Prayer
O god, whose Son, your Beloved, was transfigured in dazzling light, with reverent awe we enter your holy presence. Your presence cannot be contained in tents our hands have made but must be sought in your creatures and all that your hands have fashioned. Lead us from the high mountain to seek you in the lowly of the earth, serving them, after Christ’s example, in peace and sacrificial love. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever. Amen.
From Prayers for Sunday and Seasons, Year C, Peter J. Scagnelli, LTP, 1992.
Some Thoughts on Luke 9:28-36(37-43)
"God promises us that through Scripture we will meet God, and our identities as individuals and a community of faith will be formed and transformed."
"Transforming Transfiguation," Alyce McKenzie, Edgy Exegesis, 2013.
"The Transfiguration is an apt Preface to Lent and Jesus' journey to Jerusalem, because what lies ahead is both a confrontation between the non-violent justice of the Kingdom of God and the violent injustice of the Roman Empire; as well as the non-violent way of the Beloved versus the hoped-for victory by the Messiah."
Holy Textures, Understanding the Bible in its own time and in ours, Luke 9:28-36, (37-43), David Ewart, 2013.
Oremus Online NRSV Gospel Text
Transfiguration and the Vision of the Other: Seeing and Being Seen in Christ
We conclude Epiphany with the Transfiguration and from time to time the Feast of the Transfiguration falls on a Sunday. As Luke Timothy Johnson calls the passage “Recognizing Jesus,” we are not surprised that this season of revelation and light ends on the mountaintop.
If you are interested in how the other texts tell the story of the transfiguration, you can find the parallels for today’s Gospel reading here:
One of the things I want to draw our attention to as we begin to survey this Gospel reading is that the lectionary has divided it in an odd place. I very much prefer the passage to be read as Luke 9:18-36. Here we have an ongoing disagreement between the New Testament scholar and the liturgist—one concerned with textual integrity, the other with the rhythm of worship. Overlooking that, we see plainly as we open our Bibles that Luke intends for this moment to transition us from the miracle of loaves and fishes into a private time of prayer between the teacher and his disciples.
In the previous passage, the miracle of multiplication and abundance concludes as the ochlos—the crowd—becomes something new, transformed into the laos, the people of God. The inbreaking of the reign of God into the world is immediately followed by Jesus drawing apart for prayer. And in that moment of solitude, Jesus turns to his disciples and asks the question upon which the entire Gospel hinges: Who am I? Peter responds with a revelation: You are the Messiah of God. This is no ordinary confession; it is an unveiling, an eschatological vision breaking into the present moment. But the confession comes with a charge: If you would follow me, deny yourselves, take up your cross, and die daily. To see the Messiah is to be drawn into his way of being in the world—to live, suffer, and serve as he does.
From Revelation to Transfiguration
This brings us to the mountaintop. How have the disciples done with their charge? Have they understood? Are they ready?
Luke tells us, as he was praying, the transfiguration occurs. That phrase is significant. The change in Christ’s appearance, his dazzling raiment, the descent of Moses and Elijah—all of it unfolds in the midst of prayer. The vision does not come as an event external to Christ but as something that arises from within his communion with the Father. This is not the first time Luke ties divine revelation to prayer. Jesus’ baptism, his calling of the disciples, his moment of recognition as God’s beloved—all of these happen in prayer. Here, again, prayer is not merely preparation for revelation; prayer is the means by which one sees.
And what is seen? Jesus, radiant in the uncreated light of God, is revealed in the company of Moses and Elijah. The lawgiver, the prophet, and the Messiah stand together, speaking of his departure—his exodus. The imagery is unmistakable: Jesus is leading his people into a new deliverance, a new crossing over, a new transformation of their very being.
The Vision-Act of the Other
The disciples are overwhelmed. In their drowsiness, their disorientation, Peter fumbles for something familiar: Let us build three tents! This, of course, echoes the Feast of Booths, the memory of Israel’s sojourning in the wilderness. But Peter is mistaken. He sees Jesus as one among three, as if Moses, Elijah, and Christ stand on equal footing. He fails to perceive that Jesus is not simply another prophet, another voice among many. The vision must be clarified.
A cloud descends—the same cloud that led Israel through the desert, the same cloud that filled the Temple, the same cloud in which God speaks at Sinai. And then the voice: This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him.
Here, the transfiguration reaches its climax. Jesus alone stands at the center, and the Father makes clear: To see him is to see the fullness of God’s glory. But more than that, to see him is to be seen. The disciples do not merely witness transfiguration—they are themselves drawn into it. This is the vision-act of the Other: in beholding Christ, they themselves are changed. We, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed from one degree of glory to another (2 Cor. 3:18). To see Christ truly is to become like him.
This is the heart of Christian transformation. Transfiguration is not about mere perception, about understanding Christ more fully—it is about being conformed to him, about being seen by God and in that seeing, being changed. It is not merely an event upon the mountaintop; it is the pattern of Christian life.
The Church as the Place of Transfiguration
And here, perhaps, we must ask an uncomfortable question: If the disciples beheld Christ and were changed, do we expect the same in our churches? Do people who come into our worship leave transfigured? Do they, like those on the mountain, see Christ and go forth reflecting his glory? Or have we, like Peter, simply built booths—structures that keep God contained, manageable, institutionalized?
These are not liturgical questions, these are preaching questions.
The danger of Peter’s impulse is not only that he equates Jesus with Moses and Elijah—it is that he attempts to hold on to the moment rather than allowing it to shape him. How often do we do the same? How often do we mistake the form of worship for the substance of transformation? We argue over style—traditional, contemporary, charismatic, postmodern—but we rarely ask the real question: Do we expect to encounter the transfigured Christ? Do we believe, truly, that God is at work in the midst of our worship? Or have we grown tired, going through the motions, content with booths when we are called to bear the weight of glory?
As leaders of worship, we must ask: Are we attuned to the sacred things unfolding in our midst? Or are we simply moving through another Sunday, another liturgy, another sermon, another Eucharist? Are we facilitating an encounter with the Living God, or are we making church palatable, convenient, tame?
If the transfiguration teaches us anything, it is that true worship—true seeing—requires risk. It requires vulnerability. It demands that we, like the disciples, be willing to step into the cloud, to tremble at the voice of God, to descend the mountain forever changed. The church is not called to be a museum of past revelations, nor a fortress of rigid tradition, nor a spiritual marketplace offering religious goods. It is called to be the place of transfiguration. A place where Christ is seen, where the Other is encountered, where we are drawn into the ongoing, unfolding glory of God.
This is the hope of transfiguration: that as we behold Christ, we are changed. That as we see him, we are seen. That as we enter into prayer, we are drawn ever more deeply into the life of God.
And so we must ask: Are we prepared for such a vision? Or, like Peter, will we fumble for the familiar, trying to keep God within our grasp? The invitation stands before us: Come up the mountain. Behold the glory. And be transfigured.
In 2 Corinthians 3:18 Paul pictures the church as a community of faces gazing at one another lost in a hall of mirrors in a dizzying transfiguration into the image of Jesus, the Christ, the one who is to come, always deferred.
"First Thoughts on Passages on Year C Epistle Passages in the Lectionary," Transfiguration, William Loader, Murdoch University, Uniting Church in Australia.
The danger of Peter’s impulse is not only that he equates Jesus with Moses and Elijah—it is that he attempts to hold on to the moment rather than allowing it to shape him. How often do we do the same? How often do we mistake the form of worship for the substance of transformation? We argue over style—traditional, contemporary, charismatic, postmodern—but we rarely ask the real question: Do we expect to encounter the transfigured Christ? Do we believe, truly, that God is at work in the midst of our worship? Or have we grown tired, going through the motions, content with booths when we are called to bear the weight of glory?
As leaders of worship, we must ask: Are we attuned to the sacred things unfolding in our midst? Or are we simply moving through another Sunday, another liturgy, another sermon, another Eucharist? Are we facilitating an encounter with the Living God, or are we making church palatable, convenient, tame?
If the transfiguration teaches us anything, it is that true worship—true seeing—requires risk. It requires vulnerability. It demands that we, like the disciples, be willing to step into the cloud, to tremble at the voice of God, to descend the mountain forever changed. The church is not called to be a museum of past revelations, nor a fortress of rigid tradition, nor a spiritual marketplace offering religious goods. It is called to be the place of transfiguration. A place where Christ is seen, where the Other is encountered, where we are drawn into the ongoing, unfolding glory of God.
This is the hope of transfiguration: that as we behold Christ, we are changed. That as we see him, we are seen. That as we enter into prayer, we are drawn ever more deeply into the life of God.
And so we must ask: Are we prepared for such a vision? Or, like Peter, will we fumble for the familiar, trying to keep God within our grasp? The invitation stands before us: Come up the mountain. Behold the glory. And be transfigured.
Some Thoughts on 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2
In 2 Corinthians 3:18 Paul pictures the church as a community of faces gazing at one another lost in a hall of mirrors in a dizzying transfiguration into the image of Jesus, the Christ, the one who is to come, always deferred.
Commentary, Exodus 34:29-35, David E. Fredrickson, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2016.
The epistle reading for today reminds us that the revelation of Jesus’ glory is so spectacular that it initiates the transfiguration of all who are in Christ.
"Commentary, Exodus 34:29-35, Carla Works, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2013."
Paul pits his transforming gospel against the one espoused by those who appeal to the biblical authority of laws and commandments and who see Jesus as primarily promoting a new version of Moses.
"First Thoughts on Passages on Year C Epistle Passages in the Lectionary," Transfiguration, William Loader, Murdoch University, Uniting Church in Australia.
When Jesus enters our heart, he brings the renewing image of God. We are reclothed with what Adam and Eve lost. We are reclothed in righteousness and now we understand and love the truth. We can once again judge rightly between the good and the bad when before we were slaves of sin.
"Made in the Image of God," Bill Green, in Kerux: The Online Journal of Biblical Theology (Reformed).
In Second Corinthians, Paul weaves a vision of unveiled glory, where the Spirit liberates humanity from veiled understanding into the radiant image of Christ. The veil—symbolic of separation, obscurity, and the limitations of the old covenant—is lifted in Christ, revealing not only the fullness of divine presence but the path of transformation by which humanity is drawn deeper into God’s likeness.
This passage is a deeply embodied articulation of Christian anthropology and eschatology. Paul is not simply speaking of a conceptual enlightenment but of a real, ontological change—one that unfolds in the dynamic relationship between the human person and the Spirit of God. This transformation is neither passive nor instantaneous but occurs from one degree of glory to another, suggesting a participatory movement, an ongoing transfiguration that occurs within the body of Christ. It is the Spirit, the Lord, who enacts this process, calling forth human agency in response.
This unveiling also carries an ethical charge: we do not lose heart. To be conformed to Christ is not merely to behold the truth but to enact it—to renounce deception, to refuse manipulation, and to stand before the world in a posture of integrity. Paul’s contrast between cunning and open truth-telling aligns with a sacramental understanding of reality: just as the veil is removed in Christ, so must we live as those who do not obscure, distort, or commodify the word of God.
Transformed by the Spirit, the church needs to manifest God's revealed glory. The church should not hide the gospel message. The church serves as a reflective surface that displays Christ's light because of divine grace rather than holding it as its own property.Where the Spirit is, there is freedom. This is not a disembodied, individualistic liberty but a liberation into the fullness of human vocation acted out amid the community of the world: to see and be seen, to behold and be transformed, to be conformed to Christ from one degree of glory to another. It is a vision that is at once deeply eschatological and profoundly present, calling us to live as those whose faces have been unveiled, who see the world anew in the light of the resurrection.
Some Thoughts on Exodus 34:29-35
"Today's Gospel reading dramatizes the ultimate instance of divine-human mediation, as Jesus radiated divine presence while praying, and then as he engaged with the two preeminent Old Testament agents of divine mediation at the Mount of Transfiguration."
Commentary, Exodus 34:29-35, William Yarchin, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2016.
"How would our ministry change if we removed the veil between ourselves and God?"
"A Veiled Question," Ruth Everhart, The Hardest Question, 2013.
"A Veiled Question," Ruth Everhart, The Hardest Question, 2013.
"The Lukan reading picks up the story of the transfiguration story of Jesus and as Moses was the mediator in the past, it is now Jesus who brings the revelation of God. Both Moses and Elijah are present and speak with him as his face becomes radiant from being in the presence of God."
Exodus 34:29-35, Commentary, Background, Insights from Literary Structure, Theological Message, Ways to Present the Text. Anna Grant-Henderson, Uniting Church in Australia.
Exodus 34:29-35, Commentary, Background, Insights from Literary Structure, Theological Message, Ways to Present the Text. Anna Grant-Henderson, Uniting Church in Australia.
"Our lives are full with commitments and activities and pleasurable leisure opportunities. This passage reminds us, however, that life's real thrills for which our souls truly long have their one true source in the spiritual sun of God's glory."
Last Sunday of Epiphany, Year C: Exodus 34:29-35, Biblische Ausbildung, Dr. Stephen L. Cook, Virginia Theological Seminary.
We have already had the episode of the Golden calf and the people's fear that Moses would not return. Moses after having dealt with their fear and anxiety returned to the mountain. He returns and his face shines because of having stood and taken in God's glory. (An interesting side note from my art history days...the translation for the word "shine" can also mean horns. This why is some depictions of Moses we see him with horns.
What happens in the transfiguration of Moses' face and the conversation between God, Moses and the people is this - God comes close. God is present and close to God's people. There is an intimacy, a relationship, a connection between God and God's people. It is not a relationship that is built upon the freedom from slavery or the people's faithfulness. It is one of actual distance. God has come close.
This idea of closeness plays with the ideas around the transfiguration...in other words...God is not ever been far away. God has always been close. From walking among his creation with his creatures, to traveling with Abraham, to this moment in the reading... and on through the story until we get the transfiguration of Jesus...God's nature is not merely transcendence (though it is that as well). God's nature is also nearness with people and creation.
God is present at the heart of creation. We see that part of what happens in the transfiguration story is not merely a seeing that the past comes forward in Moses and Elijah to bless Jesus in some form or fashion. But that the disciples are actually recognizing in Jesus, at the transfiguring moment, that he is connected with the God who has been close to God's people all along. Jesus, in the transfiguration does not merely shine like Moses. These are not literary motifs. No. Instead what we see here is that the first followers of Jesus along with the gospel authors, see that Jesus himself is the God who has been close to his people, and walked in the garden, this whole time. It is a revelation not of a new something but that Jesus, in his perfect image of the incarnation, is the same as the one God the people knew all along.
Last Sunday of Epiphany, Year C: Exodus 34:29-35, Biblische Ausbildung, Dr. Stephen L. Cook, Virginia Theological Seminary.
We have already had the episode of the Golden calf and the people's fear that Moses would not return. Moses after having dealt with their fear and anxiety returned to the mountain. He returns and his face shines because of having stood and taken in God's glory. (An interesting side note from my art history days...the translation for the word "shine" can also mean horns. This why is some depictions of Moses we see him with horns.
What happens in the transfiguration of Moses' face and the conversation between God, Moses and the people is this - God comes close. God is present and close to God's people. There is an intimacy, a relationship, a connection between God and God's people. It is not a relationship that is built upon the freedom from slavery or the people's faithfulness. It is one of actual distance. God has come close.
This idea of closeness plays with the ideas around the transfiguration...in other words...God is not ever been far away. God has always been close. From walking among his creation with his creatures, to traveling with Abraham, to this moment in the reading... and on through the story until we get the transfiguration of Jesus...God's nature is not merely transcendence (though it is that as well). God's nature is also nearness with people and creation.
God is present at the heart of creation. We see that part of what happens in the transfiguration story is not merely a seeing that the past comes forward in Moses and Elijah to bless Jesus in some form or fashion. But that the disciples are actually recognizing in Jesus, at the transfiguring moment, that he is connected with the God who has been close to God's people all along. Jesus, in the transfiguration does not merely shine like Moses. These are not literary motifs. No. Instead what we see here is that the first followers of Jesus along with the gospel authors, see that Jesus himself is the God who has been close to his people, and walked in the garden, this whole time. It is a revelation not of a new something but that Jesus, in his perfect image of the incarnation, is the same as the one God the people knew all along.
