Matthew 17:1-9 (NRSV)
Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. Then Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.” And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone.
As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, “Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”
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"When the disciples heard the voice from the bright cloud, they “were overcome with fear.” What were they afraid of? Was it just the power of a voice from Heaven? That could account for the fear. But maybe there is more to it. The disciples had been following Jesus for some time but they often failed to understand him, not least when Jesus predicted his imminent suffering and death. Were these predictions giving the disciples second thoughts about Jesus? If so, the heavenly affirmation of Jesus would have been frightening if it was Jesus’ willingness to suffer that made Jesus the beloved Son with whom God was well pleased. Worse, this could mean that being willing to follow Jesus through the same suffering and death was the way for them to be sons with whom God was well pleased. The glory revealed on the mountain was a powerful encouragement, but the kind of encouragement that must have left the disciples shaken, as it should leave us shaken."
- Andrew Marr, Abbot of St. Gregory’s Abbey (Three Rivers, MI), from 2020 blog post titled “The Beloved Son on the Mountain” (https://andrewmarrosb.blog/2020/02/22/the-beloved-son-on-the-mountain/)
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James Alison, in an essay on the Day of Atonement ritual in Leviticus 16, describes how the priest readies himself to enter the Holy of Holies:
"At this stage, the High Priest is going to get into a brilliant white robe or tunic, pure, glistening white, and this is because he is about to acquire angelic status - not an angel in the modern sense, but in the more ancient sense in which the “Angel of the Lord” meant “a particular localized instantiation of the Lord”. It is as “Instantiation of the Lord” that the High Priest will emerge from the Holy of Holies, in glistening white, with the Tiara bearing the Name YHWH - the Tetragrammaton - upon his head, and maniples, or cufflinks, also bearing the name.
"Of course, we have a memory of this moment of the rite in the narrative of the Transfiguration where Jesus is revealed as the instantiation of YHWH in refulgent white. Naturally Peter and the other disciples want to stay with this bit of the rite, so Jesus has to insist from then on that he is going to head down the hill and up to Jerusalem to perform the sacrifice which is the next part of the rite."
- James Alison, Jesus the Forgiving Victim, pp. 245-46
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"How do we know all this? Is it mere theory? It is just what the church says? Is it myth or fiction?
"Barth has already given his reply in principle: the ground of being is the ground of knowledge. We do not know it 'a priori' nor can we come to know it by demonstration. The divine act has a subjective as well as an objective character. It establishes itself in the knowing subject. It has the character of revelation.
"Noetically [ie. according to what know intellectually] we begin with the church and particularly holy scripture, but these lead us to the unique history of Jesus Christ in his self-revelation, which we can read and expound but cannot control. The Holy Spirit opens it up to us [...] by disclosing what is objectively concealed. In this witness Jesus Christ is present as the one who rose again in an unequivocal self-demonstration intimated already in his life, for example, at the Transfiguration, but fully given only when what is revealed had been effectively completed at the cross.
"Corresponding to that death, taking historical form yet also as an act of divine majesty or a miracle, the resurrection gives us a particular knowledge of the one who first loved us - a knowledge which rests on a genuinely historical investigation of the texts. In its totality the resurrection includes the ascension, thus telling us where Jesus came from - he rose from the dead - also where he went to - he ascended to the right hand of the Father. In this exaltation, which is his for us, is manifested also the exaltation of the cross."
G. W. Bromiley, "An Introduction to the Theology of Karl Barth", pg 200
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Now, the Son of Man, the true human, has been glorified, and God is glorified in him. And if God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and will glorify him at once. (John 13:31-32)
"All of this glory language [...] refers, not to Jesus being magnified by God, not to Jesus being vindicated by God, none of that. [...] When Jesus says, “God is going to be glorified in him,” you might as well translate this as “God is going to be humiliated in him,” because for this writer, it's this act of humiliation that Jesus does, [...] going to the cross, that's the act of service, and what is happening on the cross is the forgiveness of sin. And this writer sees that as the ultimate glory of God - God is most glorious [in the act of] forgiving the human species from the cross.
"This is utterly different than beginning with the presupposition that God is majestic and God is almighty like we do in the Western tradition, the Calvinistic tradition, the Charismatic tradition. We start off with how great God is, how powerful God is, how all-knowing God is, and all this - no, no, no, no. The ultimate glorification of God for this writer is to bear witness to the crucified Jesus, and that is the most difficult thing in the world, for the world to do, or for Christians to do. Because what's happening here on the Cross is that there is a Creation that's being completed, and that act of creation includes the forgiveness of all."
- Michael Hardin, from a lecture on John 13
[Source of James Alison quote and link to Andrew Marr's blog, and for analysis and discussion on all the lectionary texts for this Sunday, see: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-a/transfiguration_a/]
[In the Roman Catholic lectionary, today is the 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time (corresponding to Epiphany 6A in the Revised Common Lectionary). For James Alison's reflections on that Gospel text (Matthew 5:17-37): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pU3LaT0FTMo)]
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