Matthew 17:1-9

Hidden Glory

/ reverendjoannwhite / Leave a comment

Sabbath Day Thoughts — “Hidden Glory” Matthew 17:1-9

Have you seen the glory of Jesus lately?

In August 2012, visitors to Belfast City Cemetery were surprised to see an image resembling the face of Jesus on a tree stump. City Council workers had been out earlier in the year to trim trees in the western part of the overgrown cemetery. They cut a rogue tree sprouting by the tombstone of Rebecca Steven, who died in 1916. The stump left behind bears an uncanny resemblance to a bearded man, believed to be Jesus.

A number of people claim to have seen Jesus in images of the Cone Nebula, snapped by the Hubble Space Telescope. The nebula, found in the arm of Orion, resembles Jesus, cradling the lost sheep. The lamb rests at peace in his savior’s arms, Jesus’ hand is raised in blessing, and for those with the eyes of faith, the Cone Nebula is now known as the Jesus Christ Nebula.

In March 2015, a landslide in Colombia left behind an image of Jesus etched into a hill. The site was soon thronged by pilgrims. Local folks made a quick buck, charging worshipers for a glimpse of the Messiah. The phenomenon proved so popular that police had to be brought in to manage the crowds.

That Jesus. You never know where his glory is going to turn up next.

The disciples, of course, were up close and personal with Jesus all the time. They knew every line on his face and every gesture that his hands could make. They knew the way his eyes twinkled when he teased or smiled. They knew the way his brow creased when he was listening intently to someone’s story. But on the mountaintop that day, Peter, James, and John realized that maybe they had never really seen Jesus before, not like that. Jesus was suffused with light. God’s glory rippled, shone, and danced upon him and within him. The man was suffused with glory, a holy fire that burned but did not consume.

The disciples, who had chosen to follow Jesus for his visionary teaching, suddenly and clearly saw that Jesus was not so much the visionary as he was the vision. Flanked as Jesus was by heroes in the faith Moses and Elijah, the disciples realized that the same holy power that had been at work in them was at work in Jesus. God’s glory, right there in front of them, was still at work for the healing and redemption of the world. Gob smacked with wonder, Peter, James, and John rubbed their eyes and pondered how they had never noticed this before. Just in case the disciples didn’t get what was being revealed to them, God gave a shout from the heavens, “This is my Son, the Beloved; he pleases me so. Listen to him!” 

The moment passed, just as quickly as it came. Moses and Elijah vanished. The heavenly light disappeared. The voice of God fell silent. All that was left was Jesus, that familiar face looking concerned, those caring hands reaching out, offering comfort. All that was left was Jesus, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.” As the disciples picked up their walking sticks and shouldered their backpacks, they must have struggled with the paradox that Jesus could be both suffused in holy glory and thoroughly grounded and earthy and real, like them. Somehow, God’s glory shone on the mountaintop and walked the earthly valley, in carpenter turned rabbi from Nazareth who loved to laugh and teach and eat and help and heal.

They didn’t talk about it, but years later, Peter would remember that moment and say, “Jesus received honor and glory from God the Father when that voice was conveyed to him by the Majestic Glory, saying, ‘This is my Son, my Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.’ We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven, while we were with him on the holy mountain. . .  You will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts” (2 Peter 1:16-19).

We tend to scoff at the holy in the ordinary: the face of Jesus in a Belfast cemetery tree stump, the good shepherd in a nebula, the Messiah in a South American landslide. But Jesus had no trouble understanding that we live in a world that is infused with the holy. God’s glory appears in unlikely places, at unexpected times, and calls us to respond. This hidden glory comes to us in ways that can feel distinctly ordinary and even positively uncomfortable. Indeed, in Jesus’ final public teaching, recorded in Matthew 25, the Lord told his followers that even though he would soon be leaving them, he would still see them daily. Jesus would come in the guise of his little brothers and sisters, the needy, hungry, lonely, sick, imprisoned, and vulnerable people of our world (Matthew 25:31-46).

Leo Tolstoy told the story of a poor, widowed shoemaker Martin Aveditch. One night, Martin heard a holy voice as he slept, saying that on the very next day the Lord would come to visit. The excited shoemaker rose early, ready to welcome the Lord, watching the world from the window of his basement workshop. But all he saw was his neighbor Stepanich, shoveling snow. Matin invited Stepanich in, fed him, and shared about his vision and love for Jesus. Later after Stepanich had left, Martin saw a young mother, cradling a baby, neither dressed for the winter cold. “Come in,” Martin urged the young woman. He fed her, gave her money, and wrapped mother and child in warm clothes that had belonged to his late wife. He told them of his love for Jesus. Late in the day after his encounter with mother and child, Martin saw something distressing through his window. A young boy tried to steal an apple, dropped by an older woman. The woman was scolding and holding the boy by the hair. The child was screaming. Martin rushed into the street. With love and compassion, he implored the woman to forgive and the child to feel remorse and be forgiven. The fight ended, the boy carried the old woman’s bag, and the two, left arm in arm. That night, Martin the shoemaker was disappointed. All day, he had watched for the Lord, but he hadn’t come. A voice called from the shadows of the shoemaker’s basement. “Martin did you recognize me?” And out of the shadow stepped visions of his neighbor Stepanich, the poor woman with the baby, and the older woman and small boy. The glory of Christ had been hidden in the ordinary.

The glory of Christ is always near, hidden in plain sight, revealed in those who need us most. The late Mother Teresa was notorious for taking well-intended first world volunteers out into the slums of Calcutta. Pointing to a desperately ill beggar, left to die in the gutter, she would say, “The body of Christ for you.” A worker at a soup kitchen a mile and a half from the White House prepares for her weekly service with the prayer, “Lord, we know that you’ll be coming down the line today, so, Lord, help us to treat you well, help us to treat you well.” We like to imagine Jesus on the mountaintop, his glory plain to see. Can we see the glory that hides where help is needed most?

Have you seen the glory of Jesus lately? The Apostle Paul audaciously taught that through our faith, Christ makes a home in our hearts. The Christ within us equips us to follow him in the way of self-giving love. On a good day, Christ may even be seen and known through us in a world that is very much in need of his healing help. Again, Mother Teresa famously taught that Christ has no arms or legs or body now but ours. Whether or not the world sees that glory is up to us—it’s a constant challenge, a constant choice.

Farmer, poet, and activist Wendell Berry described the tension presented by our encounters with vulnerable people in one of my favorite poems, “The Guest.”

“Washed into the doorway

by the wake of traffic,

he wears humanity

like a third-hand shirt

-blackened with enough of

Manhattan’s dirt to sprout

a tree, or poison one.

His empty hand has led him

where he has come to.

Our differences claim us.

He holds out his hand,

in need of all that’s mine.

And so we’re joined, as deep

as son and father.  His life

is offered me to choose.

Shall I begin servitude to

him? Let this cup pass.

Who am I? But charity must

suppose, knowing better,

that this is a man fallen

among thieves, or come

to this strait by no fault

-that our difference

is not a judgment,

though I can afford to eat

and am made his judge.

I am, I nearly believe,

the Samaritan who fell

into the ambush of his heart

on the way to another place.

My stranger waits, his hand

held out like something to read,

as though its emptiness

is an accomplishment.

I give him a smoke and the price

of a meal, no more

-not sufficient kindness

or believable sham.

I paid him to remain strange

to my threshold and table,

to permit me to forget him-

knowing I won’t.  He’s the guest

of my knowing, though not asked.”

Berry’s poem begs the question, “Will the hidden glory of Jesus shine forth through us to a world in need?”

Have we seen the glory of Jesus lately? Atop Mt. Tabor with the disciples.

Have we seen the glory of Jesus lately? In a Belfast Cemetery, the Cone Nebula, a Colombian landslide.

Have we seen the glory of Jesus lately? In line at the food pantry, buying lottery tickets at Stewarts, walking slushy sidewalks without any socks.

Have we seen the glory of Jesus lately? In those who would be his disciples, seated next to us in the pews, looking back at us from the bathroom mirror?

Resources:

Eugene Park. “Commentary on Matthew 17:1-9” in Preaching this Week, Feb. 15, 2026. Accessed online at https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/transfiguration-of-our-lord/commentary-on-matthew-171-9-7

Ronald J. Allen. “Commentary on Matthew 17:1-9” in Preaching this Week, Feb. 19, 2023. Accessed online at https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/transfiguration-of-our-lord/commentary-on-matthew-171-9-6

David Lose. “Commentary on Matthew 17:1-9” in Preaching this Week, March 6, 2011. Accessed online at https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/transfiguration-of-our-lord/commentary-on-matthew-171-9

“Belfast City Cemetery Phenomenon” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naT41gWoG8Q

“The Cone Nebula ~ Orion’s Jesus Nebula Neighbor” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WK0zdh-0-O0

Tessa Berenson Rogers. “Did the ‘Face of Jesus’ Appear in a Colombian Rockslide?” in Time, March 24, 2015. https://time.com/3755832/jesus-face-columbia/

Lyof Tolstoi. Where Love Is, There God Is Also. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company Publishers, 1887. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/38616/38616-h/38616-h.htm

Wendell Berry. “The Guest” in Collected Poems, 1957-1982. North Point Press, 1984.

Matthew 17:1-9

17 Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. 2 And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became bright as light. 3 Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. 4 Then Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will set up three tents here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” 5 While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” 6 When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. 7 But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.” 8 And when they raised their eyes, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone. 9 As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, “Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”

Photo by Little Visuals on Pexels.com

Be the Light

/ reverendjoannwhite / Leave a comment

Sabbath Day Thoughts — “Be the Light” Matthew 17:1-9

Followers of Jesus have been debating the meaning of his Transfiguration for almost 2,000 years.

Within our Protestant Reformed tradition, the Transfiguration is celebrated on this last Sunday before the season of Lent. Transfiguration closes out the season that begins with those post-Christmas Sundays: Epiphany and Baptism of the Lord.  The Magi followed that brilliant star to find the newborn king. God proclaimed from the heavens at Jesus’s baptism that he is God’s beloved Son.  It’s entirely fitting, as we enter the Lenten valley, that there should be a mountaintop moment, the Transfiguration, to remind us that the heavenly light shines in Jesus, the Beloved Son whom we should be listening to.

Our brothers and sisters in the Orthodox and Roman Catholic traditions won’t be celebrating Christ’s Transfiguration until August sixth.  That’s when they observe the feast day, deep in the heart of those long weeks of Ordinary Time that stretch from Pentecost to Christ the King Sunday.  Once upon a time, no one agreed when the Transfiguration should be observed.  In the tenth century, it was celebrated in France and England on July 27th, in Saxony on March 17th, and at Halberstadt on September 3rd. Finally, in 1456 Pope Callixtus III established the date of the Transfiguration for the universal church on August 6th, in memory of the victory won over the invading Turks at Belgrade.

Even modern-day Bible scholars disagree about the Transfiguration.  An influential block of twentieth century experts, including Rudolf Bultmann, argued that when Matthew, Mark, and Luke were writing their gospels, they got the date wrong.  These scholars say that the Transfiguration is actually a resurrection experience.  It belongs at the end of the synoptic gospels when they imagined it more likely that the risen Lord would appear to his inner circle of disciples and grant them a vision of his glorified resurrection body that would soon be permanently communing with Moses and Elijah in that far brighter light on that far better shore.

Just reading the Transfiguration story confronts us with the fact that, at the time, even the disciples didn’t know what to make of their experience. That most trusted of disciples Peter was definitely clueless. Confounded by all that holiness, Peter wanted to pitch some tents.  We’re still not sure whether the dwellings were meant to be an act of hospitality, a plan to preserve the moment, or just an uncomfortable effort to do and say something to relieve the mystery and stress of an experience that he really couldn’t wrap his head around.

If the disciples and the Bible scholars and the major branches of world Christianity can’t agree on the date, significance, and timing of the Transfiguration, then what hope is there for us? Help us, Jesus!

David Lose is a Lutheran pastor and former president of The Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia.  When David teaches about the Transfiguration, he likes to call attention to what followed the dazzling, numinous, incomprehensible moment of enlightenment on the mountaintop when God spoke from the heavens, telling Peter to pipe down and listen up to the Beloved Son. Suddenly, the light was gone, the disciples had fallen on their faces in fear, and Jesus was still there, looking like he usually does. The Lord went to the disciples.  He touched them.  He comforted them. Then, he set their feet on the path that would take them back down the mountain and into the valley where the world waited, in desperate need of love and light.

In Jesus, God chose to enter the world with love and light. Instead of dwelling on the mountain in glorious mystery with holy conversation partners like Moses and Elijah, Jesus chose the disciples. Jesus chose to be in the midst of trouble with followers who often felt confused, who didn’t always know the right thing to say or do. Jesus would be with them to help and to heal, whether he looked glorified or not.  The Transfiguration offers a promise of accompaniment and presence. That promise would later be confirmed at the close of Matthew’s gospel when the risen Lord stood with his disciples atop another Galilean mountain. As Jesus prepared to ascend to his Father—and his friends Moses and Elijah—Jesus again reminded his frightened followers that he would always be with them, even to the end of the age.

Years later, as Peter neared the end of his life, he wrote to the early church and described his memory of the Transfiguration as “a lamp shining in a dismal place.” Through years of witness and ministry that would take Peter from the Galilee to the heart of the empire in Rome, his experience of the Lord’s Transfiguration would stand as a holy reminder of the presence and power of Jesus.  Peter would trust that amid the fear and darkness of his world, Jesus would always reach out to frightened disciples with light and life, sustaining the church until the Kingdom would come, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in our hearts (2 Peter 1:17).

John, too, when he wrote his gospel, would hold fast to that memory of light. In the glorious opening verses of his gospel, John would remember the Transfiguration, writing, “The Word became flesh and took up residence among us.  We observed his glory, the glory as of the ‘one and only Son’ of the Father.” John trusted in the promise of the Transfiguration: that the light continues to shine in the world’s darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it (John 1).

Perhaps the question that we should be asking on Transfiguration Sunday isn’t, “What does all that numinous holiness mean?”  Perhaps the better question that we should be asking ourselves is, “How am I called to live in response to the transfigured Lord who has chosen to be with me in all my fear and limitation in the midst of this dark world?”

The late Archbishop Joseph Raya of the ancient Greek Melkite Church taught that the Transfiguration is a call for disciples to be the light amid the world’s darkness.  Raya said, “Transfiguration is not simply an event out of the two-thousand-year-old past, or a future yet to come. It is rather a reality of the present, a way of life available to those who seek and accept Christ’s nearness.  We can live lives transfigured by the nearness of Jesus, and we can go forth to transfigure our world.”

Joseph Raya would spend a lifetime being the light of Christ and getting into “good trouble.” Born to a Christian family in Lebanon in 1916, he was ordained in 1941 in the midst of the chaos of the second World War.  He taught in Cairo until 1948 when he was expelled from Egypt for advocating for the rights of women. Raya believed women should have the right to receive an education and generally defended the dignity of women. Raya advised an Arab woman to slap the face of any man who made inappropriate sexual advances toward her, no matter the man’s rank. When the deserved slap was delivered to King Farouk, Father Raya was given twenty-four hours to leave the country.

The following year, Raya emigrated to the United States.  In 1952, he was appointed pastor of the Melkite Church in Birmingham, Alabama, where he befriended Martin Luther King, Jr. The two marched together across Alabama, including the March on Selma. This made him a target for the KKK. On one occasion, Raya was dragged from his home in the church’s rectory and badly beaten by three clansmen, who taunted him with the name “Nigger Lover.” Raya responded, “Yes, I am, and I love you too.” His witness of love toward all people caused one of the men who beat him to call and beg his forgiveness 35 years later.

In 1968, Raya returned to the Middle East when he was appointed the Melkite Archbishop of Akko, Haifa, Nazareth, and all Galilee. There he continued to be light, working for reconciliation between Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Druze. He brought along his gifts for non-violent direct action, organizing marches and sit-ins, and engaging in a highly publicized hunger strike to advocate for the return of Palestinian refugees to their Galilee homes. 

President Carter awarded Joseph Raya the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1980.  Raya was later nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. When the Archbishop died in 2005 at the age of 89, Coretta Scott King wrote of him, “At a time when the nation’s most prominent clergy were silent, Archbishop [Raya] courageously supported our Freedom Movement and marched with my husband.  Throughout his life, he continued to support the nonviolent movement against poverty, racism, and violence.”

On this Transfiguration Sunday, as we are again dazzled by that holy vision of the glorified Jesus on the mountaintop, may we remember that the Lord is with us still. He reaches out to us in our fear and confusion and reminds us that there is work to be done.  May we go forth to be the light, transfiguring our world, one simple act of kindness and justice at a time.

Resources

Robert H. Stein. “Is the Transfiguration a Misplaced Resurrection-Account?” Journal of Biblical Literature, 1976, pp. 79-96. Accessed online at https://biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/jbl/1976_stein.pdf

Robert Klesko. “A Profile in True Social Justice — Birmingham’s Archbishop Joseph Raya,” National Catholic Register, Sept. 27, 2021. Accessed online at https://www.ncregister.com/blog/archbishop-raya-true-social-justice

Lesya Sabada. “Archbishop Joseph Raya – Apostle of Peace and Love” in Arab America, Nov. 13, 2014. Accessed online at https://www.arabamerica.com/archbishop-joseph-raya-apostle-of-peace-and-love/

–. “The Greek Archbishop That Marched with Martin Luther King, Jr.” in Greek Gateway, June 2, 2020. Accessed online at https://www.greekgateway.com/news/the-greek-archbishop-that-marched-with-martin-luther-king-jr/

David Lose. “Commentary on Matthew 17:1-9” in Preaching This Week, March 6, 2011. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Ronald J. Allen. “Commentary on Matthew 17:1-9” in Preaching This Week, Feb. 19, 2023. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Eric Barreto. “Commentary on Matthew 17:1-9” in Preaching This Week, Feb. 23, 2020. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Matthew 17:1-9

Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. 2 And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became bright as light. 3 Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. 4 Then Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I[a] will set up three tents here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” 5 While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, the Beloved;[b] with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” 6 When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. 7 But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.” 8 And when they raised their eyes, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone. 9 As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, “Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”

image: “Transfiguration” by Kelly Latimore (Vanderbilt Divinity Library- Shared through Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial ShareAlike 3.0 License). Accessed online at https://www.pulpitfiction.com/narrative-notes/3-29.