must have set people, and not least his own followers, wondering just who he was, and in terms of power or authority, where he came from.
At some point, he decides to go to Jerusalem knowing that the annoyance he has already caused the religious authorities will escalate there. An itinerant teacher, preacher, healer in the backwoods of Galilee was a mild irritant; at the religious metropolis he would become a real threat. He knows this, and the probable consequences. At the same time he commissions many more disciples and sends them out to carry out his work. Presumably this happens because the great crowds that follow him have already started to become loosely structured, with a cadre emerging. Even so there are difficulties; some healings do not work and there are some unrealistic expectations and misunderstandings among his followers.
At Caesarea Philippi, not in Galilee but across the Jordan and Lake of Tiberias, he poses the question to his close followers; first, Who do men say that I am? And next, But who do you think I am? They answer most people think you are a reincarnation of John the Baptist or Elijah or one of the prophets but Simon Peter, depicted as perhaps not sharpest pencil in the box, and certainly the most volatile of the disciples, nevertheless recognises Jesus for what he is; the Christ of God, or The Son of the living God. What did this mean?
Being the “Son of God” did not I suspect refer to Jesus genealogy as much as his authority and source of power. The “Christ” means “the anointed” and was the Greek word for the Hebrew Messiah. Simon Peter recognises Jesus as the divinely inspired and long-awaited leader, the saviour of Israel. So far, however, from predicting military or political victory, Jesus immediately warns them what suffering discipleship will entail and what bravery it will require- but it’s unclear that they understand. First because crucifixion is not at all what they understand by Messiahship and anyway because Jesus enjoins them to silence, just as he does to the chosen three including Simon who walk up a mountain with him and see him transfigured.
The transfiguration brings together corrects and confirms the suspicions that have been floating around; Jesus is certainly very special; his brilliant face and dazzling clothes suggest that like Moses on Sinai he is close to God and chosen by God; but he is clearly not Elijah or Moses as they are there too, conversing with him as equals. And if being on a mountain top was not evidence enough of divine connection, there is the cloud, the shekinah or Glory that surrounds God and a voice which identifies Jesus as “My beloved Son, my chosen”. Strangely, however, this vivid confirmation of the rumours and suspicions that precede it is shown to only three close disciples and even they are told to keep quiet about it. And it’s not clear that they understand fully the implications of what they are told.
The story continues in the Gospels and leads, as we all know, up to Jerusalem, confrontation, crucifixion and resurrection. In the Church’s year it leads to Lent, at first throwing back to the start of Jesus’ ministry with his meditative fasting in the desert and then to the dramatic narrative of his last week in Jerusalem. Calendar and Gospel echo one another with the fasting and contemplation of Lent perhaps providing a clue to the Messianic Secret- why Jesus did not want his nature and his mission made public knowledge. That secret, set among predictions of suffering, death and rising again would have forced his close followers to think carefully about what they were doing and who it was they were following; in Lent we try to review our belief and attempt some serious and structured thinking about what being Christian might be about. The clarity of the Transfiguration ends in the Gospel, and in our calendar, with a deflated return to the bottom of the mountain where we find frustrations and failure for the disciples about a the miracle that wouldn’t happen; for us it leads to attempts to fast and concentrate on the basics.
So much for Jesu’ contemporaries, I suspect, however, that one of the things that will not challenge or even concern us very much in our Lenten thinking, will be the identity or even authority of Christ. It’s something we take, almost for granted. We, like the original audience for the Gospels, only more so, have the benefit of hindsight and we know who Jesus is and what he will do. What we do not have, however, is the mindset that can readily accept concepts like the Son of God and events like the Transfiguration and the Resurrection. They are readily believable or at least, accommodated in our thinking, because we hear about them so often in church and I suspect switch off our critical faculties because it’s easier to so, and because, frankly these ideas do not much matter. I confess that I say the words of the Creed, for example, without thinking too hard about they mean. Christology- the study of the nature of Christ- or the doctrine of the Trinity are interesting academic questions, but can you say that they really impact on your belief and your practice of Christianity and the Gospel? I can’t.
I have suggested what contemporaries both of Jesus and the Gospel writers might have understood from the Transfiguration; what can we salvage from the story?
Seeing the Gospel message in the context of Jewish history and social and religious development, seeing him that is as in the tradition of Moses and Elijah is certainly helpful, and not just in fostering inter faith relations. Most essentially we understand that the Old Testament is the groundwork for the Gospel.
Seeing Jesus as the Son of God is less easy and I can only manage it in a metaphorical sense; I believe Jesus was someone extraordinarily, indeed uniquely, attuned to God as perhaps we might see a son or daughter being the closest and most authentic exponents of their parent’s ideas. More than that Jesus, in his teaching and healing and his whole life, shows us what God is like, and, which is the really important bit, how we too can meaningfully try to be like God too.
So, there are ideas which lie within these stories which are valuable now, and despite what may seem like my theological vandalism, I am humble enough to think that stories which have been a source of inspiration for some two thousand years may have some life in them yet, even in this secular and cynical age. Amen