Though long dead, Moses and Elijah, the great liberator and the prophet of the Jewish people, drop in to chat with Jesus, who emanates dazzling light before the disciples’ eyes. Then God’s voice booms from a bright cloud above, casting a fearful shadow over the disciples even as it illuminates Jesus’s true identity.
The dramatic scene certainly overwhelms, because as many times as I’ve read and heard today’s passage of the Transfiguration in Matthew’s Gospel, I had missed this one subtle detail: Upon seeing the disciples, faces to the ground in fear, Jesus came and touched them. No special effects, no bright flashes or divine decrees. Just the simple, human touch of their beloved friend. This is what dispels their fear.
As St. Irenaeus would say, God’s glory is revealed in humanity fully alive. Indeed, transfiguration is everywhere, just waiting for us to let God’s glory be seen. Click To TweetWhat if the Transfiguration reveals not only Jesus as the divine Son of God but also humanity as bearers of the divine? Moses and Elijah were ordinary humans who did ordinary things that, through faith, revealed God’s extraordinary power to the world for a people who had lost all hope.
And Jesus, born of a woman, ate and drank, walked and accompanied, touched, embraced, and loved others so completely to his death in order to show us how, as St. Irenaeus would say, God’s glory is revealed in humanity fully alive. Indeed, transfiguration is everywhere, just waiting for us to let God’s glory be seen.
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