Today we celebrate the Transfiguration. I find it somewhat difficult to preach on the Transfiguration, it always comes up on this second Sunday of Lent, but it has its own Feast Day, August 6th. So twice a year, and whenever I set out to preach on it, I wonder, “what can I say that I haven’t already said? That my people haven’t already heard…”
The account of the Transfiguration is in all three synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, and this year we heard from Luke, so I am just going to focus on a couple of differences, elements that are unique to Luke’s account.
First, Luke’s account is the only one that tells us why Jesus took Peter, James and John up the mountain, and the reason was to pray. Throughout scripture, humans meet God on the mountain. Mt. Sinai, Mt. Zion, Mt. Tabor… We go up, and God comes down, heaven meets earth, and people meet God there in prayer.
We have a relationship with a higher reality, do we make space to meet Him? We know that God can meet us anywhere, but it begs the question, do we have a prayer spot, a place in our house or in our lives where we can go and pray?
Or are we comfortable coming here to Nativity, in the middle of the day, to pray? The church is open every weekday until 3pm, that door over there is unlocked for prayer. Or do we ever stop in at the Power of Prayer Chapel, next to St. Anthony’s, which is always open? We need to take the time to do that, God is waiting here for us, always present in the Eucharist, waiting for us to meet Him in prayer.
Second, Luke’s account is the only one that tells us what Jesus was talking about with Moses and Elijah. It says they “spoke of his exodus that he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem.”
The use of the word Exodus is interesting here. Moses led the people out of Egypt in an Exodus, this was God saving His people from slavery to Pharoah and the Egyptians. Now God is again going to save us via an Exodus in Jerusalem, but this time it will be from slavery to sin.
In the first Exodus, they were going to the Promised Land, Israel, a land flowing with milk and honey. In the second Exodus, the doors were being opened to Heaven, the true Promised Land, where the wedding feast of the Lamb awaits.
Jesus is the innocent Lamb that was slain for the forgiveness of our sins. In our first reading, God directed Abram to kill several animals and then God mystically traveled through the blood of the animals showing He was making a blood covenant with His people, with Abram and his family for generations to come.
When God brought the people out of Egypt in the Exodus, He directed them to put the blood of an unblemished Lamb on the door to their house, remembering the covenant.
When God wanted to free us from our sins in the new Exodus, the unblemished, innocent Lamb, Jesus Christ, was made to suffer and die for the forgiveness of our sins, and we receive His blood into our bodies in the Eucharist. This is why we come to Mass every week, it is to renew our covenant with God.
Even though we aren’t receiving Jesus’ blood from the chalice, we believe that we receive it in the host, just like any flesh, the body can’t be separated from the blood, but this receiving of the Body and Blood should remind us of our covenant with God going back thousands of years. It should remind us of His great love for us.
God has always been our savior, our light and our salvation. The Transfiguration prefigures the Exodus when He would save us from our sins and open the doors of Heaven to us, by the forgiveness He offers us.
If nothing else, the Transfiguration gives these three Apostles a mystical glimpse into who Jesus really is, giving them courage and strength to hang on to when they would see Jesus hanging on the cross, brutally persecuted and betrayed for love of us, so that He could take us to Himself in Heaven, purified and saved by His blood.
And this is especially interesting when seen in light of our second reading, Paul’s letter to the Phillipians which said, “Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we also await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will change our lowly body to conform with his glorified body.”
Paul had dual citizenship as a Jew and a Roman, but he points out our citizenship is in Heaven, this is really where we are meant to be, our true home.
And our true home comes with us being glorified like Jesus was glorified there on Mt. Tabor. There is a perfection on high that we strive for. God gives us grace while still on earth to be partakers even now of the things of heaven, strengthening us as we go.
As Jesus was going through the tough slog of his public ministry, He gave Peter, James and John a glimpse of what that glorification would look like. “For after he had told the disciples of his coming Death, on the holy mountain he manifested to them his glory,
to show, even by the testimony of the law and the prophets, that the Passion leads to the glory of the Resurrection.”
This was a glimpse of the Divine, so they could better handle the pain of the cross.
Throughout our lives we also receive little glimpses of what it looks like or feels like to see the Divine, to be face to face with God, knowing He is with us, knowing God is really real. These are mystical moments. They still happen - visions, dreams, signs, healings - all sorts of encounters with God.
If they haven’t happened to us, they’ve happened to people around us, and in the lives of the Saints. Like these three Apostles experienced, these are temporary glimpses where the veil is completely removed and we see the Divine just as God sees it, moments of glory to help us overcome the pain of our own cross.
As we go through the tough slog of Lent, we must hold onto those moments, knowing for certain of God’s presence, remembering where our true citizenship is, being able to handle our cross along the way.