March 16, 2014
by Fr. Jim Schwartz
From today’s Transfiguration Gospel: “Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. Peter said to Jesus, ‘Lord it is good for us to be here.’ While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, ‘This is my son, the Beloved; with Him I am well pleased; listen to him.’”
The voice of God the Father repeats the words spoken to Jesus at his baptism: “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” Then a crucial three words are added: LISTEN TO HIM.
To this point, the apostles have been unable to understand Jesus’ predictions about his upcoming suffering, death, and resurrection. They have not listened. There was no need to listen because they already knew what they wanted the Savior to be like. Now the voice of God commands them to listen. They have, as of yet, not understood the mission of Jesus. Listening to Jesus means more than just waiting for the promise of glory. Jesus’ message is that his disciples must be willing to join Him in His passion and death as well. We too have difficulty listening to Jesus when our discipleship involved dealing the crosses of life – the cross of sickness, the cross of the death of a loved one, the cross of coping with a relationship that has gone wrong.
It seems that the apostles were given the vision of the transfigured Lord to overcome their resistance to listening to Jesus in moments of suffering. The apostles had balked at the future Jesus was insisting upon. The privilege of witnessing Jesus’ transfiguration was for the purpose of confirming Jesus as someone to whom they must listen. They have, as of yet, not understood the mission of Jesus. They must open themselves to what Jesus is saying about his suffering, death, and resurrection.
The real action of discipleship is not on the mountain but in the upcoming events of death and resurrection in Jerusalem. These events are more important that the transfiguration, but the transfiguration encourages them in their struggle to allow Jesus to show them the way. Although at the center of this story will be the transfigured Jesus, it is more a story about what it means to be a disciple that it is a statement about Jesus’ identity.
Going back to the gospel account, “the apostles fell to the ground and were overcome with fear. But Jesus came and touched them, saying: ‘Get up and do not be afraid.’ And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus Himself alone.” Only Jesus is left to teach them what they must know. He is their guide to go beyond fear and into love.
The disciples do not understand Jesus’ insistence on suffering, death, and resurrection. Jesus takes them to the mountain to reveal the divine origins of this path of suffering. Once the disciples know the divine origin of Jesus’ journey; they can also believe in the divine origin of their own journey of faith. Yes, this journey is not just about the mountaintop. This journey takes them to Jerusalem where Jesus will encounter his suffering and death.
As we pray over this Gospel account, we need to discover how this is a story about our discipleship of the Lord Jesus. Yes, there is a connection between last Sunday’s Gospel of Jesus’ temptations in the desert and our own temptation in the desert experiences of our life. We are led by the Spirit even in the moments of crisis in life -- the crisis of neglecting our inner life and thus living life only on the surface, the crisis on not being able to let go of the emotional garbage of life – the garbage of old hurts, grudges, jealousies. How do we deal with sickness in life?
We need the grace to trust in the unending love of God in these moments of the desert in life. As with the first apostles, so for us, Jesus gives us the grace of transfiguration moments to provide us with the needed grace for the long haul of our own journey to Jerusalem.
My questions for you are two in number: When and how have you known transfiguration experiences in your journey of faith? Secondly, how is the Gospel account of the Transfiguration more a story about what it means to be a disciple than it is a statement about the identity of Jesus?
