Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue

It has been quite a while since I have climbed a mountain. That would have been a modest one, Helvellyn, in England’s Lake District almost 35 years ago. I remember how the sounds and even sights of the world fall away. You enter another plane of life; it seems closer to the heavens.

Jesus climbed a mountain with the inner circle of his disciples, Peter, James and John, in order to pray. The spiritual context is significant: it is eight days after Peter confessed Jesus to be the Christ of God and Jesus’ reply that the Christ must be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. This was a turning point in Jesus’ ministry.

Peter, James and John were weary and slept while Jesus prayed on the mountain, but Saint Luke tells us something of the prayer experience of Jesus as his disciples slept. What he tells he obviously means for us to know, and for good reasons.

The Transfiguration is a major event in the Gospels. We keep it each year on the Feast of the Transfiguration (August 6, which we are transferring in order to observe it on Sunday), as well as the Sunday just before Lent. It is a vital glimpse of glory at a critical point in our Lord’s ministry, as he turns himself to face his destiny in Jerusalem, his death, which he knows must come. Saint Luke’s account of the Transfiguration is more than a glimpse of Jesus’ glory; it is a look inside that glory.

Our Lord is as human as we are; more fully human, actually, since he was not diminished as we are by our sins. But he was subject to all our tests, and likely was much more alert to their dangers and pains than we can be. He would have felt them much more completely that we could. On the mountain, his two great predecessors, Moses and Elijah, appear in glory as Jesus himself is transfigured in dazzling brightness in his prayer. And there they talk!

They talk about Jesus “departure,” his exodus, which is precisely his destiny in Jerusalem. It is at this moment that the three disciples awake, and Peter, well intentioned in error, proposes to build three booths. Peter errs, because he cannot capture and hold such a moment, and because Moses and Elijah are not co-equal with Jesus. Jesus is and will accomplish something much greater than the Law and the Prophets. He will fulfill and perfect them in his death. And Peter is interrupted by a cloud and a voice from within it: “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him.” So let us return to Jesus.

We know very well that Jesus suffered terrible physical and even more terrible spiritual pain in his passion. There has been no sorrow like unto his sorrow, before or since; there has been no death more lonely – so much so that we hear the Son of God praying the cry of the Godforsaken from the cross.

The Transfiguration was certainly an encouragement to the disciples about their Master. We hear as much in today’s Second Epistle of Peter. But Luke shows us that the Transfiguration was food, nourishment and encouragement to our Lord himself. He was praying. The great figures of his faith appeared to him in glory; they confirmed his mission. They spoke to him of his exodus in Jerusalem. Surely this conversation, of which Luke wants us to overhear the substance, built up our Lord inwardly and fortified him from the heart as he faced the demons and the terrors that lay ahead. In another place Jesus said that his food was to do the will of him who sent him and to accomplish his work. (Jn 4:32-34) On the Mountain of Transfiguration, Jesus is shown being fed and sustained by his Father. It is a glimpse of his inner life.

Luke also wants to show the connection of Christ’s glory and his passion. The two are one, not separate. Terrible as it was, three o’clock on Good Friday afternoon was Jesus’ finest hour. But we need to appreciate that Jesus got there as one of us, voluntarily, step by step, as he willingly fulfilled his mission. When we say, rightly, that the death of Jesus was God’s plan and providence, we also need to say that Jesus thought, spoke, and acted freely, every inch of his way to Calvary. He needed to pray, he needed sustenance from God, every instant, in order to do it. In other words we need to do justice to the full Humanity of the divine Son of God in order to know our Lord.

When we ourselves face times of testing, especially when they are frightful and threatening, we have an example and encouragement in the Transfiguration of our Lord. Prayer is a well-spring of light, life and strength. Prayer recollects for us the essentials of our faith and prompts us to take heart and to believe in God. In Christ we realize that the glory of God is precisely to be found in the cross, and we recall that if we are to be genuine disciples we must take up our own crosses and follow him. Jesus does not promise an easy road to glory; he promised the way of the cross, a part in his own death and resurrection. But his promise is good. It is better than what the world offers, no matter how attractive in the short term. And it will see us through in a way nothing else can.

Most of us are like Saint Peter. He loved Jesus. But he wanted to avoid that cross, avoid it when Jesus predicted it, avoid it high up on the mountain of Transfiguration, and avoid it finally down in Jerusalem as it was coming to pass. In the end, at the empty tomb, he learned, followed, and preached, and so can we, if heed the same voice Peter heeded: “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him.”

In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.

A Glimpse into Glory