Commentary on Lectionary for March 6, 2011

Epiphany 9A

Exodus 24:12-18; Psalm 99; 2 Peter 1:16-21; Matthew 17:1-9

Here is absolutely the wrong question to ask after you read the story of the Transfiguration in Matthew’s Gospel: How did Peter, James and John know that Jesus was talking with Moses and Elijah? In our day, we could say: “We saw you on TV when you went up that mountain and came down with those tablets.” Or: “We saw the pictures of your chariot going up to heaven on your Facebook page; someone took a picture with her cell phone and posted it on your wall.”

There were no newspapers, no photographs, no archives. But Matthew says Moses and Elijah were talking with Jesus. How did he know? It’s the wrong question. It doesn’t have an answer. The better question is: What does the passage mean? What does it call us to?

It calls us to remember the reading from Exodus 24—that trip up Mount Sinai that Moses was called to, even though the thing was smoking and on fire. But out of that trip came 10 rules which, if observed, would go a long way toward helping people live in happiness and peace. And Elijah? The legend was that he didn’t die and would come back again. After this passage, Jesus says he has already come and people missed him! He must have been referring to John the Baptist.

Peter’s second letter reinforces the importance of prophets. Elijah was a prophet. He was one of those who spoke for God. He made sure that God was not forgotten or relegated to second place. This was, after all, the God who invited Moses to come up the mountain and receive that precious document, the beginning of the Mosaic Law.

So where does Jesus fit in? He doesn’t. He is no ordinary man. The Transfiguration shows the three Apostles that suffering and death will not be the end of him nor of us! And the voice enjoins the Apostles to “listen to Him!” The message is that He has words for life, and for eternal life.

And so it turns out that the amazing thing is NOT that Jesus was talking to Moses and Elijah and NOT that there was a voice from heaven, apparently from God, saying that “This is my beloved son.” The amazing thing is that He is among us, one of us. When the Apostles recover from the voice and the cloud and the proximity of the divine, they walked down the mountain into their daily lives and Jesus told them to act as if nothing had happened.

But they remembered—not immediately, but after the awful event. Two of them wrote letters. One wrote a gospel. And His gospel started with the voice, the Word, and reinforced the amazing fact: “The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us.”