by Brett Manero
This article comes about a week or so late, but as I’ve been traveling and on the road quite a bit this summer, I’ve lost track of time. I wanted to complete this article before entering fully into retreat mode.
It’s inspiring how the Church has feasts not only for individual saints, but even for places and events. She has feast days for the construction of churches (such as St. Mary Major), and particular events, such as the Incarnation of God the Son at Christmas. The Feast of the Transfiguration of Christ is such a feast.
We know the story of the Transfiguration. Jesus takes His three closest Apostles: Peter, James, and John, up to the mountain where He is “transfigured” before them.
And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain apart. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his garments became white as light. And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Eli′jah, talking with him. And Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is well that we are here; if you wish, I will make three booths here, one for you and one for Moses and one for Eli′jah.” He was still speaking, when lo, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” When the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces, and were filled with awe. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Rise, and have no fear.” And when they lifted up their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus only. (Matthew 17: 1-8)
As with anything in Scripture, we could spend hours discussing this scene. Immediately we think of the three “inner Apostles:” Peter, James, and John, who witness Jesus at one of His most glorious moments in the Transfiguration. Jesus shows them who He truly is: God the Son made man. It is a foreshadowing of His Resurrection and Ascension into heaven, and indeed a foreshadowing of what all three of them will see in the Beatific Vision of heaven.
What is also haunting and is how these same Apostles will also see Christ at one of His lowest moments: in His agony of the Garden of Gethsemane. What a reminder that Christianity is full of ups and downs, of mountains and valleys. Any form of the Christian faith that claims otherwise is a lie. What a fulfillment, too, of Jesus’ promise to the brothers, James and John, that drinking from “the same cup” as His would not be easy:
But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” (Mark 10: 38)
We know how both Moses and Elijah appear alongside Jesus. Moses represents the Law, while Elijah represents the Prophets. Jesus therefore fulfills both the Law and the Prophets, as He says in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:17). We know that Elijah was assumed into the heavenly realms to return at some point (2 Kings 2:11), and while we know that Moses died in the Holy Land (Deuteronomy 34), the Letter of Jude leaves the fate of his body unclear (Jude 1:9). The two greatest pillars of the Old Testament perfectly point to He who fulfills the Old and ushers in the New.
There is another telling of the Transfiguration that is often overlooked. It comes from the Second Letter of Peter, written by the Prince of the Apostles many years after the event:
For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For when he received honor and glory from God the Father and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,” we heard this voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain.
Like Paul, Peter makes it clear that Christianity is not insanity. Rather, it is sanity itself. It is founded on historical people and events. One can only imagine how the Transfiguration affected Peter, James, and John, the memory of it remaining with them for their entire lives.
The point here is: the Christian faith is attested to by history, by the witness of the Apostles and the saints. The Second Letter of Peter is such proof of the historical reliability of the Transfiguration. And if 2 Peter confirms the historicity of the Transfiguration, confirming what the Gospels tell us about it, then it also proves the reality that Jesus Christ is indeed the Son of God. For why would the Gospels and 2 Peter tell us something that was pure myth?
The Scriptures are true, and our faith is true. God is real, Jesus Christ is real, and the Transfiguration was real. Peter well knew it, and hence it remained with him for decades following the event.