Second Sunday of Lent: The Transfiguration

By The Rev. Francis T. Gignac, S.J.

March 11, 2001

Today's selection from the Gospel according to Luke (9:28-36) portrays Jesus transformed in dazzling light before the eyes of three of his disciples. The story of the transfiguration in the three synoptic Gospels is a revelation, addressed to the Christian reader, of who Jesus is. It is highly theological and symbolic, with its external features based upon the Exodus story.

The scene takes place on a mountain, the traditional place of God's revelation, derived from the place of the Sinai covenant and the general tendency of ancient peoples to worship God in high places. In Luke's version, the transfiguration takes place while Jesus is at prayer, a setting for most of the important events in this Gospel. The clothes of Jesus are described as dazzling as lightning, because it was a common idea at the time that the glorification of the body would extend even to the clothes. Then Moses and Elijah are pictured appearing and speaking with Jesus. Jews of the first century believed that various prominent figures of Old Testament history would appear at the end of time and play a part in the events leading up to the beginning of the new age, an age that Christians came to believe was inaugurated in the person of Jesus. These figures are speaking with Jesus of his Exodus, his transit to the Father through his death, resurrection and exaltation, which had been announced in the first prediction of the Passion a few verses earlier.

But there is more to the story than this scene. When Peter awakes, he sees Jesus' glory and the two men there with him, and then says, "Let us build three tents, one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah." We are being told that in an initial stage of Christian belief, people saw Jesus as the equal of Moses, the first and greatest leader of Israel, and of Elijah, the first and greatest of the prophets. But then a cloud overshadowed them, just as a cloud (symbolic of the presence of God) led the Israelites in the desert after the Exodus and came and stood between them and the Egyptians to protect them, just as a cloud overshadowed the temple in Jerusalem to signify God's special presence there and just as a cloud in the infancy narratives of this Gospel overshadowed Mary as a sign that her child was God's beloved son.

After the voice of revelation from the cloud, Jesus is left there alone. This is to say that these chosen disciples (representative in the story of the early Christians) came to realize that Jesus is not just the equal of Moses and Elijah, but that he completely surpasses them. In him the whole law and the prophets find their fulfillment.

To go with this Gospel passage we had an awesome description of an ancient covenant sealing ceremony that is preserved in the Book of Genesis (15:5-12,17-18). Contracting parties would cut animals in half and then line the carcasses on the ground, creating a bloody corridor that the parties would walk through. This ritual symbolized the consequences of what would happen to the person who first violated the terms of the contract. So in today's story, "a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch," representing God, passed between the pieces, as Yahweh is pictured sealing his covenant with Abraham.

This description also reflects one of the main characteristics of patriarchal religion: the practice of entering into a personal relationship or covenant with a particular deity. Thus, we are told in the Old Testament that Abraham entered into a relationship with a god named the "Shield" of Abraham, called in later tradition the God of Abraham, just as the "Fear" or "Kinsman" of Isaac and the "Mighty One" of Jacob came to be known as the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. In early tradition, each god was associated with a particular patriarch; later on, the family cults were combined into one, under the formula "the God of our fathers."

Our second reading is taken from the end of the third chapter of Paul's Letter to the Philippians (3:20-4:1). In this section, Paul does not hesitate to propose himself as a model to imitate, since he himself is an imitator of Christ Jesus. He then ridicules Christians who would take away the liberty we enjoy in Christ Jesus by reimposing food laws or even circumcision. Of the former, he says derisively, "Their stomach is their god!" and of the latter, "Their glory is in their flesh." Rather, he writes, "We have our citizenship in heaven." Union with Christ has transformed us so that we have been in a sense transferred to the heavenly realm where the risen and glorified Christ is, and from where he would come back to be the Messiah. Remember, Paul and other early Christians expected an imminent Second Coming of Christ. So Paul writes, "And when he comes, he will transform our bodies and remake us according to the pattern of his own" glorified existence.

This transformation of which Paul speaks is the resurrection prefigured in the Gospel story of the transfiguration of Jesus. Each year the readings on these first two Sundays of Lent are meant to plumb the depth of human existence, to run the gamut of human experience, to present the whole range of salvation history. On the first Sunday of Lent, the trial of Jesus in the desert represents the position of the entire human race in the face of evil. On this second Sunday of Lent, the transfiguration of Jesus holds out for us the transformation in glory that is the goal of every human hope. So on this second Sunday of Lent, let us seriously engage ourselves in prayer, as Jesus was described as doing in the Gospel version of the transfiguration according to Luke, so that God may truly transform us during this holy season.

Any questions or comments? cu a-public-affairs@cua.edu

Revised: February 13, 2001