Today we conclude the Season after Epiphany with Saint Luke’s account of our Lord’s Transfiguration. Just under a month ago, we began the Season with the Baptism of Christ. Both events, the Baptism and the Transfiguration, are pivotal moments in the Gospels. So it may be instructive to look at both in relation to each other to see what the comparison can tell us.
On one hand, the respective settings could not be more different. The Baptism takes place in a valley, at the Jordan River. The Transfiguration takes place upon the peak of a mountain. The Baptism has many witnesses, consisting of the multitudes flocking to see and hear John the Baptist. The Transfiguration has only three witnesses: Peter, James, and John, the inner circle of our Lord’s disciples. At the Baptism, John the Baptist occupies center stage as the principal human agent, preaching and baptizing. At the Transfiguration, our Lord occupies center stage, taking the three disciples up a high mountain apart.
These differences make the similarities all the more striking. In both events, there is a visual manifestation of God’s presence: at the Baptism, the Holy Spirit descending in bodily form as a dove; and at the Transfiguration, the dazzling light, the miraculous appearance of Moses and Elijah, and the cloud that overshadows them. And in both events, a voice from heaven speaks almost identical words: at the Baptism, “Thou art my Son, my chosen, with thee I am well pleased,” and at the Transfiguration, “This is my Son, my Chosen, listen to him!”
This recapitulation of parallel themes and images suggests that a stage of our Lord’s life that begins in the Baptism ends in the Transfiguration, which in turn begins a new phase in the narrative. And this indeed turns out to be the case. In the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the Baptism inaugurates, and the Transfiguration concludes, our Lord’s public ministry in Galilee. The Transfiguration likewise marks the beginning of the Journey of Jesus and the Twelve to Jerusalem that will end in his betrayal, arrest, trial, death, and resurrection.
The placement of these two events at these pivotal transitions reveals something more of their significance. The Baptism sets the stage for Our Lord’s public ministry in Galilee by showing in advance that everything he subsequently does – his teachings, healings, and miracles – he does by the power of the Holy Spirit that descends upon him. He is no charlatan or wonderworking magician, but the beloved Son, in whom his heavenly Father is well pleased.
The meaning of the Transfiguration is a bit more complex. Today’s Gospel begins: “Now about eight days after these sayings …” The sayings in question have consisted of his first prediction of his coming Passion and death. In response to his question, “Who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter has responded on behalf of the Twelve, “The Christ of God.” But immediately Jesus has commanded and charged them to tell no-one, saying, “The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day rise again.” He has then continued with the exhortation, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me … For whoever is ashamed of me and my words, of him will the Son of man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the Holy Angels.”
Now notice that in these sayings Jesus has spoken not only of his coming suffering and death, but also of his rising again on the third day, and his return at the end of time. Eight days later, then, his Transfiguration serves as an anticipatory confirmation of the latter part of the prophecy: his resurrection from the dead and his coming in glory.
Sermons and devotional literature often describe the Transfiguration as a “mountaintop experience” that the disciples must let go and leave behind in order to come down off the mountain and follow Jesus in the hard way of discipleship that leads to Calvary and the Cross. But the truth is really the opposite. The Transfiguration is given to the three disciples as a foretaste of the glory that lies on the other side of Holy Week and Good Friday. It strengthens them for the hardships and suffering that lie ahead by equipping them with a vision of the victory that awaits them at the end of the story.
As in the Gospel narratives: just so in the Christian year and in the Christian life. Celebrating the Transfiguration today, on the Last Sunday of the Epiphany, helps strengthen us for the rigors of the Lenten Season by pointing in an anticipatory way to the Resurrection on Easter Sunday.
For us, the Baptism of Christ is reminiscent of all those sacramental moments when we receive the spiritual gifts and graces necessary to commence some new phase of activity in our life. Think of the Sacraments of Initiation, Holy Baptism and Confirmation, that prepare us to live the Christian life and exercise our ministries as members of Christ’s Body, the Church. Think of the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony, which initiates two people into married life together. Think of the Sacrament of Holy Orders, which sets apart, consecrates, and equips those who’ve been called to minister as deacons, priests, or bishops in the Church.
The Transfiguration, however, is reminiscent of all those moments that equip us for the end by giving us a foretaste of the glory that awaits us beyond the grave. Think, for example, of the Sacrament of Holy Unction, also known as the Anointing of the Sick. It’s a very simple little ritual: the priest marking the sign of the cross on your forehead with oil of a rather pleasant aroma. Yet anointing has inseparable associations with coronation – kings and queens are anointed when they enter upon their reign. In this way, the Sacrament reminds us that whatever physical or mental suffering we may undergo in this life, nonetheless in Christ we are “anointed ones,” destined for eternal life in God’s Kingdom.
The Anointing of the Sick is thus what might be called “a Transfiguration moment,” a foretaste of the glory to come. The same can definitely be said of receiving Holy Communion, the Sacrament of our Lord’s Body and Blood, which was known in the early Church as “the medicine of immortality.” Even as we live in the midst of a world that is passing away, our Lord affords us countless such Transfiguration moments, anticipatory glimpses of the glory that awaits us, if only we open our eyes to see.
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