Today we have a striking image: Jesus is transfigured and appears in blinding light. For Christians, He is not just another prophet or teacher but the incarnate God. How should we respond to this mystery?
Homily for II Sunday in Lent on Matthew 17:1-9
On my day off, I sometimes like to browse around in Waterstones, and very often find myself drawn to the religion shelf. Now, I’m just old enough to remember when Waterstones had Christianity shelves, and to lament that as the years have gone by it’s shrunk and shrunk, until today, when we have just one shelf marked ‘religion and spirituality’ which mixes all the world’s religions together. A worrying trend now is that the religion section also contains the anti-religion books, so you’ll now find Dawkins and Hitchens casually slotted in amongst the musings of the Dalai Lama and various Anglican clergymen, and maybe (if you’re lucky) you’ll find something by Benedict XVI or St Augustine nestled in there as well. It’s a sad reflection of how far our society has drifted away from its Christian roots that you’ll only find maybe ten or fifteen solidly Christian titles mixed in among everything else as if they were all interchangeable.
One other thing I’ve noticed in this new mishmash of religion books, is attempts to re-create moral teachings from the bible, especially the New Testament, whilst stripping out the religious and mystical elements. It’s not a new trend, for decades now there have been people who wanted to turn Jesus into nothing more than a great moral teacher. They take his lessons and his sayings, they strip them out from the context of the mystical and mysterious story. They strip away the healings except as literary devices, they strip away his messianic mission, and they strip away the resurrection. They turn the biblical narrative into a Greek tragedy: a great moral teacher goes around doing good until finally the system of religious and political power that his movement threatens crushes him. He dies and his later followers start a religious cult around him, embellishing the stories with miracles and a resurrection to make it something it never was.
It’s a trap we sometimes fall into ourselves; we find it easier to think of Jesus as a teacher and a guide, and harder to understand who he really is. Today’s Gospel is an antidote to that kind of thinking. It comes as part of a sequence of events in St Matthew’s Gospel. First, St Peter proclaims that Jesus is the Messiah. Then, Jesus explains what kind of a Messiah he will be; he tells them he is going to die on the Cross. Finally, we arrive at today’s Gospel; Jesus takes his three most trusted apostles, Peter, James, and John, up a high mountain. These same three Apostles who will also be with him on the mountain of Olivet when he faces his agony before the crucifixion. There, on the mountain, Jesus is transfigured. He shows them who He really is. He appears, shining like the Sun, in gleaming white robes, with Moses and Elijah. Moses and Elijah stand for the whole old testament, the Law and the Prophets, and between them, completing them is Jesus, shining like the Sun because He is the light that illumined Moses and the Prophets and that inspired their words. Then, the cloud descends over the mountain, just as it did when Moses spoke to God after the Exodus, and the Apostles hear the voice of the Father saying this is my Son, the beloved: listen to Him.
Today we don’t encounter Jesus the moral teacher. Today we aren’t faced with any commandments or laws or principles to follow. Today we meet Jesus the Lord, the Pantocrator (ruler of the universe), the Almighty, the Holy One. Today we stand in the presence of the mystery, the central mystery of our Christian Faith; that the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, God the Son, the Word of the Father, took on our human flesh and became a man, a human being like each one of us. For most of the Gospel His divinity, His godliness, is veiled, hidden in His human flesh. And yet in this moment he shows himself in His glory to his three most trusted followers.
People might ask, if Jesus really was God, why didn’t He show this to more people? Why did He go out into a lonely place, climb a mountain, with only three people as witnesses? Why not do it in the Temple, in Jerusalem? Why not in front of the high priest or the Roman governor? Surely, if they had seen they would have accepted Him as God? Well, because God doesn’t want to force anyone to follow Him. Salvation means entering into a relationship of love with God the Father through His Son. Love, if it is really love, always has to be free, we have to have a free choice to love or not to love. Simply appearing in all His divine glory might make people fear Him, it might make people follow Him, but it cannot make them love Him. Why then be transfigured at all? Why show anyone who He really is? Today isn’t just Jesus showing who He is but showing us what we will become. Saint Athanasius wrote about the incarnation that “the Son of God became man so that we might become God.”[1] He prophesises his death on the Cross, then shows His glory, to show us what we can be if we unite ourselves to Him through His Cross. He became man, so that we might become God, and His transfiguration shows us that this isn’t an empty promise!
What are you and I to do about it? What does this mean for us, here today in St Thomas’ Church? As I said, Jesus isn’t giving us a moral teaching or a new commandment. What we are being asked to do today is simply be present, in awe, and wonder at the great mystery laid out before us. What we might remember today is that the same God who veiled his divinity in human flesh is present with us today, and will be made present with us today under a different veil; the veil of bread and wine. Today at this Mass, and every day at every Mass, God lowers himself to take on this humble form and offers himself to us. The Council of Trent taught what Christians have always believed, that every crumb of the bread and every drop of the wine is the whole Christ; body, blood, soul, and divinity.[2] Jesus is coming, today, onto this Altar, to offer himself to us. So that by receiving His body and blood in Communion we might be joined to Him and glorified with Him.
Today’s Gospel is asking nothing more and nothing less of us than this; to acknowledge that Jesus Christ is God, our Lord and our Saviour. That he is present among us in the tabernacle, that he will be present among us at the Altar. Today’s Gospel asks us to marvel at this great mystery, and respond to it with St Peter; “It is wonderful for us to be here.”
[1] St Athanasius, De Incarnatione Verbi, 54.
[2] Council of Trent, XIII Session, Decree on the Most Holy Eucharist, Canon 1.;
"If anyone denies that in the sacrament of the most Holy Eucharist are contained truly, really and substantially the body and blood together with the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and consequently the whole Christ, but says that He is in it only as in a sign, or figure or force, let him be anathema."
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