This Sunday in the Church Calendar we remember the transfiguration” of Jesus. Our Lectionary reading in Mark 9:2-9 contains an account of this event.
In chapter 8 of Mark’s Gospel, we see Jesus feeding a crowd and healing a blind man. There is a palpable sense of excitement that leads to Peter’s bold assertion that Jesus is, indeed, the Messiah. (Mark 8:27-29.) But Jesus warns the disciples not to tell anyone about this truth, and then tells them plainly that he will be killed and will rise again! (Mark 8:31-32.) Peter, in particular, is scandalized by this message. (Mark 8:32-33.) Jesus tells Peter and the other disciples that the way of his Kingdom is the way of the cross: “Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: ‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it.'” (Mark 8:34.)
It’s not hard to imagine that the disciples were confused, even perhaps a bit angered, by these words. They expected a Messiah who would lead them to victory, not one who would lead them to a cross. Yet Jesus mentioned not only the cross, but a resurrection. And in Mark’s Gospel Jesus immediately assures the disciples that “some who are standing here will not taste death before they see that the kingdom of God has come with power.” (Mark 9:1.)
Immediately following this claim Mark provides his account of the Transfiguration. After a six day period, Jesus takes Peter, James and John to a “high mountain” where Jesus “was transfigured before them. His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them. And there appeared before them Elijah and Moses, who were talking with Jesus.” The account in Matthew’s Gospel is similar to Mark’s (see Matthew 17), but Luke’s Gospel says the Transfiguration occurred “about eight days” after Jesus told the disciples that some would see his Kingdom come within their lifetimes. (See Luke 9.)
It is clear from these accounts that the Transfiguration is the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise that some of his disciples would see the Kingdom of God come in their lifetimes. Indeed, the second epistle of Peter testifies to the enduring impact of this event: “For we did not follow cleverly devised tales 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, such an utterance as this was made to Him by the Majestic Glory, ‘This is My beloved Son with whom I am well-pleased’ — and we ourselves heard this utterance made from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain.” (2 Peter 1:16-18.) The Transfiguration assures us that the present sufferings of the way of the cross are not permanent. It in a sense opens the veil between Earth and Heaven and allows us to glimpse the indescribable glory and peace that accompany and await Jesus, his Apostles, and by extension his Church — us — on a mission that requires death but culminates in resurrection.
This theological and missional significance of the Transfiguration may provide a hint concerning the enigmatic time period between Peter’s confession and the Transfiguration. Remember that, in the first creation narrative in Genesis 1, God creates in six days and rests on the seventh. Matthew and Mark are suggesting that the vision of the Transfiguration is a vision of rest. They present suffering of creation — the way of the cross — is somehow necessary before the time of rest. As for Luke, is he simply providing a time frame that he doesn’t precisely recall — “about eight days?” (This hesitancy is, in fact, a fair rendering of the Greek text.) Or, is Luke’s Gospel reflecting a theme that developed somewhat later in the Christian Tradition: that the creation “week” really contains eight “days,” not seven, and that the “eighth day” is the day of resurrection and re-creation? I see this last theme in all three accounts. The Transfiguration shows us that all things will be “transfigured” — changed and transformed into what they were truly created to be, and revealed to be what they truly are.