July 29, 2007
Ninth Sunday After Pentecost
Father Pat's Pastoral Ponderings
St. Luke, in his portrayal of the Lord's Transfiguration (9:28-36), displays
certain features proper to his own story of Jesus.
These begin right away, when he tells us, "Now it came to pass, about
eight days after these sayings, that He took Peter, John, and James and went up
on the mountain to pray." We recall that Matthew (17:1) and Mark (9:2)
both placed the Transfiguration six days later, not eight. Luke doesn't say
"eight" either; he says "about eight," but why the
change?
It appears that the event of the Lord's Transfiguration was early associated
with the feast of Tabernacles (Sukkoth), an association prompted by
Peter's suggestion, "let us make three tabernacles." Indeed, the
luminous cloud of which the gospels speak in the Transfiguration is to be
identified with the glorious cloud that filled the Tabernacle of the Lord's
presence in Numbers 9-10.
The association of the Transfigured Lord with the Feast of Tabernacles perhaps
suggests why Luke changed the "six days" to "about eight
days." The feast of Tabernacles does, in fact, last a week and another day
(Leviticus 23:34-36).
A second distinctive feature of Luke's account is also found in that same first
verse of the story; namely, the detail that Jesus "went up on the mountain
to pray." Only Luke mentions the prayer of Jesus in this place, and
he goes on to describe the Transfiguration with reference to the prayer of
Jesus: "As He prayed, the appearance of His face was altered."
Whereas Matthew and Mark portray the Transfiguration as a religious experience
of its three apostolic witnesses, Luke begins with the experience of Jesus.
Thirdly, only Luke among the evangelists mentions a reference to the Lord's
suffering and death within the Transfiguration account itself. He writes,
"And behold, two men talked with Him, who were Moses and Elijah, who
appeared in glory and spoke of His exodos that He was going to fulfill (pleroun)
at Jerusalem."
Several features of this reference to the Passion are important to Luke's
theological message. First, he uses the technical theological expression exodos
to speak of Jesus' death. In his choice of this noun Luke conveys the
soteriological significance of the Lord's death.
Second, in his reference to the Lord's exodos, Luke explicitly places it
"at Jerusalem." This too corresponds to a theme in Luke’s Gospel,
where the holy city is the culminating place of his narrative. Jerusalem is the
city to which Jesus has steadfastly set His face to go (9:51,53; 13:22,33).
This theme was introduced early in Luke, when the Anna the prophetess
"spoke of Him to all those who looked for redemption in Jerusalem"
(2:38).
Third, by referring to the Lord's Passion within the Transfiguration story,
Luke sets up a scene to parallel the later account of the Lord's Agony. Indeed,
in the latter scene Luke does not even mention Gethsemani or a garden. He says,
rather, that Jesus went on a mountain to pray (22:39-41).
Fourth, in his picture of Moses and Elijah--the Law and the
Prophets--discussing Jesus' exodos at Jerusalem, Luke touches a major
theme of his theology--the fulfillment (pleroun) of Holy Scripture in
what Jesus did at Jerusalem. We recall the later scene with the two disciples
on the road to Emmaus, of which Luke writes, "Then He said to them, 'O
foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!
Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His
glory?' And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in
all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself" (24:25-27). Here in the
Transfiguration, therefore, Luke portrays Moses and Elijah discussing with
Jesus the deep meaning of Holy Scripture, its fulfillment at Jerusalem.
Luke returns to this theme in the Lord's final apparition, where He affirms,
"These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that
all things must be fulfilled (plerothenai) which were written in the Law
of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me" (24:44). The great
commission begins with this affirmation: "Thus it is written, and
thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the
third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His
name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem" (24:46). Thus, in Luke’s
account of the Transfiguration, the representatives of the Law and the Prophets
are described as discussing with Jesus His fulfillment of the Law and the
Prophets.
