Transfiguration Sunday

 

Yesterday was the last Sunday of Epiphany. Today is the last day. We had the same readings and tonight the gold star and the red banner, the last remnants of Epiphany will be taken down. Tomorrow we will have the seasonless space of Shrove Tuesday and then descend into Lent. The more popular modern celebration of the Transfiguration is August 6th, there, six days after Lammas, taen out of liturgical time and placed in the middle of Ordinary Time, it is hard to see it's meaning. Here it is the final Epiphany of Christ as Son of God and Son of Man before he turns south on the road for Jerusalem.

It is maturation of Christ. At the Epihany of the Magi he is, of course, a baby or a toddler. At the Baptsims, he coems ot start his journey. At the wedding in Cana he is the reluctant miracle worker. At Panem Vitam and Ergo Sundays he gives the Bread of Life and knows himself as the Bread of Heaven. Here he is acknowledged by the Old Testament and acclaimed by God the Father. The Discplies look on amazed and uncomprehehdning, and we are uncomprehending with them. The gospel is a riddle. How silly of us to think we've solved it. 

I have to stop a moment and read up on the Transfiguration. I am surprised to read that no one knows the mountain. I had always assumed it was Mount Carmel, but this is a case of putting something into the reading that is not there, something Christians have been wont to do for centuries. Tradition has it as Mount Tabor. I think, what is transfiguration. Jesus is transfigured, but no, revealed, to be what he is. He is seen as he truly is, for one moment, not simply illuminated, but revealed, He is not transformed, or if he s, he is transformed into what he was all along. as the waters in the Jordan are transformed at his baptism, as the water to wine and the bread and fish to much bread, as we are, transfigured into all that we are.

It is only trasnfigured, only experiencing himself as the Son of God and Son of Man that he turns toward Jerusalem. When eh goes he does not go blindly. When he walks into his destiny and into his trial he does it fully, and so shall we