Morning After Preaching, Last Sunday after Epiphany

Last October, I was invited to a friend’s home for dinner. Almost everyone there was Jewish, as it happened to be a festival in the Jewish calendar. We gathered for dinner in a Sukkah, a booth built by hand to commemorate the forty years spent wandering in the wilderness. This same handmade tent is precisely what Peter offers to build for Jesus, Moses and Elijah on the mountain. Just as the Sukkah and the rituals of Sukkot are a way of symbolically participating in the events of long ago, Peter’s offer to build tents on the mountain would have instantly recalled for first-century Jewish Christians the salvific acts of God in their history.

The encounter on the mountain involved only the inner circle of the disciples. Luke sets this story apart as significant by not only by naming a select group of disciples, but also with the allusions and references that connect Jesus to the history of Israel and the salvation that God has offered. Jesus meets Moses, who led the Hebrews out of Egypt and who brought the Law to the people, and Elijah, a prophet who was taken to heaven in a whirlwind and whose return would signal the impending arrival of the Messiah.

Just as Moses and Elijah were pivotal in the history of God’s relationship with Israel, the imagery and allusions of Luke’s account suggest that Jesus is equally part of that history. Just as Moses went to the mountain to receive the Law, Jesus has come to the mountain to receive the blessing of God and of the figurative representatives of the Law and the Prophets. Like Moses, he is transformed during the experience; Jesus is transfigured, literally ‘changed in form’ (μετεμορφώθη). For the disciples, this experience is sensory and, particularly, visual.

This is a perceptible change: an outward sign of an inward reality. Jesus, who has been seen and experienced as human – favored by God and a prophet to Israel – and even as the Messiah is now seen in a new way.

When Moses came down from the mountain and his encounter with Yahweh, his face shone (Exodus 34:29). Jesus’ clothes become radiant and bright, “dazzling white.” His face altered in appearance. Imagine for a moment that you are there. The person you’ve come to know in one limited sense suddenly is revealed as someone transcendent of our reality. It’s not surprising that Peter has a moment of sensory overload and says, “it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” In other words: I don’t want to go just yet. I want to stay. I need time to take it all in. Luke tells us that Peter didn’t know what he said. He was so caught up in the moment that he misapprehends its very purpose. The Transfiguration, for all its allusions to the history of Israel, is oriented towards the future, towards the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus.

Luke places the encounter on the mountain on the eighth day, the day after the Sabbath, the day of the week when Jesus’ tomb will be found empty, the day on which we give thanks for the gift in celebrating Eucharist.

And when Moses and Elijah speak with Jesus, they are talking of his departure, his exodus in Greek. Here Luke both points towards the future events which will come about in Jerusalem and draws on the language of the historical events of Israel. He has woven together past, present and future into a cohesive understanding of what God is up to with us.

The cloud, familiar to the Jewish Christians in Luke’s audience as a symbol for the presence of God throughout the Scriptures, provides a means of establishing the presence of God in their midst. The voice from the cloud makes a declaration: “this is my son, my chosen.”

The final word from the cloud is an imperative command to listen to Jesus. It is fitting that the story of the Transfiguration – full of imagery, allusions and the divine presence – ends with Jesus alone as the sole object of the disciples’ vision. The Transfiguration presents Jesus as the son of God, imbued with divine authority and glory. The command, ‘listen to him,’ directs the disciples’ attention to Jesus rather than to the awesome events of the mountain.

First, that Jesus is, emphatically, the Son of God and worthy of awe and devotion. Second, that the disciples should not be distracted by the brightness of his garments, the appearance of Moses and Elijah, or the wonders of the mountain. Rather, Jesus alone is the one to whom they should look.

This is the message for us today: do not be distracted by wonders and signs. See them, but remember that it is Jesus - as the beloved and chosen of God - to whom we should look.