Peter, John, and James and went up the mountain to pray. While He was praying His face changed in appearance and His clothing became dazzling white. And behold, two men were conversing with Him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of His exodus that He was going to accomplish in Jerusalem. Peter and his companions had been overcome by sleep, but becoming fully awake, they saw His glory and the two men standing with Him. As they were about to part from Him, Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good that we are here; let us make three tents, one for You, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” But he did not know what he was saying. While he was still speaking, a cloud came and cast a shadow over them, and they became frightened when they entered the cloud. Then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is My chosen Son; listen to Him.” After the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. They fell silent and did not at that time tell anyone what they had seen.

Beautiful on the Cross

As we come closer to the Holy Week which celebrates the Paschal Mystery of Jesus, the figure looming larger and larger is that of Ebed Yahweh, the Servant of the Lord. He is spoken of in the so-called Servant Songs in Deutero-Isaiah (Is 42:1-9; 49:1-6; 50:4-9; 52:13-53:12). He is often referred to as “The Suffering Servant” because of the fourth song (Is 52:13-53:12) where we find memorable passages like, “It was our infirmities that He bore, our sufferings that He endured, while we thought of Him as stricken, as one smitten by God and afflicted. But He was pierced for our offenses, crushed for our sins. Upon Him was the chastisement that makes us whole, by His stripes we were healed” (Is 53:4-5).

The Servant is probably too complex a figure to be fitted into a single category of an individual or group in Israel. However, Christians see the Servant as prefiguring Jesus Christ. When Christ came, He served Himself heir to the prophecies about the Servant. None except Christ was the fulfillment of the mysterious Suffering Servant of the Lord.

To see their rabbi Jesus crucified would break the spirit of His disciples. It would demolish whatever “honor” Jesus had enjoyed before them by the authority of His words and actions, and by His miracles. Something more was needed to make them stick with Him: A vision of who Jesus really was beyond His human appearance and a solemn witness of God.

This is what we celebrate in the Second Sunday of Lent. The long and difficult journey to Jerusalem is broken by a wonderful experience on the mountaintop. Jesus undergoes a metamorphosis, a change of form, a transfiguration. He is surrounded by heavenly splendor; He converses with Moses and Elijah, two prominent figures representing God’s Revelation: The Law and the Prophets. Then comes a voice: “This is My chosen Son.” It is said of the Servant of the Lord: “Here is My servant whom I uphold, My chosen one with whom I am well pleased” (Is 42:1). Jesus is far superior to the Servant: He is faithful to God’s house, not as a servant like Moses, but as a son (cf Heb 3:6).

This experience on the mountain would not be enough to keep the apostles faithful to the very end. Although Luke would be more sympathetic than Mark or Matthew, Jesus’ intimate group would abandon Him at His arrest in Gethsemane. Peter would deny Jesus three times. But the transfiguration would serve all the believers from then on. It was a prelude to Jesus’ resurrection, His ultimate victory, and His full entry into the heavenly glory.

The transfiguration is a reminder that Jesus’ suffering and glorification are intertwined, that “it was necessary that the Messiah should suffer [these things] and enter into His glory” (Lk 24:26). This is what Luke means when he writes that Moses and Elijah were speaking of the exodus that Jesus was going to accomplish in Jerusalem. Through His suffering, Jesus will lead the people “out of their slavery” to sin and death “into the freedom” of God’s children.

In the transfiguration, the disciples behold the glorious face of Jesus. He is the most beautiful of the children of man. His is “the splendor before which every other light pales, and the infinite beauty which alone can fully satisfy the human heart,” as John Paul II writes in Vita Consecrata (n 16). But in Christ, beauty is forever joined to His face of sorrow. The Pope explains: “It is precisely on the Cross that the One who in death appears to human eyes as disfigured and without beauty, so much so that the bystanders cover their faces (cf Is 53:2-3), fully reveals the beauty of God’s love” (VC, n 24).

SOURCE: “365 Days with the Lord 2010,” ST PAULS, 7708 St. Paul Rd., SAV, Makati City (Phils.); Tel.: 895-9701; Fax 895-7328; E-mail: books@stpauls.ph; Website: http://www.stpauls.ph