Article Tools
- Text Size
- Add a comment (0)
- Print this article
- Email this article
The disciples had been in Jesus’ company for months on end.
Yet it must have been clear to Jesus that they still did not understand him and the mission that his Father had sent him to accomplish. Jesus was ready to question them directly. In doing so, he would reveal his true identity.
First he asked them about the people who so eagerly gathered to hear him: Who did they think he was? The disciples offered some of the popular notions that were circulating about his identity. Not satisfied to hear only the opinions of the crowds, Jesus probed further. He wanted to know what his closest followers made of him. Were their hearts dull and their eyes blind like so many others who failed to recognize his true identity? Surely the disciples had often discussed this question among themselves, not daring to ask Jesus himself. Now he pressed the crucial question home to his own circle of friends: “Who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter, spokesman for the group, boldly replied: “The Christ of God” (Luke 9:18-20).
Jesus knew that Peter’s answer could only have been prompted by divine revelation: “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 16:17). Scripture commentator Alfred MacBride notes how Peter’s response surpassed his human understanding and perception:
The richness of Peter’s answer is dazzling. In the light of God’s fire, he speaks as though uttering an oracle. The words form on his lips, not like the easy declaration of logic, let alone the subtle conclusion of inductive reasoning… . What neither the religious learning of the pharisees, the peasant cunning of the people nor the sheer intimacy of the apostleship could discern, Peter is the first to see. His words are not the result of cold calculations, ignorant superstition or flattery. He is far too innocent to resort to such tactics.
Peter’s words are born in ecstasy. The blunt fisherman has become a spiritual oracle because the Holy Spirit has taken hold of his heart and offered his mind that luminous insight. (The Kingdom and the Glory: Meditation and Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew)
In declaring Jesus as the Christ, Simon Peter and the disciples probably hoped that he would deliver Israel from its enemies. Although Peter had been inspired by God, his human comprehension was limited. Just a short time after his inspired proclamation of faith, Peter railed against Jesus’ predictions of his sufferings and death, not realizing that only in this way could Jesus fulfill God’s true definition of the Messiah (Matthew 16:21-22). Jesus was already familiar with Satan’s efforts to deflect him from God’s call (Luke 4:1-13). So now he recognized this new attempt, in the guise of a friend’s concern, and rebuked Peter as Satan’s instrument (Matthew 16:23).
It is noteworthy that Jesus did not count Peter’s shortsightedness against him. He still chose the man whom he described as “not on the side of God, but of men” (Matthew 16:23) to be the rock on which he would establish his church (16:18). God chooses to use us as partners in accomplishing his purposes, even when we seem to show little understanding of what they are!
Peter’s confession marks a turning point in the gospels. After it, Jesus—often referring to himself as “the Son of man”—began to speak openly with his disciples about his coming passion (Matthew 16:21; 17:22-23; Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:33-34; Luke 9:21-22, 43-45). The Hebrew Scriptures use the term “son of man” frequently as a synonym for a member of the human race, that is, a son of Adam, stressing our frail human condition and littleness before God (Job 25:6; Psalms 8:4; 80:17; Ezekiel 2:1, 3). By calling himself the Son of man, Jesus identified himself as a human being like us—but without any of the weaknesses of sinful humanity. The prophet Daniel used the title in an apocalyptic sense, vividly foretelling the coming of the Son of man in glory, ushering in his kingdom: “[B]ehold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man… . And to him was given dominion and glory and kingdom” (Daniel 7:13-14). In a similar vein, Jesus spoke of his final coming: “The Son of man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father” (Matthew 16:27; see also Mark 13:24-27).
The vital question “Who do you say I am?” required a personal commitment from each of Jesus’ disciples—a commitment required of each of us, too. And this faith response to Jesus the Messiah also demands a response to his call to radical discipleship: “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23).
Jesus’ mysterious transfiguration took place shortly after Peter’s profession of faith and Jesus’ first prophecy of his death. Jesus went up to a high mountain to pray and took his three closest friends with him. “Then something happened to him; perhaps it had happened before, but this time they were there to see it. In some way his longing love burst the barriers between mortality and immortality… . The apostles saw the radiant Lord of life, as he would be when death was conquered” (Maria Boulding, The Coming of God).
Did Jesus allow Peter, James, and John to glimpse his glory so that they would be able to bear the adversities and dark times to come with greater fortitude? “The great reason for this transfiguration,” St. Leo the Great suggested, “was to remove the scandal of the cross from the hearts of his disciples, and to prevent the humiliation of his voluntary suffering from disturbing the faith of those who had witnessed the surpassing glory that lay concealed” (Sermon 51).
Surely the memory of those moments with Jesus on the mountain must have comforted the bewildered apostles as they grieved after Jesus’ death—and later strengthened them as they passed through other difficult moments in their lives. Years afterward, Peter still vividly recalled this profound experience, writing to his fellow Christians, “We were eyewitnesses of his majesty … for we were with him on the holy mountain” (2 Peter 1:16-18).
Peter, James, and John were weary after the long ascent up the mountain. In spite of their fatigue, they “kept awake” as Jesus prayed—and were blessed to see his transfiguration (Luke 9:32). We too must struggle against falling spiritually “asleep” so we don’t miss those “flashes of God’s glory,” as author Louise Perrotta calls them, which shine “into our ordinary surroundings.” While they may not be as spectacular as Jesus’ radiance on the mountain, they are “little transfigurations that God offers to anyone who is ‘fully awake’ to their transforming potential” (2004: A Book of Grace-Filled Days).
Moses and Elijah, representing the law and the prophets, appeared as witnesses to Jesus as the Messiah, the fulfillment of all they had taught and foretold. Luke tells us that they spoke with Jesus of his “departure”—that is, his “exodus”—that he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem (Luke 9:31). This exodus calls to mind the Israelites’ deliverance from Egypt—which was a prefigurement of the salvation Jesus won for us through his death, resurrection, and ascension.
“And as the men were departing from him, Peter said to Jesus, ‘Master, it is well that we are here; let us make three booths, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah’—not knowing what he said” (Luke 9:33). The glory of this scene was so great that it overwhelmed and confused the apostles, although Peter realized that it was a moment of special importance and sought to prolong it.
In many ways Jesus’ transfiguration parallels Yahweh’s manifestation to Moses on Mount Sinai and the experience of the Israelites who similarly witnessed the glory of God and heard the voice at the mountain (Deuteronomy 5:4, Exodus 24:13, 15). Like these Old Testament prototypes, the transfiguration occurred on a mountain (Luke 9:28). Both Jesus and Moses took three companions with them (Luke 9:28; Exodus 24:1), and the faces of both shone with God’s glory (Matthew 17:2, Exodus 34:29). Each of these manifestations of God also included a cloud indicating his presence as well as the heavenly voice (Luke 9:35; Exodus 24:16; Deuteronomy 4:12; 5:22-24).
The Father’s voice, the chosen Son, and the cloud of the Spirit reveal the presence of the Trinity. The Father’s words—”This is my Son, my Chosen” (Luke 9:35)—announce Jesus’ divine sonship and echo Isaiah 42, where the Lord’s chosen servant is empowered by the Spirit to bring relief to the oppressed and justice to all nations (42:1-7). “Listen to him” recalls Deuteronomy 18:15, Moses’ prophecy that another prophet like himself would someday arise in Israel, and “him you shall heed.” Thus, Jesus, whose teaching is backed by the approval and authority of the Father, is to be followed as the Israelites had earlier followed Moses.
Summarizing this extraordinary event and the powerful force it still exerts on us today, the late Pope John Paul II wrote,
The Gospel scene of Christ’s transfiguration, in which the three Apostles Peter, James and John appear entranced by the beauty of the Redeemer, can be seen as an icon of Christian contemplation. To look upon the face of Christ, to recognize its mystery amid the daily events and the sufferings of his human life, and then to grasp the divine splendor definitively revealed in the Risen Lord, seated in glory at the right hand of the Father: this is the task of each one of us. In contemplating Christ’s face we become open to receiving the mystery of Trinitarian life, experiencing ever anew the love of the Father and delighting in the joy of the Holy Spirit. St. Paul’s words can then be applied to us: “Beholding the glory of the Lord, we are being changed into his likeness, from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18). (On the Most Holy Rosary)