The Last Sunday after the Epiphany (Year C)
March 2, 2025
O God, who before the passion of thy only-begotten Son didst reveal his glory upon the holy mount: Grant unto us that we, beholding by faith the light of his countenance, may be strengthened to bear our cross, and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Exodus 34:29-35
1 Corinthians 12:27–13:13
Luke 9:28-36
The Transfiguration is a central event in all three of the Synoptic Gospels – Mark, Matthew, and Luke. Now these three accounts are interconnected by Matthew and Luke both depending upon Mark as their primary textual source. Matthew and Luke each have their own special material – we assume unknown to the other – to enhance their narratives, and each makes choices about how to adapt Mark by shaping that material to suit their own literary and theological concerns. Here, both Matthew and Luke follow Mark very closely and the general shape of the narrative, and its most important details, appear in all three versions.(1)
It is always Peter, James, and John who accompany Jesus up the mountain. In all three accounts, Jesus was transformed before their eyes, each author using the same word to describe the dazzling white with which Jesus shone. Moses and Elijah always appear and talk with Jesus, and Peter always suggests that he should build some accommodation so that they all could remain together and prolong this miraculous experience. But as soon as that happens, a cloud overshadows the mountain, and a voice that we assume to be God’s speaks from the heavens. The voice pronounces his favour upon Jesus, and calls him his beloved son.(2) This language is meant to recall the words God speaks in all three Synoptic accounts of Jesus’ baptism, and to which John alludes. It further makes reference to the language we find in the Hebrew Bible describing the prophets who would face suffering in the execution of their prophetic ministry. Finally, all three texts tell us that as soon as it all started, it is all over and everyone comes down from the mountain, with some notion – that can’t be true – that this was to be some kind of secret.
This is the broad shape of the story, and its point is to help us make meaning of exactly who Jesus is. He is the one who on the mountain top is changed, transfigured, shines with the brightest light, and who converses with the great figures of sacred history, Moses and Elijah. Jesus is the one who is singled out and proclaimed God’s true beloved son. These signs and wonders point to Jesus’ special identity and to the unfolding of Jesus’ story, moving towards his passion, death, and resurrection, towards the victory of the Risen Christ. For Mark, the Transfiguration is where we get to see the Risen Christ because there are no authentic resurrection stories in that text. But Mark’s community, one of the earliest post-Resurrection Christian communities, knows the risen Christ, and there were even likely those among them who were alive – perhaps even present – for the events described. Matthew and Luke, who both give us resurrection stories, are giving us a foretaste of what is to come, showing us how we may be given glimpses of the risen Christ, but that these moments are fleeting. For us, like the original readers of Matthew and Luke, we may behold for an instant Christ in his glory, but those moments are elusive, like water flowing through our fingers, and we just can’t hold onto them. We must recognise them in the moment, and rather than concentrate on making the moment last, we must take in the fulness of the experience so that it carries us down the mountain again and back into our lives as we exercise our various vocations in the world.
Now Luke adds material to the story that was not present in Mark and which was not known to – or considered unimportant by – Matthew. This is the bit in the middle when we learn more of exactly what transpired on the mountain (9:31-33a). Luke tells us that Moses, Elijah, and Jesus spoke specifically about Jesus’ “departure, which he was to accomplish at Jerusalem.̵ Luke wants to make sure that we connect these events with those of Jesus’ passion, death, and resurrection. Indeed, we who know the whole story know that Jesus made two departures, the first on Good Friday and the second, after his resurrection on Ascension Day. Everything that happens on the mountain relates to the fulfilment of Jesus’ destiny.
Luke also provides the details about how “Peter and those who were with him were heavy with sleep,̵ and how they must have dozed off while Jesus was praying and before anything happened, because “when they wakened,̵ that was the moment they beheld Jesus in his “glory̵ and the two figures with him. When we reach the Garden of Gethsemane with Jesus and his friends, we will see that this moment was foreshadowed when Jesus finds his friends asleep, and rebukes them for not staying awake and keeping watch with him.
Both of these little details add colour to the story, and make it more real, more relatable. Indeed, this is characteristic of Luke and the reason why he was often depicted as a painter and became patron saint of artists. These specific touches go to the heart of our own imagination. Of course, we would wonder what Jesus and Moses and Elijah were talking about, and rather than have us waste our energy imagining the conversation, Luke comes out and tells us. The disciples falling asleep is a lovely touch of human, real-life detail. Of course they were tired when they go up there. Of course, they succumbed to sleep while their Lord remained at prayer, just as they would in later in the Garden. In this way, the two life-like two vignettes effortlessly reinforce the overarching theme that we are looking from the mountain top across to Jesus’ passion, death, and resurrection. They subtly, but firmly, tell us where we stand, and where we are going after we have come down from the mountain.
For this is where we are. Today we are taken up the mountain and given a glimpse of Jesus in all his resurrection glory. Indeed, after the week we have seen in our nation and the effects it will have on the rest of the world, it is probably a very good thing for us today to be shown Christ glistening, raiment shining, burning with the light of God’s love, with the power of the resurrection. And I would not blame anyone who, like Peter, wanted to stay on the mountain top and build some shelter so we can stay a while. But we are told we can’t stop here, and we are made to come down the mountain. We have come down the mountain to face the forty days of prayer, fasting, and preparation that begin on Wednesday, and that end only at the Easter Vigil when we at last find the tomb empty, and come to meet the Risen Christ.
So what can we do? How do we face the journey that lies before us, both that marked by the Christian year, and by world events. I think we get a very good idea from the Epistle for today. Paul tells the Corinthians:
Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, then healers, helpers, administrators, speakers in various kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? (1 Cor 12:27-30).
We are all different. Each of us has different gifts. No single one of us can do it all. But Paul shows us that together we have extraordinary authority as the Body of Christ to be agents of change, agents of God’s love.
Last week, I spoke of Jesus’ words about love in the Sermon on the Plain. I talked about how we must orient ourselves and all our actions to the works of love, not love as feeling, but love as the essential quality of our identity. It is the core of who we are and what we do. Paul connects the diverse work of the body of Christ with this attitude of love. He tells us that the work, the jobs (as it were) that he mentions are null if not enacted from the standpoint of love. He says, “if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.̵ The stance we take is one of patience and kindness, openness and humility, “it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right.̵ With this orientation, come down from the mountain, we are able to “bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, endure all things.̵
Here on the precipice of Lent, it seems that the liturgical year has caught up with our current experience. Sometimes Good Friday comes and we are experiencing some high, and sometimes Easter comes as we are in the depths of sorrow. Lent this year comes on about the right pitch for us in our city and in our nation. It is an opportunity that down from today’s brief exposure to the dazzling light of the Resurrection, we can keep what we have seen in our hearts and look to the Resurrection celebration that is to come, and try to put on that orientation of love, knowing that we are doing this together, and that in this we have the ability to “remove mountains,̵ to face the worst that sinful man can throw at us.
Andrew Charles Blume ✠
New York City
Saint David’s Day, 1 March 2025
1. Luke 9:28-36 = Mark 9:2-10 = Matthew 17:1-9.
2. Luke 9:35 RSV, note states that although the textus receptus prefers the reading “chosen,” several witnesses give “beloved.”
© 2025 Andrew Charles Blume