The last Sunday of Epiphany

The Last Sunday of Epiphany (Matthew 17:1-9)

“This is my Son, The Beloved”.

The transfiguration summarizes Divine revelation.

Human beings often speculate about God. In Jesus Christ God reveals Himself to us. And, in Jesus Christ, reveals us to ourselves.

The key elements of our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation are present at the Transfiguration. As with the Baptism of Jesus, God the Father speaks audibly to reveal the fullness of the Trinity, the reality of the Incarnation, the essence of the Divine nature and the meaning and purpose of human life.

As God the Son leads three very specific individuals (Peter, James and John) up the mountain, God the Holy Spirit manifests Himself as a bright luminescent cloud. In the eternal light of the Holy Spirit Jesus himself reflects the uncreated light of his divinity. As Jesus visibly manifests the glory of his Divinity, God the Father speaks audibly.

The Father’s message at the Transfiguration is the same as His message at Jesus’ baptism. “This is my Son, The Beloved.”

The Father doesn’t just make this amazing proclamation apart from any human or historical context. He provides the context in two other individuals who appear with Jesus. Those two individuals are Moses and Elijah.

Moses represents the Torah, the Law. Elijah represents the prophets. Together they frame the revelation for the benefit of Peter, James and John who represent the leadership of the Church.

Our Heavenly Father crafted the Divine Manifestation of the Trinity and the Incarnation in the context of His prior revelation to Israel through Moses and the Prophets.

Authentic revelation is always contextual. And, it always emerges in the personal relationships and the community God himself initiated.

As the Apostle Peter wrote: we do not follow cleverly designed myths. Cleverly designed by individuals apart from a personal relationship with God in the context of the community of Faith God initiated in Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Revelation is always grounded in human history,

Revelation is personal, community based and contextual. Revelation emerges in the observations and experiences of those who hear the invitation of God and respond to the invitation of God. It is clear from this and all other passages of scripture that human response is never perfect. The desire to respond rather than to react to God is the key to revelation from a human perspective.

Peter displays the limits of his attention and understanding when he attempts to tame the Transfiguration by placing it into the context of a religious ritual. That ritual is the festival of booths. It is a good ritual that most religious Jews still practice today. It is not the appropriate response to the Great Mystery of Divine Love revealed in the Transfiguration of Jesus Christ.

Jesus once warned his apostles not to attempt to place the new wine of the gospel into the old wineskins of the Law. The Law and its rituals have their time and their place. The Transfiguration of Jesus cannot be held in tiny booths designed to remind the people of a past historic event. The Transfiguration of Jesus invites the individual into a new community of Faith, to experience the new life of grace and to enter into the new way of living from the place of divine love.

The key to understanding the way God chose to reveal the fullness of his being and his plan is the real presence of God in Jesus Christ. The revelation is in the relationship. The relationship is grounded in the past, manifesting in the present and leading us forward into the future so that we may enter into the eternal.

Only once in history does God the Father personally write down information for us. He wrote that information on stone to emphasize its importance. All other revelation comes to us in the dynamic interplay of relationships. The primary relationship is the relationship God initiates. The secondary relationship emerges in the community. That is why the apostles teach that no prophecy (revelation) is of any private interpretation. That is why the Anglican theologians under the guidance of Queen Elizabeth  I attempted to avoid the extravagant claims of certain individual  Popes as well as of certain individualistic Protestant reformers.

 God chooses to reveal Himself to individuals in the context of a community through an experience of the Real Presence of the Son.

The Father twice declares Jesus to be His Son. The first declaration is at Jesus baptism when he begins his public ministry. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of witnesses. The context of the declaration is the Prophetic call to repent and prepare.

The second time the Father declares the reality of the Son is at the end of Jesus’ public ministry. The witnesses are Peter, James and John- the inner circle of the leadership for the community of the New Covenant.

The Great Mystery of the Father’s declaration is that Jesus is The Beloved. Jesus is not just one of many sons of God. Jesus is the unique Son of the Father. Jesus is not just one of many who are loved by God. Jesus is The Beloved. Jesus is the co-eternal Beloved of the Eternal Father and Holy Spirit.

Authentic revelation is personal, it is communal and it proceeds from God the Father in the light of God the Holy Spirit to make manifest to all people everywhere God the Son, Jesus Christ.

Salvation is also personal, communal and proceeds from God the Father in the light of God the Holy Spirit to manifest Divine Love to everyone in the Real Presence of Jesus Christ.

God never repeats the specific miracles of revelation. But, the miracles of revelation reveal the pattern of revelation.

Where God now reveals himself to us and to all people is here at the altar of sacrifice in the Real Presence of Jesus in the bread and the wine. The context of Real Presence is as it was at the Transfiguration: Moses (the Law), Elijah ( the prophets) Peter, James and John (the apostles).

The Divine Light that helps us appreciate and appropriate the revelation is the Holy Spirit.

The expression of revelation is personal but not individual. There can be no celebration of the Mass without at least two people present. Revelation is neither private nor individual. Nietehr is salvation. We are saved from separation as individuals then immediately placed into the community of Faith.

The Transfiguration of Jesus Christ reveals the pattern of revelation is the pattern of salvation. That pattern is the eternal pattern of Divine Love as the One God manifests His infinite Being in the three persons of Love. That pattern is the Divine invitation to all people everywhere to make a real choice to reject the pride of individual self-will and enter into the grace of the Real Presence of Divine love in Jesus Christ by a simple act of Faith.

Peter wanted to solidify and limit the relationship through a religious ritual designed to preserve the memory of the experience apart from the reality of the experience. Jesus wanted Peter, as he wants us, to experience the Eternal Reality of the experience continually throughout life and particularly here at the altar of Real Presence.

The ongoing revelation of God the Father in God the Son by the light of God the Holy Spirit is here and now at the altar of Real Presence- the altar of Transfiguration.