Which brings me to the hills and mountains of the Holy Land. They are tremendously important to the biblical narrative. From Mount Zion in Jerusalem (it is really only a small hill) to Mount Sinai in the Sinai Desert in Egypt, the place of Moses encounter with God; to Mount Carmel on the Mediterrarean coast where Elijah did battle with the worshippers of Baal; to snow-covered Mount Hermon which stands sentinel at the northern most point of the Holy Land; to Mount Tabor in the Galilee which is the traditional site of Jesus’ Transfiguration.

I will never forget seeing Tabor for the first time. I had no idea the mountain I saw was Tabor but I knew it was significant. It had to be! It was so distinctive with its hemi-spherical shape standing out above the Great Plain of Esdraelon. Later on I was foolhardy enough to climb it as a result of which I could hardly walk for a day or two afterwards. It is a particularly steep climb. But it is a mountain on which something must have happened. It has all the qualities of what I like to call a Magic Mountain. It is not surprising to discover that this mountain, Tabor, is the place where Jesus was transfigured before the three disciples.

What an experience that was! Jesus shining in glory surrounded by Moses and Elijah witnessed by Peter, John and James and recalling today’s first reading about Moses encounter with God on Mount Sinai as a result of which his face shone with reflected glory.

In 1977 in my college chapel in Melbourne on the 125th anniversary of the theological faculty on the Feast of the Transfiguration the great Michael Ramsey, former Archbishop of Canterbury, preached the sermon. Naturally he preached on the Transfiguration since he is one of the few theologians actually to have written a book on the subject. But I can hear him now as he meditated on Peter’s words: “Master it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah”. Ramsey said memorably: “Peter at one and the same time was utterly right and wildly wrong. Utterly right because of course it was good to be there; but wildly wrong thinking that you could prolong or enshrine the experience.”

Peter was right in part. What an experience to be granted; to see Jesus in glory with Moses and Elijah representing the Law and the Prophets beside him. That moment summed up if you like the whole of salvation history finding its fulfillment in the person and work of Jesus Christ. It is an experience of a type which all of us long for. It is an experience which may remind you of an unforgettable spiritual experience in your own life.

But Peter was wrong in thinking that you can hold on to such an experience. He wanted to enshrine it; to build an edifice around it to preserve it or to contain it; he wanted to remain there forever. As if you can do such a thing. It is like revisiting some place where you once had a romantic experience or spent your honeymoon only to discover that everything looks different and most importantly that you also had changed and moved on. It is dangerous to delude yourself in thinking that you can just go back and forget about what has happened in the intervening years. I always find it interesting when I go back home to Australia after a year or two to see what has changed and how I have changed. The text makes it clear that Peter was misguided in his remark and simply says: “not knowing what he said”.

But even as Peter spoke the cloud came down obscuring the vision. That cloud is symbolic of God’s mysterious present. We remember it in our use of incense in the liturgy. For Peter, James and John it was terrifying. They recognized that they were in the presence of God. But from the cloud came the voice with those words familiar from the Baptism of Jesus: “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” And when the voice had spoken the disciples were left with Jesus alone. What we have in this remarkable encounter on Mount Tabor is a mid-ministry epiphany. For all the first three or synoptic gospels this event is placed half way to the Passion of Jesus. Indeed it is placed in between the first two Passion predictions. Such is its importance to the shape of the gospel narrative. For what we discover in the Transfiguration is a moment when past, present and future in the Jesus story come together in an epiphanic or revelatory moment.

Here is Jesus surrounded by the two giants of the Jewish scriptures, Moses and Elijah, making it clear that Jesus is a continuation of the same Salvation story. But it also harks forward to the traditional fulfillment of Messianic expectation when Moses and Elijah will reappear with the Messiah at the End of the Age. Jesus’ transfiguration with all the brightness of God, with God’s glory, reminds of the announcement of his birth in Matthew and Luke and with John’s gospel where he says “and the Word was made flesh and we have seen his glory”. But Luke also sees in this encounter on the mountain references to Jesus death and resurrection. For he says Jesus was speaking with Moses and Elijah about his impending departure, not on a vacation like me, but about what was soon to take place in Jerusalem. Departure in the Greek text is “exodus” which links Jesus’ death to the Exodus of the Hebrew slaves from Egypt, that great saving event in the Jewish history. Like that event Jesus’ departure is more than simply his death, but his death and all that that is to achieve. It refers to his death, resurrection and the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost; in other words the whole Paschal Mystery.

What Peter and the others discovered in their experience was that there was no short cut to glory. They like us had to continue their journey with Jesus, down the mountain, into all the messiness of daily life, and onwards to and through the trauma of the Cross before they shared in the Risen Life of Christ and the gift of the Spirit and took their place in the Mission of the Church. That is the significance of the voice and their being left alone with Jesus. He and what lies before him is the path to glory. All the gospels follow the narrative of the Transfiguration with the chaotic scene of the healing of the boy with the demon, a scene which is crowded, is confused, and which shows the disciple floundering until Jesus steps onto to the scene. How true that is to life. You go on vacation and come home to a heap of problems or at least a heap of mail; I go away on a spiritual retreat and arrive back to a budget crisis or a major funeral or whatever. But the gospel story encourages us to stay the course with Jesus because ultimately that way leads to glory. And it is that way, the Way of the Cross and the Road to Glory, into which we are baptized and in which today Lucia will share through her baptism; and it is that Way that we celebrate at this and each eucharist as we share in the saving Body and Blood of Christ. Happy Transfiguration! Keep journeying on the Path to Glory!   Amen

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