“MOSES, ELIJAH AND YOU”
Saint Matthew 17.1-9
The Transfiguration of Our Lord: 1 February Anno Domini 2009
Fr Watson SSP
This is a special day-unique in that the Lord had only one visible Transfiguration…which really WAS observed by James and John Zebedee and Simon Bar-Jonas. You are blessed this morning by the Spirit bringing you here to celebrate the specialness of THAT occasion with the propers designated by the Church Catholic for this yearly calendar feast. But the greater reality, the significance of your Lord's demonstration is not limited to Galilee nor circumscribed by the 1st century.
The Savior brought the trio of fishermen up the mountain to give them love. The Law had already condemned them to death; each day they got older and walked that much closer to their own sepulchers. The Lord desired in His mercy to bestow unto them a memory that would carry them through the remainder of their weary walk in this veil of tears. A follower of the Christ is gifted by faith with believing BOTH what He did and WHO He is. On the hill top of brilliance the three beheld the Christ of the Creeds: God of God, light of light, very God of Very God, begotten not made, of one substance with the Father! This would help keep them in the One true faith the rest of their lives.
One of the qualifications of apostleship was to have been with Jesus from the beginning (His Jordan washing) to the time of His Ascension, and then to the coming of the Holy Ghost on Pentecost. Peter and the brothers were with Him at all these events, including their singular privilege of being with Him at His bloody Gethsemane prayer vigil.
You have the identical Messiah for you and in you, for you need Him as much as the three did. Of course there are teaching events which are illustrated by the numbers and the identities. Christ's inner circle is three; a Trinitarian statement in itself. The Holy Triune God makes His presence known on the mountain as He had earlier in the river: The voice of the First Person speaks lovingly to the Second Person Who is then veiled by the Cloud of the Third Person. Then of course Jesus is comforted and strengthened in His coming exodus to Calvary by the two greatest Saints of the Old Testament-who with their Lord make another triumvirate. The Law-Giver and the Prophet while only reflecting light from the uncreated source do truly bear witness to the Light, the Way, and the Truth, as sure as the Baptizer did. The New Testament is a wonderful bonus, a recorded gift without measure, but in reality, the Hebrew writings said enough: No one who rejects the Messiah proclaimed, demonstrated and typified by Moses and Elijah can have the Lord God. As Jesus proclaimed, "THEY TESTIFY OF ME." Even as Aaron and Hur once held Moses' arms high so that God's victory for His sinful people might be fulfilled, so too on the Transfigured Top, Moses and Elijah hold up Jesus' hands, metaphorically, to show how He will be positioned on the tree, covered in the blood of His eternal life, to die for you and the world-God's victory for His sinful people fulfilled. Even as the Prophet had been taken to Heaven by a fiery chariot of whirlwind, so too the Son would rise from the dead and resume His place at the right hand of the Father even while the wind of the Spirit filled the upper room and the tongues of flame danced with joy on the heads of the 12.
This is your story and your daily truth. For in truth, you deny Jesus like Peter and you are angry and prideful like the "Sons of Thunder." In your falleness you can no longer approach the full intensity of His undimmed Goodness and Omnipotence any more than the three could bear the dazzling white of His countenance without shielding their eyes. Because of your sin, He's just too pure to approach on your own, offering up your own merits and works. In daily sin you are like the Israelites shouting and pleading "cover up your face Moses it scares us." And the Law should terrify you; it should knock you down and flay you alive. But this day Moses will not be veiled for this mountain top is not about condemnation but about liberation. This day the Law-Giver will not be covered for on this occasion Moses gets to finally see God in the Flesh, eye-ball to eye-ball, beard to beard, teeth to teeth. Elijah, only one of two taken to glory without dying finally gets to see the Second Person in the flesh as well. They both saw the exact same Jesus that you will see on the Last Day when you are resurrected with glorified bodies.
Observe yourselves in the disciples when they react with fear and apprehension the moment the cloud covers the light and Jesus is "temporarily" lost from their 20/20. Your sin demands "sight" and eschews faith in the unseen. In the same way, visions of the cross and of suffering cause your old Adam to slide back. It was easy for Peter to be bold on the mount of Transfiguration but what about in the garden near Olivet, or in the court of the High Priest? It's the same way your corrupt nature causes you to "sleep" when you too ought to be praying, or, obeying the Lord by being alert, by staying awake and watching with Him. You don't. He does. You can't. He can.
It's about Jesus. He obeys to cover for your trespasses. He suffered the darkness of the Cross so that you will one day enjoy a paradise so bright no sun or moon is needed. It's not about blazes (or ablazes tm) for those are man-made and only consume and leaves ash, like a bone-fire burning up saints, like an anti-confessional program burning up Apostolic Doctrine. It's about the Light of Christ, His Gospel, which brings warmth not burns; which brings light not blindness; which brings life not self. The Body of Jesus which can never be severed or separated from the Truth of Jesus, the Word of Jesus, the Scriptures of Jesus, the Church of Jesus, that Body which shone with the Love of the Father and the Communion of the Spirit, is the same body placed on your tongues. That Blood which still courses through the Savior, which has blood vessels in the very mouth of God which speaks your name, which tells you of His love and forgiveness, is drunk by your lips this day. The Transfiguration continues-not on the mount but at the rail, not of Jesus, but of you, made more and more like Him, by faith, by Word. Listen to Him.
In the Name of The Father and of + The Son and of The Holy Ghost.