Feast of the Transfiguration

FEAST OF THE TRANSFIGURATION
August 10, 2008 (transferred from August 6)
Ss. Peter & Paul Parish – Fr. Phillip Ayers

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When I read or hear or celebrate the Feast of the Transfiguration – as we’re doing today here in our parish – I rejoice that I am “mystical” and “spiritual” enough not to be bothered by its fantastic nature. You know, Jesus taking some of his disciples up to a mountain, the clouds, the vision of Jesus with Moses and Elijah, the voice of God saying, “This is my Son, hear him.” I’d love to have been there.
Or would I? Would I be scared half out of my wits? Probably: I scare easily. There’s a linear part of me, a literal part of me that demands a glowing Jesus on a mountaintop with phantasms of Moses and Elijah on either side. But this has no poetry, I realize; the story of the Transfiguration is an artistic struggle to give voice to an intangible insight. In the accounts of Matthew, Mark, and Luke the story falls near the center of each evangelist’s record; in Luke, what we just heard today, the Transfiguration is pointedly positioned between two incidents.
Just before the Transfiguration, Jesus asks his followers, “Who do the crowds say that I am?” and receives varied replies: “John the Baptist; but others, Elijah; and still others, that one of the ancient prophets has arisen.” Jesus then asks them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answers, “The Messiah of God” (Lk 9:18-20). Jesus then recounts the expectations of the messianic mission, speaking to them of duty and of death. “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it. … there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God” (Lk 9:23-27).
About a week after this exchange, Jesus goes up a hill to pray, taking Peter, James, and John with him. While in prayer, Jesus’ face takes on a new radiance and Moses and Elijah appear on either side of him, and they talk to him—not with him. Jesus presumably learns from them the manner of God’s purposes for him and is perhaps encouraged to meet the suffering and death ahead of him. The vision ends with a thundering voice from the cloud repeating the acclamation heard at Jesus’ baptism in the River Jordan, “This is my Son, my Chose,” adding the instruction, “Listen to him!” (Lk 9:35).
But another story follows immediately. The very next day Jesus encounters a man who begs Jesus to come look at his son. The distraught man is concerned that his boy is possessed by a destructive spirit that “convulses him until he foams at the mouth; it mauls him and will scarcely leave him.” The desperate father has come to Jesus because, he says, “I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they could not.” Jesus is provoked to an unusual outburst: “You faithless and perverse generation,” he charges, “how much longer must I be with you and bear with you?” (Lk 9:37-41).
The Transfiguration is a kind of ordination. It is not a formal priestly ordination, but it is certainly the feast affirming the particular vocation of Jesus. Before he goes up the hill, he reveals his own doubts and his need for greater clarity of discernment in his little poll, asking “Who do they say …, who do you say that I am?” He ascends the hill with their answers still resounding in his head. Peter’s response confirms that at least some of the people understand him to be the Messiah, the Christ. Once on the hill he is told exactly who he is, presumably by Moses and Elijah, and emphatically in the voice that proclaims from the cloud, “This is my Son, my Chosen.”
Upon descending from the mountain, Jesus experiences the first test of his new ordination as he is confronted by the faithlessness of his own disciples. He encounters their poverty of trust and assumes the full burden of his vocation. He expresses so poignantly his frustration when he demands to know how long he must put up with them. But even in expressing this exasperation, he has obviously accepted what God has demanded of him. His question is rhetorical; he knows as well as we do that he answer is “for all eternity.”
After that strange experience on the hill Jesus possessed something he had not known or evidenced before. He bore within and expressed without the unmistakable assurance of one who knew his place and what was demanded of him; he knew he was loved and chosen by God. That knowledge was his authority and the core of his integrity; he knew it so surely he could never relinquish it, even to the power of death. He was changed, and everyone who saw him saw that change. He was transfigured. The brooding shadow of doubt—doubt over his own place in God’s order and affections—was replaced by the clear light of assurance.
That transfiguring light, that blinding flash of insight, opens any person as it opened Jesus. That unassailable assurance in God, in one’s place within God’s household, of one’s worth as a child of God, illuminates life. Such transfiguration begets transfiguration in others, as the light is passed from person to person, until the whole world is ablaze with glory and God’s voice resounds, “This is my world, my Creation, my Chosen.”
[Ideas and illustrations from Sam Portaro in Brightest and Best]