Luke 9:28b–36 ESV – The Transfiguration – Bible Gateway
This passage references that this event occurred eight days after the previous course in Luke with Peter’s confession that Jesus is the Messiah and Jesus going on to say “Truly I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God.” In Matthew and Mark, the parallel passage indicates six days. This discrepancy is something some Church Fathers reconcile, but what is important here is how the promise about some of them seeing the kingdom of God is unlocked. Peter, John, and James did see this revealed in the Transfiguration. Each of the Synoptic Gospels provides this time cue to help us to connect the dots.
Luke provides us with some extra details not found in the parallel passages. For example, Jesus went up to the mountain to pray. We see this detail provided in the Gospels to emphasize the importance of what is happening. That Jesus always prays first before such events. In Luke, we see this also before The Sermon on the Mount.
As Jesus is praying his whole appearance changes and he is talking with Moses and Elijah. Luke also gives us a detail about what they were talking about. Specifically, they were talking about Jesus’ exodus and what he was going to accomplish. Just from this information, we don’t know if the two men were “in on his” plan before or if Jesus had just told them. I like the idea of his previously sharing his plan with them and what would be accomplished. Just how excited they would be in this regard.
Another important aspect is Jesus the new Moses and the new exodus. The original exodus starts in Egypt and ends in Jerusalem. The new exodus starts in Jerusalem and as Brant Pitre notes “His exodus is his passion, death, resurrection and ascension into the heavenly Promised Land.”[1]
In regards to Moses and Elijah’s appearance, I have typically read that the two men represent the “Law and the Prophets.” There might be a lot more going on than just this typology. In the Cathechism paragraph [# 2853](http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/2853.htm), it alludes to the fact that of all the people in the Old Testament, Moses and Eli’jah both went up Mt. Sinai and experienced theophanies with a desire to see the face of God, but they couldn’t do it.
We have two trios, Jesus, Moses, and Elijah along with Peter, John, and James. So why were these Apostles singled out to see this? We have seen taken along in other cases such as the raising of Jairus’s daughter. St. John Damascene has some interesting speculation to prevent Judas from seeing the glory of God, that he might have been provoked to greater wickedness.
But He took with Him three, that in the mouths of two or three witnesses every word should be established. He took Peter, indeed, because He wished to shew him that the witness he had borne to Him was confirmed by the witness of the Father, and that he was as it were to preside over the whole Church. He took with Him James, who was to be the first of all the disciples to die for Christ; but He took John as the clearest singer of the sacred doctrine, that having seen the glory of the Son, which submits not to time, he might sound forth, In the beginning was the Word. (John 1:1) [2]
This is such an important event, and yet Luke gives us the detail that while all this was happening they were heavy with sleep. At the Garden of Gethsemane, we see another instance of this behavior. It is an interesting question as to whether their sleep was natural, or like the passage in the First Reading where a deep sleep falls upon Abram before the covenant was made.
One thus wonders whether the three apostles’ sleep is a taste of death (see Luke 9:27), so that, becoming fully awake and seeing his glory, they have a taste of their future share in his resurrection. [3]
Still, the important detail is that they were fully awake when they witnessed the Transfiguration.
Peter Kreeft notes:
St. Peter, said about it years later when he wrote his second epistle: “We did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received honor and glory from God the Father when that unique declaration came to him from the majestic glory, ‘This is my Son, my beloved, with whom I am well pleased.’ We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven while we were with him on the holy mountain” (2 Pet. 1:16–18).[4]
Peter’s reaction seems typical for him, that is, mouth engaging first before thinking this through. Yet he clearly sees this in connection with exodus and the later Feast of Booths in celebration of arriving in the promised land. His mistake, it seems to me, is equating Jesus with Moses and Elijah and not thinking through the implications of what he and the other two apostles witnessed. He and the others finally fall silent when they witness the theophany with the Holy Spirit present and God the Father saying “This is my Son, my beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” The Apostles will keep their silence and not talk about this or tell others “anything of what they had seen.” In the face of mystery, that should also be our reaction and to do as Mary did, that she “treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart.” (Luke 3:19)
Sources
- The Gospel of Luke, Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture, Rev. Pablo T. Gadenz
- Navarre, Saint Luke’s Gospel (2005)
- Peter Kreeft, Food for the Soul: Reflections on the Mass Readings Year C
- Catholic Productions, Commentaries by Brant Pitre
- Jimmy Akin’s Studies on Mark (3 vols.) – Verbum
- Photo by Ben White on Unsplash>
- Catholic Productions, Brant Pitre ↩
- Catena Aurea: Commentary on the Four Gospels, Collected out of the Works of the Fathers: St. Luke ↩
- The Gospel of Luke, Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture, Rev. Pablo T. Gadenz ↩
- Peter Kreeft, Food for the Soul: Reflections on the Mass Readings Year C ↩
