Transfiguration, Transformation, and Glory

 Today is the Feast of the Transfiguration. Jesus climbed a mountain with Peter, James, and John. At the top of the mountain, possibly Mount Tabor, He was transformed and became radiant. It seems fair to say His divinity shone through for a moment. Moses and Elijah appeared to Jesus and talked about what was coming. Christian tradition understands them as representatives of the Law and the Prophets, respectively, though of course Moses was himself also a prophet. The disciples heard a voice from heaven saying, "This is my Son, my Chosen, listen to him!" In Luke 9, this happens not long before Jesus "set his face to go to Jerusalem." The three synoptic gospels record this sign, though John leaves it out of his Gospel. Peter also references it in his second epistle.

The Greek word which Matthew and Mark use is metamorphoo. It's the root of the word "metamorphosis." That Greek word appears four times in the New Testament, in the two Gospel accounts of this miracle, and twice in Paul's letters. I noticed this because I've been spending a lot of time with one of those recently. Romans 12:2 says: "Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect." Here, "be transformed" has the same root word as "was transfigured," and as "are being changed" in 2 Corinthians 3:18.

I am not a Greek scholar, so I don't want to press the point too far. Still, the parallel between Jesus' Transfiguration, Paul's exhortation to us to "be transformed" and Paul's declaration we "beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another" is just too cool not to sit with for a while. David declares, "what are human beings that you are mindful of them, /mortals that you care for them? // Yet you have made them a little lower than God, / and crowned them with glory and honor." Jesus' divine glory transformed His human glory, in much the same way God intends to transform us, if we participate in His grace.

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