Transfiguration

High Mountain

So what was the Transfiguration? Do you remember when Moses went up on Mt. Sinai? (NRSV)

The Shining Face of Moses

29 Moses came down from Mount Sinai. As he came down from the mountain with the two tablets of the covenant in his hand, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God. Does this seem familiar to you? Moses goes up to see God and while in His presence Mose takes on God’s glory.

In our passage the Lord leads the disciples up a high mountain and when they arrive Jesus becomes like God. (NRSV)

3 and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. Notice who Mark sees along with Jesus, Moses and Elijah. Why do you think this is significant?

No, there is another reason why Moses and Elijah appeared beside Christ – they came to remind the Apostles that the Lord would suffer and die, and so enter the glory of which the Transfiguration was a foretaste. This, then, is the reason Holy Mother Church gives us to meditate upon the Transfiguration on the Second Sunday of Lent: So that, encouraged by the hope of the Resurrection, we might persevere and remain faithful to Christ in his Passion.Posted by Father Ryan Erlenbush 📷

Labels: Sacred Scripture, Thomistic Scriptural Commentary

When we read about the Transfiguration I feel that we focus our attention on the glorified body of Christ, but much of the story should be focussed on the other two men that also appeared. Not only that they appeared but why they appear.

Moses was the bringer of the law and Jesus was going to die to make the law solidified. For thousands of years the Law was followed by the people and yet the law was not going to be enough. Moses was gone now and yet here he is before the disciples. Elijah had gone up to heaven and did not die and yet here he was before them. (NRSV)

12 He said to them, “Elijah is indeed coming first to restore all things. How then is it written about the Son of Man, that he is to go through many sufferings and be treated with contempt?

I want you to notice that to the Disciples it was thought to be a rising from the dead. Jesus orders them to not speak of what they have seen until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead. Can you imagine what this would have meant to the Disciples? Jesus has not even died and yet they are ordered by him to keep quiet of the things they saw. This is like a vision into the future which includes a vision from the past.