READINGS

Luke 9:28-36 - The Transfiguration
2 Chronicles 29:17
Ezekiel 1
Genesis 32:31-2
Psalm 17(16):15
Exodus 40:35

HOMILY

28 About eight days after this conversation, he took along Peter, John, and James and went up on the mountain to pray.

At this stage Jesus takes three witnesses.

These are the same three He'd chosen as his disciples: Peter, James and John.

Curiously again Andrew doesn't get a a mention and these are the same three whom he's going to take aside for at Gethsemane.

These are people who have chosen to be witnesses to something rather special.

About eight days after these sayings, a good rabbinical reader will have picked up that it was after eight days of trying to clear out and cleanse the collapsed temple that Ezekiel's followers came to the vestibule of the lord.

29 As he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white.

We are now coming to the vestibule of the Lord.

They go up a mountain to pray and, while He was praying, the appearance of his face changed and his clothes became dazzling white.

Luke's very clever wording here the appearance of his face edosprosopou.

This immediately takes us to the book of Genesis: Jacob wrestling with an angel before going to meet his brother Esau.

After Jacob wrestled with the angel and had his hip smitten, he says: "behold I have looked upon the form of his face penyell.

The form of the face, penyell, is the hebrewism and the greek is edosprosopou.

By the form of his face, he was looking upon the face of the most high.

and his clothes became dazzling white

The word dazzling extracton is a direct reference to Ezekiel: the prophet has a vision of one who is in the form of a man.

This is one of the most difficult verses in Ezekiel; because, for a jewish reader, it is a shocking thing to think: that the most high might have the form of a man, but the prophet Ezekiel sees this and he's described as dazzling flashing white.

There's no question here what we're seeing a Theophany.

This is not just a nice and gentle bit of glowing, but the most high is showing himself.

30 Suddenly, two men were talking with him — Moses and Elijah.

It was Moses who set up the people of Israel, but it was also he who had died before going to the promised land, so he was the one who set it up but then died.

It was Elijah the one who'd rescued the whole project of Israel several centuries later and had been taken away.

He had ascended into heaven while alive.

He is the one who represents the resurrection.

Here we have a certain death and a certain resurrection being fulfilled in Jesus.

31 They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish in Jerusalem.

This is about the Exodus that he was about to carry out.

However, it's going to be different from Moses's Exodus and different from Elijah's exercise, but both of them were pointing towards it: this Exodus which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.

From this moment of revelation, He's going to go down the hill to the Altar of Sacrifice in Jerusalem and make the great atonement.

Here he is as it were coming out of the Holy of Holies: He's going to the Altar of Sacrifice.

It's important that they mention the exodus here because we'll get a sense of Moses and the Exodus at the end again.

32 Peter and those with him were in a deep sleep, and when they became fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men who were standing with him.

Here our translation says they became fully awake. This is tediously unreferential.

That's a direct quote from Psalm 17: *as for me I shall behold your face in righteousness when I awake I shall be satisfied beholding your likeness by holding your glory beholding your form.

What's being fulfilled is precisely the sense that they are awakening to his form. For them, this whole scene happened in something like sleep

That's a reference back to our first reading where the first covenant is made between God and Abraham.

It's God who makes a promise to Abraham, and he believes God and that's counted as justice for him.

Then Abraham says: how do I know that you're going to do this?

So God produces some animals, cuts them in half, doesn't cut the birds in half, but He cuts the mammals in half, and then Abraham falls into a great sleep and the Lord comes through them like a burning torch, a flaming torch coming through them, which Abraham only sees when he awakens he only understands when he awakens.

Here's the important thing: what is the purpose of this covenant.

This is the covenant of this sort: I promised you this; may it be done to me as to this beast if I let you down.

So the passing through between the beasts is as it were: the Lord committing himself to being killed in order to fulfill his promise.

This is what we're about to have the Lord fulfilling: his commitment given to Abraham.

33 As the two men were departing from him, Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it’s good for us to be here. Let’s set up three shelters: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah”—not knowing what he was saying.

He said three tabernacles.

The feast of tabernacles was associated with the feast of the Atonement, so part of it was right, but Peter hadn't understood the relationship between Moses, Elijah and other thing that was about to happen.

34 While he was saying this, a cloud appeared and overshadowed them. They became afraid as they entered the cloud.

This is exactly the word that is used at the very end of the book of Exodus, when the cloud overshadows the tabernacle, but there Moses can't go in.

Moses can only go in when it's lifted up and gone away.

However, here the cloud came and overshadowed them and they were terrified as they entered the cloud.

With Jesus, they are now on the inside of the glory.

This is no longer something being waited or awaited from afar, something held off by death.

35 Then a voice came from the cloud, saying, “This is my Son, the Chosen One; listen to him!”

What happens at the fullness of Theophany is what we'd seen already indicated at the baptism and thereafter: God is going to speak only at the fraternal level, only at the level of a human among humans.

No top down God: now only sideways God. This is one of the the great confirmations.

This being with Jesus in the glory is something which is going to come down upon everybody at Pentecost and we are going to be inside it.

It's going to work sideways, horizontally, not vertically as heretofore.

36 After the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. They kept silent, and at that time told no one what they had seen.

One wonders why not one: whether it was because they couldn't really imagine there weren't words for it.

They were being given bits of a vision of what was going on around them.

That was far too great for them to be able to work out what was going on.

This is why they:

Were planned witnesses;
Saw the next moment of the Theophany at Gethsemane;
Were witnesses when it came to choosing who to fulfill the role of the missing member of the twelve.

Jesus setting people up so that they could actually have an idea of the grandeur of what had been spoken amongst them, of what it was going to look like God fulfilling his promise to Abraham.

This was what all the the weight of glory looked like in their midst.

This is a wonderful thing for us in our lenten journey because often in lent we just get little hints of what is being done for us. Just occasionally we can't put it together. Our experience is closer to that of the disciples.

We may think that Luke is so good at giving us scenes that we think "oh it must have been a very spectacular thing", but what he's doing is showing how something that can be described as very spectacular if you unpick every detail turns into something which is actually the sort of thing that we are on the inside of as we prepare to see his glory.