• Six (Mt and Mk) or eight days (Lk) after the dialogue about “Who do people say I am?”

• “A high mountain” (Mt and Mk) vs “the mountain” (Lk).
• Mt and Mk: “beloved” Son; Lk: “chosen” Son.

• The Transfiguration confirms Peter's act of faith that Jesus is the Christ.
• Moses and Elijah appeared and had a conversation with Jesus.
• Peter offered to build three tents (Latin: tabernacles) for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah (Exodus; “Feast of Booths”).
• A bright cloud came over them (Exodus).
• The disciples were frightened and/or terrified at some point in the story.
  • Mt: The disciples fell face-down on the ground and became “very much afraid” when they heard the voice (6).
  • Mk: The disciples were terrified by the appearance of Moses and Elijah (v. 6– before the cloud and the voice).
  • Lk: “They became frightened when they entered the cloud” (34).
• “This is my … Son; listen to him.” Variations:
  • Mt: “beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
  • Mk: “beloved Son.”
  • Lk: “chosen Son.”
• At the end, Jesus was alone with the disciples.
• They did not tell others what they had seen.

• “He was transfigured before them” (1). Greek: metemorphothe, which became “metamorphosis” in English. “Transfiguration” is from the Latin translation of the Greek.
• “His clothes became white as light” (2).
• Only Matthew records that the Father said “I am well pleased” with the Son (5). The same words were used in the Baptism of Jesus in Matthew 3:17. According to the footnote in the New American Bible, that phrase, in turn, is an echo of Isaiah 42:1, Psalm 2:7, and Genesis 22:2.
• “When the disciples heard this, they fell prostrate. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, 'Rise, and do not be afraid'” (6).
• “Then the disciples understood that he was speaking to them of John the Baptist” (13).

• His clothes were “such as no fuller on earth could bleach them” (3).
• The disciples are not perplexed by the question of how Jesus is “Son of God” (an ambiguous term in the Israelite tradition); they leave the mountain “questioning what rising from the dead meant” (10).
• “How is it written regarding the Son of Man that he must suffer greatly and be treated with contempt?” (12). That is The Big Question of Mark's gospel. The big answer is in 10:45: “For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
• Only Mark claims that the maltreatment of John the Baptist was a fulfillment of prophecy: “they did to him whatever they pleased, as it is written of him” (13).

• Jesus took the three disciples up the mountain “to pray” (28).
• “While he was praying his face changed in appearance” (29).
• Moses and Elijah “appeared in glory” (31). Two accidental morals to draw from this aspect of the story:
  • Moses and Elijah are not trapped in Hell, waiting for the death of Jesus to set them free; they are alive and well and “in glory.”
  • Their glorification anticipates the glory of all of the saints. God designed us to be aglow with His love. “By your stubbornness and impenitent heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself for the day of wrath and revelation of the just judgment of God, who will repay everyone according to his works: [We are judged by our WORKS!] eternal life to those who seek glory, honor, and immortality through perseverance in good works, but wrath and fury to those who selfishly disobey the truth and obey wickedness. Yes, affliction and distress will come upon every human being who does evil, Jew first and then Greek. But there will be glory, honor, and peace for everyone who does good, Jew first and then Greek” (Rom 2:5-10).
• The conversation was about “his exodus that he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem” (31).
• “Peter and his companions had been overcome by sleep, but becoming fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men standing with him” (32). It's not clear to me exactly when the disciples fell asleep. The disciples (not just Peter, James, and John) also fall asleep in Luke's version of the Agony in the Garden: “When he rose from prayer and returned to his disciples, he found them sleeping from grief” (22:45).
• The group was covered by the cloud (34).

• “They saw no one else but Jesus alone.”
• Jesus explicitly told the disciples not to tell anyone what they had seen until after He rose from the dead.
• The disciples ask Jesus, “Why do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?”

• Peter didn't know what he was saying (Mk 9:6; Lk 9:33).

• Why doesn't John tell this story in his gospel? “And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us (literally, 'pitched his tent among us'), and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father's only Son, full of grace and truth” (Jn 1:14).
• “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 1:16-19).
• How did the disciples recognize Moses and Elijah? Did they introduce themselves? Spiritual intuition? Did Jesus call them by name when He spoke with them?

• This scene does not assert the divinity of Jesus directly and unequivocally.
• All by itself, it shows Jesus as the summit toward which the Law (Moses) and the Prophets (Elijah) lead. The logic of the story (not the text itself) asserts that the Jewish Scriptures (TNK) point to Jesus: Moses represents “Torah” and Elijah represents “Nebi'im.”
• The phrase “Son of God” was used of the Kings (Messiahs, Christs) in the Old Testament (Ps 2, Ps 89). Those who do not accept the full divinity of Jesus, one-in-being (homoousios with the Father; Council of Nicea, 325 AD) could give these passages a Jewish interpretation. On this view, Jesus would just be identified as the human being who was expected to re-start David's dynasty (Ps. 89).
• John's gospel is unequivocal. The mention of the Transfiguration in 1:14 (if it is a mention of the Transfiguration!) comes after the opening verses, in which there is no doubt that the logos (word) is God.

In all three gospels, the evangelist links the time of the Transfiguration to Peter's confession that Jesus is the Christ, the human being anointed by God to be the King of the Jews (they are all that is left of the Kingdom of Israel). Matthew and Mark say that the Transfiguration took place six days after Peter identified Jesus as the Christ; Luke says it was eight days afterward.

What this suggests to me is that the Transfiguration is confirmation from Heaven that Jesus is the Christ (Greek), the Messiah (Hebrew), the one Anointed to restore the Kingship that was destroyed by the Babylonian Captivity (586 BC). The Jews knew that God had a covenant with David (discussed at length in Psalm 89) that was supposed to last “forever” (vv. 2, 3, 5, 29, 30, 37). The content of the covenant (bargain, deal, agreement, contract, promises, personal committed relationship) was that “His dynasty will continue forever, his throne, like the sun before me. Like the moon it will stand eternal, forever firm like the sky!” (37-38).

The dynasty (royal family) of David did not last forever. David was anointed (messiahed, christened) King of Israel, which consisted of twelve tribes, around 1010 BC. Ten of the twelve tribes of the Kingdom of Israel were destroyed by the Assyrians around 722-721 BC; the eleventh tribe was swallowed up by Judah; and the Kingdom of Judah was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC. Four hundred and twenty-six years is a good run for a royal family, but it is not “forever.” The Jews knew that God had not fulfilled his covenant with David and said so in no uncertain terms (Ps 89:39-46).

When Peter said that the disciples believed Jesus was “the Messiah, the son of the living God” (Mt 16:16), he was saying, in effect, “You are the man who has been chosen by God to re-found the House of David–and we twelve apostles are going to be the fathers of twelve new tribes. We'll each have our own harem and our own tribal land. You are going to lead us in battle against our enemies, the Romans. With your miracle-working power, we can't lose! You who calmed the storm can summon storms to defeat them. You will heal all who are wounded on the battlefield and even raise them from dead. Our job is going to be to eat, drink, be merry, and beget lots and lots of children of Abraham with our harems in order to fulfill God's covenant with him. Oh, happy days are here again!”

This way of looking at Peter's confession of faith is confirmed by the versions of the story in Matthew and Mark. The disciples' first question to Jesus is not about his Divine and unique Sonship, but about the coming of the Kingdom: “Why do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?” (Mt 17:10; Mk 9:11). They have been confirmed in their belief that Jesus is the Christ, the King, Son of David, who is about to re-create the twelve tribes of Israel through them; their only anxiety is about the sequence of events that will lead up to their own enthronement as patriarchs under King Jesus.

In the Scriptures, it is clear that “Son of God” does not automatically mean “God, the Son.”

• The angels (including hasatan, “the adversary” or “District Attorney”) were called “Sons of God” in Job 1:6 and 2:1. Although any angel could be called a “Son of God,” the angel would not be “God, the Son.”
• The King of Israel was called “Son of God” in Psalm 2:7 (“You are my son; today I am your father”) and Psalm 89:27 (“He shall cry to me,'You are my father, my God, the Rock that brings me victory!'”). When the Israelites (and later, the Jews) called their Messiah-Christ-King “Son of God,” it did not mean that the King was “God, the Son.” The Messiahs were human beings who fought battles, begat children with their harems, and died, making way for the next Messiah to do the same kind of things.
• The gospel of Luke calls Adam “the son of God” (3:38). Adam is the father of all human beings, but he is not “God, the Son.”

There are many lessons we can learn from meditating on the mystery of the Transfiguration. In offering a few thoughts here, I am not in any way limiting the “glorious freedom of the children of God” (Rom 8:21) to find other meanings in the text.

• The radiance of Jesus' human body and the glory surrounding Moses and Elijah (Lk 9:30) is a preview of our own transfiguration in glory. From our ordinary experience of our human bodies, we would not predict that they can glow with the glory of God Himself.
• Our pilgrimage with Jesus contains both consolation and desolation. We can't stay on the mount of Transfiguration (a time of great consolation for Jesus and for his disciples); we must follow Jesus to Mount Calvary (desolation). We are on a journey with King Jesus. Our pilgrimage will not end until we reach the Kingdom of Heaven. Suffering and death are sure to come to us on this journey, but joy has the last word (Fr. Jake Randall).

• The declaration that “Jesus is the Christ” was such a prominent feature of the preaching of the apostles and disciples that it became the name of the religion: “it was in Antioch that the disciples were first called Christians” (Acts 11:26).
• Passages other than the Transfiguration in both the synoptic gospels (Mt, Mk, Lk) and John affirmed that Jesus is God, the Son. The meaning of these passages was solemnly affirmed and carefully defined by the Council of Nicea in 325 AD. The Nicene Creed (edited by subsequent councils) tells us every Sunday that Jesus is “the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God, begotten, not made, one in being [Greek: homoousios] with the Father.”
• Because of this firm belief that Jesus is “God, the Son,” the Nicene Christian reading (interpretation) of the Transfiguration takes on a whole new depth that is not accessible to those who do not believe in the full divinity of Jesus. We can see and appreciate much more than the disciples could on the day of the Transfiguration.

• Transfiguration is an extremely popular image in science fiction: Transformers, Alien, Men in Black, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, etc., etc. Cf. also Franz Kafka's novel, The Metamorphosis. One of the great themes of literature is that “Things are not always as they seem.”
• The Transfiguration provides a scriptural justification–if any is needed–for the use of halos in paintings. I don't know whether any painters, in fact, appealed to this source for their inspiration to do so.
• The Transfiguration is literally an epiphany (Greek, “shining on”), with the light of Christ shining forth from within Him and shining on the disciples. It is also an “epiphany” (in the sense of a sudden revelation) for the three witnesses.
• Compare this story to that of Moses' shining face when he came down from Mt. Sinai. “When he finished speaking with them, he put a veil over his face. Whenever Moses entered the presence of the LORD to converse with him, he removed the veil until he came out again. On coming out, he would tell the Israelites all that had been commanded. Then the Israelites would see that the skin of Moses' face was radiant; so he would again put the veil over his face until he went in to converse with the LORD” (Ex 34:33-35).
• According to two gospels, Peter, James, and John were also special witnesses of Jesus' Agony in the Garden (Mt 26:37; Mk 14:33). The texts do not say why Jesus chose them to be close to Him in either event; it is a fact that we may ponder and, perhaps, from which we may draw some personal lessons.
• The appearance of Moses and Elijah “in glory” (Lk 9:31) is an incidental, but I think real, piece of evidence against the legends of “The Harrowing of Hell.”