Transfiguration Take-Home

Learning to see the glory in God and neighbor

08/06/2018

Mark 9:2-10 Jesus took Peter, James, and his brother John, and led them up a high mountain apart by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no fuller on earth could bleach them.  Then Elijah appeared to them along with Moses, and they were conversing with Jesus. Then Peter said to Jesus in reply, "Rabbi, it is good that we are here! Let us make three tents: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." He hardly knew what to say, they were so terrified. Then a cloud came, casting a shadow over them; from the cloud came a voice, "This is my beloved Son. Listen to him." Suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone but Jesus alone with them.

I’ll never forget an illuminating image Msgr. Hebert once used in a homily at a baby’s baptism. I used it myself many times since then at my own baptisms. I mean, after 2,000 years of preaching the gospel, it’s going to be very hard to be original. So, if you’re going to borrow, borrow from the best. Msgr. Hebert himself borrowed the image from St. Francis of Assisi, who said: “If you could see the soul of a newly baptized baby, you would be tempted to bow down and worship.” What a shocking statement because quite frankly, we should be horrified at worshiping a human being. That would be idolatry. What did Hebert and Francis mean?

The rebirth and regeneration of baptism conforms us so closely to Christ that our souls bear a striking resemblance to Jesus, almost like that between twins. So that seeing the soul of the newly baptized baby, you’d almost think you were beholding his bigger Brother, Jesus, and want to worship him. Then Hebert added with a smirk: “But the baby’s body, eh, will just look like mom or dad.” Being baptized, being born again, therefore, doesn’t just save us, it makes us God-like.

Peter, James and John get to glimpse the glory, the hidden holiness, of Jesus on Mt. Tabor today. We read: “[Jesus]was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no fuller on earth could bleach them.” I would like to suggest to you that the Baptism of the Lord in the Jordan River is intimately linked to the Transfiguration of the Lord on Mt. Tabor in the sense that they are both theophanies, moments when God pulls back the curtain of creation and reveals his glory. Both at the Jordan and at Tabor the heavenly Father’s voice is heard saying, “This is my beloved Son, listen to him.” Trying to emphasize this same connection, Pope St. John Paul II included both the Baptism of the Lord and his Transfiguration as “luminous mysteries” of the rosary. Both Hebert and Francis were implying the same thing: when you see the Father’s beloved Son, Jesus, you should bow down and worship because in him you see God’s glory.

But here’s the real take-away message of the Transfiguration. Everything Jesus did in coming to earth – from his Incarnation in Bethlehem, to his exultation on the Cross, to his Ascension into glory – was not for him, but for us. Jesus doesn’t need any more glory, but we do, ever since we lost our God-like glory in the Garden of Eden with original sin. In other words, the consequence of the coming of Christ was not only to teach us how to love God, but also how to love our neighbor. St. John the Beloved Apostle – who you’ll remember was on Mt. Tabor that day – will write later in 1 John 4:20: “If anyone says I love God but hates his brother is a liar; for whoever does not love a brother he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.” Our closeness to Christ, indeed, our kinship with him, is rooted in our baptism and made manifest in the Transfiguration. That’s what prompted Hebert and Francis to assert: “If you could see the soul of a baptized baby, you would be tempted to worship him or her.” Our radical conformity to Christ – in the sense of resembling him like his twin brother or sister – is the consequence of the coming of Christ. The take-away of the Transfiguration is to make it a little easier to love God and our neighbor, because we see them both endowed with a similar glory.

Let me leave you with my favorite quotation from C. S. Lewis (again, borrow from the best). In his celebrated essay called “The Weight of Glory,” the Oxford Don wrote: “There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations – these are mortal and their life is to ours like the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit…Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses.” That’s the take-home message of the Transfiguration. It was intended not only to help us see Jesus’ glory, but also that glory of our neighbor, so we could love them both.

Praised be Jesus Christ!