March 2, 2025 – Transfiguration Sunday
Jack Belsom
Here we are in that in-between-time. This is the last Sunday in Epiphany in which we focus on Ke Akua’s breaking into our world with light and hope in the ministry of Jesus, and Wednesday we begin the long journey with Jesus and the disciples on the way to Jerusalem and Jesus’ execution at the hands of the Roman Empire. For centuries scholars have struggled with the meaning of the “Transfiguration” without coming to any real consensus. Like the story of Jesus, our ministry lives in a tension between glory and suffering.
Frederick Buechner defines glory this way:
Glory is to God what style is to an artist. A painting by Vermeer, a sonnet by Donne, a Mozart aria—each is so rich with the style of the one who made it that to the connoisseurit couldn’t have been made by anybody else, and the effect is staggering. The style of an artist brings you as close to the sound of his voice and the light in his eye as it is possible to get this side of actually shaking hands with him… Glory is what God looks like when for the time being all you have to look at him with is a pair of eyes. [Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC, Harper and Row, (New York:1973, p. 30.]
I believe Luke wrote his Gospel to address concerns in the church that he knew best. The glory of the resurrection and the promise of the establishment of the heavenly realm on earth filled their hearts and illumined their hope. Yet, there had been no parting of the clouds and no descending ofdivine realm. They were a small minority, and they were often subject to mockery and abuse for following Christ. They had so focused on glory that they didn’t remember that suffering and glory always go together in the Gospel.
Raphael’s painting “The Transfiguration” helps us see the gospel the way that artist saw it. Everything is there: Jesus conversing with Moses and Elijah, the bright light, the three sleeping disciples, and the suffering people at the foot of the mountain. The glory of God’s presence and the pain of a broken world cannot be separated. It should come as no surprise to Jesus’ disciples in thefirst century and in the twenty-first century. Jesus had shared the cost and joy of discipleship in his teaching, but, like many of us, we want to focus on the joy—the glory—and skip the suffering—the cost.
Raphael got it right. Kimberly Miller Van Driel [Feasting on the Word Commentary, Year C, Vol. 3] explains:
Raphael’s exquisite painting The Transfiguration presents a chaotic scene at the bottom of the canvas. Stuck at the foot of the mountain, the disciples cannot cure the sick boy. Frustration is palpable in the outstretched arms and panicked faces of the crowd. In their midst, however, two figures point in the direction of the mountain, toward the sky, in which the transfigured Jesus shines, arrayed in white. This is the Jesus who will come down the mountain, bringing life and healing to the boy.
Luke is trying to do what those two figures in the painting are doing—pointing to Jesus as the one in whom there is healing, resurrecting and sustaining power even amid suffering. Jesus is not only the savior of this young boy and the healer of that family, but Jesus is also the savior and healer of the whole world—a savior of a world that is still broken, that still needs healing—a world in which disaster persists—a world in which brokenness, sin, and injustice threaten life—a world in which “hope wanes even among faithful people” [Ibid., Van Driel]. Ke Akua is not only creator but also God at work transfiguring creation. Jesus with Moses and Elijah points to the story of a God who comes, again and again, to rescue God’s people.
Sharon Ringe [Feasting on the Word Commentary, Year C, Vol. 3] is a New Testament scholar who believes Luke is speaking to a church that is struggling to come to terms with the church as an institution. The future they had hoped for had not come as they expected. How would that church, any church, put their enduring faith in a faithful God that is known in the life, ministry, suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus.
The three disciples rub the sleep out of their eyes and catch a glimpse of glory in Jesus, whom they can never look at the same way again. Peter, always ready to act, offers to preserve the momentby building shelters so they can stay on the mountain. Instead, a cloud covers Jesus, Moses, and Elijah, and a voice speaks from the cloud: “This is my Son, my Chosen, listen to him!” (v. 35). Then we get the next verse: “And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen” (v. 36b).
At least they followed Jesus down the mountain to where the people were suffering. Jesus is confronted by the father who wants his son healed—a father who complains that the disciples werepowerless to help. Jesus is upset because he knows his time with the disciples is limited. Luke tells us that Moses and Elijah were discussing Jesus’ “exodus, which he was about to fulfill in Jerusalem” (v.31). We know what “exodus” happened in Jerusalem. Life for Jesus’ disciples after what happens inJerusalem will never be the same. Glory and suffering go together.
John walked down the halls of the hospital with a limp. He had suffered a stroke and was partially paralyzed. At the hospital he always wore the bright red vest of a volunteer. I never knew what John did exactly. Then one day, I walked into a room to visit someone, and John was talking with the patient in the next bed. “It’s not the end of the world,” he was saying to the stroke victim. “I can’t walk or run like I used to,” he said. “But, I’m alive, and it’s good to be alive.” His face shone with joy and enthusiasm. “Believe me,” he said, “there’s life after a stroke, and life is good.” John struggled to move through the halls of the hospital; life was difficult for him, but John’s life was glorious.
Suffering and glory! They don’t seem to go together, but the whole Gospel is a compilation of contrasts. God’s glory breaks through in the life of an all too ordinary and common carpenter. Jesus did not like the way we picture God.
In spite of that, the glory of God shines. Glory shines in his life of obedience— even in the suffering. The Christ, who rose to free us from death, suffered, and died to set us free from the power of death. The road to glory led through suffering. The scary thing…the hopeful thing is that Jesus calls us to follow him. Called…chosen for glory…and suffering. The voice still booms from the cloud: “This is my Son, my Chosen, listen to him!” (v. 35a). Amen.