Grace and peace from God our Creator, hope in our Redeemer Jesus the Christ, and the promised gifts of the Holy Spirit are with you, always.
The first sermon I ever preached, in preaching class in seminary, was on the Transfiguration of Jesus. I told a story about a mountaintop experience while studying abroad in Türkiye. On my pastoral internship in Colorado, I preached on the Transfiguration of Jesus. In the Rocky Mountains, the metaphor tells itself. While I was serving as a campus minister, I never once preached on the Transfiguration of Jesus, because we worshiped on Wednesday nights, and the Wednesday closest to the Transfiguration is Ash Wednesday.
This story is in our lectionary rotation every year, as the last Sunday after the Epiphany, before we transition into Lent. There are a handful of stories that appear consistently in the gospels, and their presence usually tells us that they were beloved or important stories for the early church. This was one of those stories that everyone needed to hear, so it survived the various transcriptions and translations and councils and printing presses all the way to us.
Typically, preachers talk about the mystical magnitude of this mountaintop moment. Jesus’ face shines like the sun, and his clothes become dazzling white, and Moses and Elijah appear, and the voice of God thunders from the sky! It sounds very epic.
We are expected to connect this mountaintop moment to another, helped along by our reading from Exodus, when Moses’ face shines in the overwhelming presence of God. And the prophet Elijah encountered God on a mountain, as well, though his experience was not in the wind, or the earthquake, or the fire, but in the silence—a still, small voice.
These two men are giants in the Jewish faith. Moses is the recipient of the Law and represents it in the tradition. Elijah is the foremost prophet, and every major prophet since—including Jesus—is thought, at some point, to perhaps be his return to life. Jesus routinely talks about “the law and the prophets” as the wholeness of Jewish history and tradition. He famously noted that the law and the prophets all hinge on the greatest commandment, to love God and to love one’s neighbor as oneself. Jesus is, himself, the culmination of the Law and the prophets.
The presence of Moses and Elijah on the mountain at his transfiguration cements his connection to them and to everything they represented for his people. If Jesus stands alongside Moses and Elijah, he is the real deal. This is, ostensibly, why this story had staying power. It’s a critical point in the legitimation of Jesus’ ministry.
In the chapters leading up to this one, Jesus is building his community, spreading his message, and healing people. Then he goes up this mountain with his friends, and something changes. His trek back down the mountain, and the rest of the Gospel According to Matthew, leads to Jerusalem. Toward the cross and the empty tomb. This moment in the text and in the life of Jesus is a peak, a pivot point, a crux.
He invites Peter, James, and John, specifically, to accompany him. These three are probably the closest friends Jesus has, because this trio has been singled out before. “Earlier in his ministry, Jesus is asked by a leader of the synagogue to heal his daughter, and Jesus allows only [these three] to follow him and witness the healing (Mark 5:37). Later, they [will be] the only ones specifically invited to come with Jesus deeper into the garden of Gethsemane (Matthew 26:36-36)” on the night of his arrest. His relationship with these three men is special, in some way. He trusts them with important moments in his life and ministry, and I would guess he expects them to understand the significance of the events they witness better than anyone else.
It is likely that you have had a similar inner circle in your life, the friends or siblings or colleagues or family members that you feel closest to. These are the people who have accompanied you up and down various mountains and valleys of your life, seeing the truth of who you are—for better and for worse. They’re the people you call with news—good and bad—and the people you’re most likely to drop everything to attend to, yourself. These precious people know you best, and you them.
I like to imagine that this is the relationship that Jesus has formed with Peter, James, and John over the years. Jesus knew that, at the top of that mountain, everything would change. He brought them there, away from the rest of the disciples and the crowds, to see him more fully than he had ever been seen.
On this mountaintop, the full person of Jesus is revealed to his friends. All of the disciples have borne witness to the humanity of Jesus as they walk alongside him in ministry. Peter, James, and John bear witness, here, to the divinity of Jesus, the glory of God displayed dramatically on this mountaintop.
Jesus has always been this person, this man fully human and fully divine. But this moment reveals to his closest friends another layer of his innermost self. They now know Jesus more deeply than he has ever been known by anyone but God.
Traditionally, we read this story and we say that Jesus is changed. This Gospel author and the author of Mark write that he was “transfigured before them” while Luke says “the appearance of his face changed”. But as I read this whole passage, it is clear to me that who is truly changed are Peter, James, and John. They went up this mountain with one understanding of Jesus and of the road ahead, and went down it with absolutely blown minds. They saw Jesus shine like the sun; they saw Moses; they saw Elijah; they heard the voice of God thunder from the clouds above. Even though their experiences as disciples of Jesus are pretty unusual, this is not your average day-in-the-life, even for them. We know this, in part, because they fall to the ground and are overcome by fear.
Jesus is not the one who has been fundamentally altered by this experience. Rather, his true nature, the wholeness of who God created him to be, is on display. He has, if you will, come out to his friends—as the Son of God, as the fulfillment of the law and the prophets, as the Messiah for whom they have long waited. He is who he has always been, but they can now see.
There is a parallel to be explored between this story and that of our queer and transgender siblings.
Created in the image of God, beloved as they are and as they are becoming, queer and trans people show their most trusted friends and family the wholeness of who they are. The experience of “coming out” or, as it has been otherwise described, “letting people in”, is not the moment at which queer and trans people become queer or trans. For as long as they have known the truth about themselves, they have been who they are. It is just the moment when we, if we are so lucky, are invited to see them fully.
Inviting Peter, James, and John to fully see him was a risk that Jesus took. What if they weren’t prepared for what it meant for them? What if they ran down the mountain, telling everyone that Jesus was a demon, possessed by something treacherous and unknown? What if they hurt him? What if they deserted him?
I am, daily, inspired by my beloved queer and trans friends and family, who live into the fullness of God’s image, despite the risk. I can learn from their example, and from the example of Jesus, to not shy away from my own wholeness. God created me to be this person, in this body, in order to bear God’s image to others. When I love this body, and this mind, and share my truth with everyone, I celebrate the God who created me.
Who are you, in your fullness?
Who do you allow to see the whole truth of who you are?
And, similarly, who shows you their true self?
For whom are you a safe place for the whole truth?
Today, having seen Jesus for the fullness of who he is, we follow him down the mountain, and spend the next several weeks journeying toward Jerusalem. As we enter the season of Lent, we repent of our sin and turn toward the God who sees us and loves us, just the same. Amen.