Transfiguration of Jesus

Luke 9:28-36 and 2 Corinthians 3:12-18

Rev Graham Perry, Warners Bay Uniting Church 2nd March 2025

 

Transfiguration of Jesus: One of those strange interludes, rich with symbol and mystery, a turning point in our Christian story.

​

Transfiguration completes the Season of Incarnation – Advent-Epiphany, a ‘summary’ of what has gone before, leading to the Lenten journey ahead.

​

It’s a kind of chapter break, a pivot point in the story of the gospels.

Leading up to this point, Jesus is a mostly successful preacher, healer, leader. Wandering the backwater towns of Galilee, living and ministering with ordinary people, Jesus goes from strength to strength.

 
After this point, he becomes grimmer, darker, as he ‘set his face towards Jerusalem’ and the religious and political confrontations leading to his Passion.

​

But for a moment, right in the middle, the realistic history of Jesus of Nazareth is put on pause. Jesus takes his closest companions apart from the main team – this is not ordinary work. He leads them from human habitation, away from daily chores, out of history, as it were – up a mysterious, unnamed ‘Mountain’ – so often in biblical story, a Mountain is a sacred site, a thin place, where The Holy is encountered.

​

For half a chapter we are out of history and into The Dreaming, sacred myth, where divine revelation breaks through from another realm.

​

(Myth, like the stories of the ancient Greeks or Aboriginal Dreamings, does NOT mean ‘nonsense-stories of primitive people to explain things they didn’t understand.’ The literary meaning of myth is stories told in the language of symbols to explain deep truths of existence and experience; truths more profound than we can express with science or history.)

​

In this symbolic, ‘Dreamtime’ event, prayer becomes ecstasy; the sunlight now emanates from Jesus himself; the eyes are dazzled, then veiled in the cloud of unknowing: visitors are glimpsed, voices heard from another realm. As in all Dreaming stories, the mere mortals struggled to stay awake: Myth and Symbol happen in trances and Big Dreams. With the intuition of the inner eye, they perceive the glory, they recognise these strangers.

​

Sunday Schoolers should remember the stories of Israel’s Dreaming:

• How Moses’ face shone when he gazed on the glory of God, veiled in cloud on Mount Sinai, speaking with the Lord as with a friend (Exodus 32-34);

• How Elijah the superhero prophet, fleeing to the mountaintop of despair, found himself engulfed in the terror of whirlwind, fire and earthquake before hearing God’s still small voice; Elijah who eventually blazed away to God in a chariot of fire (1 Kings 19).

How did Peter, James & John explain this to the other nine disciples, plus Mary Magdalene and the other women, who weren’t there?
How did they feel about it? I’d love to know.

……

The gospel story, especially Luke’s version, is firmly grounded in human history and realistic life. Astounding things happen, of course, and that is the whole point of writing a gospel: to proclaim that in Jesus of Nazareth, God is with us; daily life and world history have been touched by the finger of God.

​

At a few points, however, the history breaks off for moments of dazzling symbolic insight that frame our understanding of what is happening.

​

• An angelic choir sings in the night sky (Luke 2);

• The heavens open and the Spirit descends like a dove (Luke 3);

• Heavenly characters appear on a blazing mountaintop (Luke 9);

• The funeral is over, the body goes missing (Luke 24), and then…

Like most Christians, I suppose, I feel like I spend most of my life living in Ordinary Time. I don’t have visions of saints on mountaintops.
I doubt that my face glows with glory during Presbytery meetings. 
There are good days, when I feel God has blessed what we are doing, when I feel the sense of excitement and hope that God is still with us…

​

Then there are life’s challenges… in my personal life, anxieties for my children or loved ones, concern for the world around me; I see people of deep faith carry the cross of rejection from those they love selflessly. I see the church I love and serve, struggle to be relevant in our society.

​

The Transfiguration is a story for the rest of us; for us who weren’t there, who were with the other nine Apostles mending sandals, counting the offering, washing dishes; for us who live in ordinary time. It’s a story reminding us of how Jesus fits into the whole sweep of God’s plan and presence in the world. Transfiguration in biblical symbol and Dreaming, confirms who Jesus is:

​

1. In Transfiguration: God confirms Jesus’ identity: This is my Son.
   (Matthew and Mark, +Luke 3:22, add ‘beloved Son.’) No matter how great is Moses, God’s friend; or Elijah, God’s soldier, it is in Christ Jesus, God’s beloved Son, that the glory of God’s profound love is displayed. Transfiguration tells us who Jesus is: the very flesh and blood, heart and soul of God.

2. In Transfiguration, God confirms Jesus’ mission: My chosen one.
   (Mt&Mk, Lk 3:22: ‘I’m well pleased with him’.) God is pleased with Jesus’ deeds and conduct and wisdom, with the direction that Jesus is taking. Jesus’ choices show us what God chooses. God chooses Christ’s way above any other way, even the Law and Prophets. Transfiguration affirms that what Jesus does is what God desires.

3. Transfiguration, God confirms Jesus’ destiny: listen to HIM.
   This is the one verse that Mt, Mk and Luke all agree on completely! It’s the word to us, the readers: “You lot, all of you, Listen to him – and follow!”
   Jesus destiny is to share the glory and the name of God: “The Lord.”  He is destined to be our leader and guide. That is what it means to call Jesus ‘LORD’ – to listen to him, among all the competing voices; to hear and follow his wisdom, his deeds, his self-sacrifice and faithful love.

 

Let me rehash those ideas for a minute:

​

Transfiguration tells us who Jesus is: Luke said before his birth: ‘His name is Emanuel, God is with us’. At his baptism, God declares ‘You are my beloved son.’ There are many gods to choose from in this world. They do not all look or behave like Jesus. Choose your God wisely.

​

Transfiguration endorses what Jesus does: God has chosen Jesus, and God is well pleased with the way Jesus has chosen. What way, exactly?
In Luke 4, at the beginning of his ministry, Jesus quotes Isaiah 61: “in the Spirit I have come … to proclaim freedom to prisoners, sight to the blind, redemption for the oppressed, good news to the poor.” So Jesus comforts and cares for the sick, unpicks the mental and physical tangles of evil, ignores social prejudice, crosses cultural boundaries, speaks wisdom of gracious, forgiving love. He calms anxiety, opens locked wallets, reimagines a God we can believe in, gives us all a new lease on life.  Again, not every version of Christianity you see looks or sounds like Jesus. Listen to this generous, gracious, life-giving one. Listen to him.

​

Finally, Transfiguration tells us about us.
To listen to Jesus, to follow Christ, to call Jesus Lord, is not to fall into fear and slavery. St Paul wasn’t on that mountain, but he had his own Damascus epiphany of terrifying blindness, his eyes veiled until he could see the greater glory of Christ. Paul puts it like this:

​

Whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away!  Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, who with unveiled faces gaze upon the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image from glory to glory.  (2 Cor. 3:16-18)

 

We are going to finish in a very brief, prayerful reflection on this story.
Be comfortable, breath deeply, close eyes…

​

On the mountaintop, in the shining glory,

• Can you identify one way in which God’s glory might shine in you?

As Jesus leads you back down the mountain, back into history, back into daily life and work, indeed into Lent next week:

• Repeat: I live in the Spirit of Freedom... I choose to listen to Christ.

 

What one thing rises in your heart, to follow Jesus’ way this week, this year?

​

May you reflect the face of Jesus; may you help the world to shine with the radiance of God.