Transfiguration
And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light. - Matthew 17:1-2 ESV
When I was growing up in my local church we never really talked about The Transfiguration of Jesus. I don’t remember hearing why it was important and how it applies to our everyday lives. When I was younger, I would come to this passage and think it didn’t really concern me. It just seemed to talk about this powerful and scary Jesus who was untouchable and beyond my reach. As I have gotten older and have gotten to know Jesus better over time, I see that this story is quite the opposite.
The authors of the four gospels all mention The Transfiguration either directly or indirectly [1]. This event mattered to them and was thought important to understanding who Jesus is. Peter also discusses The Transfiguration in 2 Peter 1:16-18:
For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,” we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain. (ESV)
If it mattered to the early church it is also important for us as their spiritual descendants. I think one key of The Transfiguration is that it is about Jesus showing Peter, James, and John an intimate view of who he really is (God). It is true Jesus being God is both glorious and scary, but this glorious and scary God also let’s himself be known by us. He is a God who desires us to see Him. There is an approachableness to Jesus in these passages even in the brightness of his glory. The Transfiguration is an intimate mystery. “Mystery” being a theological term for something related to God that is hard to articulate into words. We just accept mystery for what it is on its own terms. The Transfiguration is something we just stand in awe of. We can only respond by gratefully receiving it by The Spirit as we read and let it be what it is. The Transfiguration is a true glimpse of the One who we hung on the cross. He is the glorious and luminous one. In the Gospels before The Transfiguration we only see the outside of who Jesus is. He is clothed in flesh like our own human flesh. But now after this revelation we see him unveiled in all of his divinity. Prior to this, Jesus veiled His divinity for the most part. On the mountain with the disciples Jesus shows Himself in all His splendor. There is a deep and vast mystery here that is transformative. It moves us beyond our conceptions and ideas about what God is like and warms our hearts to a love so strong it can crush us under its weight, not out of spite but out of sheer enormity. We become transfigured by Jesus’ own Transfiguration. We see a heart on display that is bigger than creation. We can’t help but be changed by this divine heart into a reflection of itself. On the mountain the disciples saw this heart in Christ the God man. It isn’t just glory they saw; it was a glorious God who is alive with burning passion for his creation.
We usually make God’s glory into a self-consumed, self-absorbed glory that needs more added to it. When we portray God this way, we transfer our insecurity and need for affirmation onto him. We think he needs our devotion because he will smash unless we don’t give it. We think he is in constant need of his glory refilled and topped off, like an infinite gasoline tank. If we think of him this way, it will exhaust us and cause us to resent him. However in both the Transfiguration and the Cross the opposite is shown: God is glorious by his very nature. It is simply who he is. Just as the sun is brilliant and lifegiving because it can’t help but be anything else, God is beautiful radiance. His glory is never severed from who he is. He is burning and consuming love. It is a love that consumes all the pain and death in our lives. It is a glory that brings healing to all of our dark places. Jesus calls himself “The Light” for a reason [2].
There is an invitation in The Transfiguration as well. Jesus still calls for us to see him, to behold him. This is a beholding that is in our souls. It is beyond words. It is the deep knowing that He is near us and loves us. This is for every disciple! All of us are invited into this experiential knowledge of the truest kind. It is not earned through being good, God is simply good to us. This beholding is really the thing that transforms us into being more Christ-like. We become what we see and what we search for. Will we accept the invitation to come up the mountain and see? Will we let Jesus be who he is to us?
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