Revealed in Glory
For Meditation (Elisabeth Hayes)
This Sunday, we will mark the final week of the Epiphany season before Lent begins next week. During this season of Epiphany, we’ve been focusing on Gospel stories that reveal the identity of this man called Jesus, and in this week’s text, we find the culmination of Jesus’s revelation in the story of the Transfiguration.
We began the Epiphany season with Jesus’s baptism, in which the Spirit descends upon Jesus and the voice of God announces, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” The identity of Jesus is announced by God himself, and the revelation begins to unfold. Here at the Transfiguration, we hear the voice of God again, repeating the phrase, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” This time, God also adds the command, “Listen to him!”
The Epiphany season starts with Jesus going “low,” down under the water, an act in which he identifies with us in our humanity through his own baptism. It ends with Jesus going “high,” up to the mountain, the place where heaven and earth meet, and we see the full revelation of his transcendence. And yet even as God reveals the very glory of God in the person of Jesus, confirming that he is in fact the One that had been promised, we see that his glory is revealed most in his humanity.
In preparation for worship this week, read the following three Matthew texts together: Matthew 3:13-17 (Jesus’s baptism); Matthew 17:1-9 (the Transfiguration, and our text for this week); and Matthew 27:32-54 (the Crucifixion of Jesus).
Consider the following questions:
What do these three events have in common?
What do these texts, taken together, reveal about Jesus’s identity as God himself?
What do these texts, taken together, reveal about Jesus’s identity as human being?
Hear God’s command, “listen to him.” Spend some time in prayer asking God to help you to hear what Jesus is saying to you, today, through these texts.
Matthew 17:1-9
After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus.
Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.”
While he was still speaking, a bright cloud covered them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!”
When the disciples heard this, they fell facedown to the ground, terrified. But Jesus came and touched them. “Get up,” he said. “Don’t be afraid.” When they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus.
As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus instructed them, “Don’t tell anyone what you have seen, until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”