For Sunday
The Transfiguration
Collect
O God, who on the holy mount revealed to chosen witnesses your well-beloved Son, wonderfully transfigured, in raiment white and glistening: Mercifully grant that we, being delivered from the disquietude of this world, may by faith behold the King in his beauty; who with you, O Father, and you, O Holy Spirit, lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever.
Amen.
Reading
Reflection
This passage is known as The Transfiguration, for Jesus’s appearance was transfigured by God. Nobody actually expects you to know what that word means, though. I’ve never heard it used in any other context.
In one way, transfigured seems akin to transformed, which does reveal something about it, doesn’t it? The writer is describing Jesus’s appearance changing.
This highlights two different ideas to ponder.
One is about substance. Is an appearance changing different than the substance itself changing? In a sense, we change our appearance all the time and don’t consider it a substantive change. But should we make that assumption here?
The other is about permanence. When something is transformed, we assume it is changed forever. Or at least until it gets changed again. Does this transfiguring suggests something different? Something less? The light goes away, so Jesus doesn’t seem to be different, does he?
While we know this moment is important, I suspect most assume this is all show—a spectacle of lights and illusion—but nothing real. That it mirrors the baptism, when Jesus becomes the Messiah, should remind us the weakness of that assumption.
There is a lot we dare not assume here. Most significant is that before they go up the mountain, the twelve share the power of Jesus with the world. After it, others do.
When we focus on what is changing with Jesus, we might miss what is changing with the world.