Later this week, in the calendar of the Christian year we will come to Ash Wednesday—the day that marks the beginning
of the forty days and forty nights leading up to Easter, the period we call “Lent.” And Lent is the time when we
Christians descend into the Valley of the Shadow of Death in order to share with Jesus his journey to the cross of
Calvary.
So after our gala Shrove Tuesday pancake supper and family musicale, you and I will have the opportunity to receive,
at one or another of our two Ash Wednesday services—at either 12:15 or 6:30 pm—the imposition of ashes that marks the
solemnity of this day. And during the evening service we will also celebrate the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.
But first things first! For in the calendar of the Christian year, today itself is also a special day—the one we
call Transfiguration of the Lord Sunday. This is the day we go up the mountain with Jesus in order to experience the
shining cloud of God’s glory. It’s the day we scale that peak in order to gain a proper theological perspective on the
shadowed valley of Lent that lies before us.
You see, Transfiguration Sunday anticipates and foreshadows the glory of Easter that lies on the other side of Calvary’s
cross. For as the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once observed, “... the cross we bear precedes the crown we wear.”
The cross leads on to glory.
And on Transfiguration Sunday, we affirm that it is indeed this shining cloud that can lead us on through the shadowed
valley. We affirm that it is the light of Easter that can relieve the shadows of Lent. We affirm that it is the God of
glory who can sustain us through the hardships and vicissitudes of life.
So the scripture lessons assigned to us for Transfiguration Sunday are these two mysterious texts that in quite
different ways foreshadow the glory of Easter.
The first is an account of the ascent by Moses up Mount Sinai, where he then dwells for forty days and forty nights
amidst the shining cloud of God’s glory (Exodus 24:12–18). It’s the same Torah passage that was read yesterday in Jewish
synagogues throughout the world, including the West End Synagogue, where nearly twenty of us from Rutgers Church were
visiting. So in this account from Exodus it is Moses who goes up the mountain to experience the glory of God.
And in our second lesson, from the gospel of Matthew, it is three of Jesus’s disciples who go with him up a mountain.
There they, too, encounter the shining cloud of God’s glory and experience a vision of the transfigured Jesus, who is seen
conversing there with—yes, you guessed it—Moses, and also with another of the great prophets of old, Elijah.
(Matthew 17:1–9)
Now these three disciples—Peter, James, and John—are going up that mountain with Jesus just a few days after Peter
and Jesus have had a really hot argument. (Matthew 16:13–26)
You see, Peter had professed his faith that Jesus was indeed the Messiah for whom the Jews had long been looking.
But then Jesus had explained to Peter and the other disciples that he, Jesus, would have to undergo great suffering and
be killed. So Peter had rebuked Jesus for saying such a thing, since every Jew knew that God’s Messiah would never
suffer. No, God would be sending the Messiah to vanquish evil, not to suffer at its hands. Yes, Peter had really given
Jesus a piece of his mind. But then Jesus had shouted right back at Peter: “Get behind me, Satan! You’re a stumbling
block to me.”
Jesus had then gone on to instruct his disciples that their following of him in a world such as ours—a world that so
often responds to goodness with violence—that their following of him will inevitably lead to their own suffering. Yes,
his disciples will have to "take up their cross”—some of them quite literally, by experiencing a martyrdom like his own,
but all of them at least figuratively, by sharing in hardship, rejection, and condemnation.
So as Matthew paints this scene, it has been a heated and painful conversation about the shadowed valley to Calvary
lying ahead that has set the stage for Jesus’s going up this mountain with Peter, James, and John.
When the four of them attain the summit, the disciples experience there something altogether mystical and visionary,
and what it is that they “see” there constitutes God’s response to Peter’s argument with Jesus, God’s response to the
disciples’ inability to understand that the Messiah must suffer, and die, before being glorified.
As the disciples’ vision begins, they see Jesus transfigured; or, to use the Greek word that Matthew uses, they see
him “metamorphosed.” The disciples see Jesus taking on the transcendent glory that is reserved for those who are in the
divine realm, rather than this earthly realm. The disciples see Jesus manifesting a glory which, according to
first-century Jewish tradition, only a few giants of the ancient past had ever shown—only such luminaries as Adam and
Abraham, and, yes, Moses and Elijah. So the disciples see Jesus’s face shining the way Moses’s face had shone after he
had been with God on Mt. Sinai. (cf. Exodus 34:29–35)
Then suddenly, in the disciples’ vision, it is Moses and Elijah themselves who appear right there alongside the
transfigured Jesus—Moses and Elijah: two prophets who also, according to tradition, had first been rejected, and then
vindicated, just as Jesus himself would first be rejected, and then vindicated.
Peter is awestruck by the holiness of this scene with Jesus, and Moses, and Elijah; and he offers to make a sanctuary,
or shrine, for each of these glorious personages. Then right on cue, as if straight from a page in the book of Exodus,
there appears in the disciples’ vision a cloud that is bright with the glory of God’s own being. And from the midst of
this cloud God’s very own voice booms forth, saying: “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased. Listen
to him!”
What a richly symbolic verse this is! It’s a verse that echoes words spoken at Jesus’s baptism, at the inauguration
of his ministry, when God’s voice had also proclaimed, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
(Matthew 3:17)
Now, the two images in this sentence—the image “my Son” and the image “the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased”—these
come from two very different Old Testament passages, and they stand beside each other as a paradox!
The first image, “my Son,” comes from Psalm 2 and is part of the royal imagery found in the Old Testament—imagery
that is used of a monarch. So the image “my Son” proclaims that Jesus is a Sovereign who’s imbued with a full measure of
God’s power.
But the second image—”the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased”—this comes from quite a different Old Testament
passage. It comes from one of those Servant Songs found in the book of the prophet Isaiah. (42:1 as quoted in Matthew
12:18) So this image—“the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased”—proclaims that Jesus is the Servant—the humble,
innocent Servant—who is destined to suffer vicariously for the sins of all humankind.
The first time that Matthew links these two images of “Sovereign” and “Servant” is at Jesus’s baptism, and the second
time is here at Jesus’s transfiguration. The two images taken together proclaim that the Sovereign—the divine,
transfigured Christ of the disciples’ vision—is also, paradoxically, the Servant—the humble, soon-to-be-crucified Jesus
of history. And the two images taken together also proclaim that the humble and soon-to-be-crucified Jesus of history
will also be the strong and glorious Christ of the resurrection.
But here in the disciples’ vision of Jesus’s transfiguration, the voice of God goes on to say one thing more than it
had said at Jesus’s baptism. Here the voice of God goes on to add a command that’s addressed to the disciples. It goes
on to say, “Listen to him!”—that is, “Obey him!” You see, the situation has changed since the time of Jesus’s baptism.
Back then Jesus had no disciples, but now he does. And the disciples are commanded to obey this puzzling yet dazzling
teacher whose power lies in his weakness and whose glory rises from his death.
At the conclusion of the three disciples’ mystical vision, their hearing of God’s voice, they fall prostrate on the
ground in awe and terror. And then, while the three disciples lie there prone, it is the flesh-and-blood Jesus, the
un-transfigured Jesus, the Jesus of history who is their leader, companion, and friend—it is this Jesus who
now approaches the disciples and touches them comfortingly. And it is this Jesus who says to them, “Get up; don’t be
afraid.”
And when Peter, James, and John do look up, into Jesus’s face, they see him standing all alone. Moses and Elijah have
vanished. It is only Jesus who remains to endure rejection before being raised to glory.
The disciples’ vision has come to an end. The historical Jesus is again standing there, no longer transfigured. But
through his comforting touch, he continues to be for them “Emmanuel,” God-with-them, their source of strength. Newly
empowered by the glory of God—made manifest to them first in the transfigured Christ, and then in the shining cloud, and
finally through the reassuring touch of this the historical Jesus—Peter, James, and John now descend from that mountain
to the shadowed valley below.
One of the greatest African-American preachers of the 20th century, Dr. Howard Thurman, often spoke of: “Goodness,
radiant and triumphant, Surrounded by the persistent menace of evil, [yet] rugged and refined.” (The Greatest of
These, p. 17)
That expression of Dr. Thurman’s, I think, captures the essence of Transfiguration Sunday: “Goodness, radiant and
triumphant, Surrounded by the persistent menace of evil, [yet] rugged and refined.”
And Dr. Thurman’s words certainly continue to be a valid description of the situation of Christ’s church here in
America in the early 21st century—as we confront the many temptations posed to us by our wealth and power, the
temptations to which some of our fellow American Christians have, sadly, already succumbed—the temptation to not listen
to Jesus’s concern for the poor and the oppressed, the temptation to not obey Jesus’s command to become peacemakers.
Dr. Thurman went on at other times to proclaim with hope (Ibid.): “All endurance finally glows in radiance.”
That, too, captures the essence of this day and of the pilgrimage of Lent, as we seek to persevere in fulfilling Jesus’s
call to prophetic living, the call that first leads us into the Valley of the Shadow of Death and then carries us on
beyond that to the glory of Easter. Yes, all our endurance will finally glow in radiance.
As we anticipate Easter’s vision of the risen Christ, we, like the disciples of old, can receive the strength to enter
the shadows of Lent alongside of our suffering and crucified Messiah. By envisioning the Christ who is risen, we are
strengthened, amidst this world that’s so truly ensnared in the Valley of the Shadow of Death, amidst this world that so
often reacts to goodness with violence—we are strengthened to obey the Jesus of history.
So this is Transfiguration Sunday. This is the day when we climb the mountain and experience the shining cloud of
God’s presence in order to prepare ourselves for the tasks of engaging the persistent menace of evil and enduring the
shadowed valley ahead, in obedience to Jesus.
Let us pray:
O God, may the glory of Christ transfigure even us, so that we, too, may dare to risk our well-being for the sake of
establishing in this world of ours Your justice and love. Amen.