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Homily for the Transfiguration of the Lord, Tuesday 8/6/24 – Father Mitch
Readings: DN 7:9-10, 13-14, PS 97:1-2, 5-6, 9, 2 PT 1:16-19, Mk 9:2-10
Mark 9:2-10 World English Bible
After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James, and John, and brought them up onto a high mountain privately by themselves, and he was changed into another form in front of them. 3 His clothing became glistening, exceedingly white, like snow, such as no launderer on earth can whiten them. 4 Elijah and Moses appeared to them, and they were talking with Jesus.
5 Peter answered Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let’s make three tents: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” 6 For he didn’t know what to say, for they were very afraid.
7 A cloud came, overshadowing them, and a voice came out of the cloud, “This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.”
8 Suddenly looking around, they saw no one with them any more, except Jesus only.
9 As they were coming down from the mountain, he commanded them that they should tell no one what things they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead. 10 They kept this saying to themselves, questioning what the “rising from the dead” meant.
The Feast of the Transfiguration is the literal high point of Jesus’ time on earth, the point at which he shows himself as perfect man. As a man he has been traveling the earth, ascending on his path to become the greatest spiritual teacher the world has seen or will ever see. He has spent his three decades performing miracles of all kinds, honing his message, acting out his father’s will, and pursuing his calling. Fully man and fully God he certainly is. And yet, in order for Jesus to experience manhood in its fullest sense, he must have the quintessential experience of manhood.
That experience is the realization of your responsibility to assimilate the wisdom of the men who came before you, to add what you’ve learned, to hone it to perfection, and pass it on to the next generation. When you are a child, you think you know everything. Wisdom is boring. It’s musty old books, obligations, the pastime of old men and sticks in the mud. But when you mature, you change. You realize that wisdom is a joyous responsibility, an honor and a privilege. A great man, a wise man, a leader, lights up a room. We all know what leaders like this look like. The Marquis de Lafayette said of George Washington at the Battle of Monmouth, where Washington’s brilliance and valor were on full display, "I thought then as now I had never beheld so superb a man."
But Washington on a white charger is but a flickering ember beside Jesus on a high mountain – Jesus conferring with Moses the law-giver and Elijah the prophet. Jesus has acquired and perfected the law of the greatest lawgiver, and absorbes the prophetical powers of the greatest prophet. And on this high mountain, he becomes not just “a” perfect man, but “the” perfect man, and he shines in glory.
After this Jesus will descend down the mountain. One could say it is “all down hill from here.” He will go down, suffering a criminal’s scandalous death. And he will go down still more. All the way down into the pit, ministering to the souls even in Hell. Yes, he will rise from the grave and ascend into heaven, taking his place at the right hand of God, revealing himself as God.
But as a man of flesh and blood, his peak is on this mountain. And as the great French pilot Exupery said, “What makes the desert beautiful is that it somewhere it hides a well.” What makes the tragic story of Jesus’s tragic life so beautiful is the light of his perfection as man – the Transfiguration that shines, like a well, in his tragic, desert arc.
No matter how tragic your life may be, brothers and sisters, remember that you are at your best, and are most aglow in the world, when you attempt as best you can to embody and carry forward the wisdom of those who preceded you, most especially the word of our Lord Jesus Christ. Do this and, in your own small way, to will experience your personal transfiguration.