Transfiguration
March 2006
I know that the story of the Transfiguration of Jesus on the high mountain is loaded with symbolism and can be looked at from many different angles. A thought that helps me is to consider that what Peter, James and John saw on the mountain was just the reality about how things are.
What happened at the Transfiguration was not that Jesus, Moses and Elijah were 'ransfigured' but that Peter, James and John were made capable of seeing the true (spiritual) reality. The veil (or cataract) of spiritual sightlessness was (for a moment) removed from their eyes so that they could truly see the reality of how things are.
Coming down from the mountain, and for long afterwards, Peter, James and John must have had a radically changed attitude towards the man they knew as Jesus of Nazareth. Whenever they looked at him they must have seen, in their minds eye, not the tired, footsore man, in need of a good wash, who plodded along amongst them, but the vision of the man they had seen on the Mountain.
I wonder if they realised, at that time, that what they had seen on the mountain was the reality and not what they were seeing every day. I wonder if they took a step further, at that time, and realised that when they saw Moses and Elijah 'in glory' they were in fact looking at normality for children of God? Did they realise that they themselves, and everyone around them, by the very fact that they were created in the image and likeness of God, also possessed that 'glory' which they were gifted to see, for a brief moment, on the mountain?
Wouldn't it be fantastic if I too could see the ‘glory’ in everyone I speak to, during this time of Lent and treat them accordingly?