The Transfiguration of Christ and Creation

Gatta

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2011
• eBook ISBN: 9781498274074
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

The biblical story of Jesus' Transfiguration on a high mountain bristles with meanings germane to present-day concerns and spiritual longings. Together with its later artistic representations, this episode from the synoptic gospels seizes the imagination as an icon of mystical hope, beauty, and possibility. What might such an iconic episode, long honored liturgically in the Eastern church, disclose not only about Jesus, but also about the prospect of seeing our human nature transformed? And as interpreted by Christian tradition since the patristic era, what might it tell us about the worth of envisioning not just a conservation or preservation of natural resources but a transfiguration of all creation, and about how this feast of beauty could re-energize current discussions of Christianity's relation to environmental attitudes and policy? Such questions are addressed in this book through an original blend of personal reflection with commentary on relevant theological and scriptural texts, literary works, music, and art.

Part I

Three Aspects of Transfiguration

1

Icon of the Invisible God

The biblical account of how Jesus’ appearance came to be transfigured with glory on a mountain in Galilee holds a striking place in the synoptic gospel stories. Though evidently written out of the faith-community’s experience of the Risen Lord, it suggests more than a simple foreshadowing of the Resurrection—or, as interpreted by some commentators, the endtime glory of the Second Coming. In Mark’s elemental version, the episode follows logically and closely (“six days later”) from Jesus’ self-disclosing dialogue with Peter at Caesarea Phillipi.1 After reaching this summit of the Galilean ministry, Jesus descends—first to heal a boy troubled by an unclean spirit and then southward to death in Jerusalem. Yet Mark, whose gospel otherwise highlights the bizarre, “anomalous frightful” character of events surrounding Jesus’ ministry and passion, also dramatizes the sheer terror that seizes three disciples at the Transfiguration.2 They are quite overwhelmed and undone. So unsettled are they from commonplace reality that their encounter with the numinous takes place in a visionary moment, standing at once within and outside of historical time. Jesus himself, according to Matthew, calls the incident a “vision” (horama, 17:9), a term that in this context would mean something closer to authentic seeing than to phantasm.3 Together with Peter, James, and John, we as readers are arrested by a moment of truth, in which our normally opaque world suddenly becomes diaphanous.

Despite its arresting character, then, the Transfiguration shows affinities with several genres of biblical literature. It contains elements of apocalyptic writing, of post-resurrection testimonies, and of New Testament epiphany scenes (including Jesus’ baptism), by virtue of which it dramatizes yet another manifestation of Jesus’ distinct messianic identity. Following the precedent set by Old Testament narratives, this revelation of Jesus as Light can also be recognized immediately as a theophany, or earthly appearance of divinity:

Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and 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 one on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. Then Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” He did not know what to say, for they were terrified. Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus. As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead. (Mark 9:2–9)

As the icon paintings make plain, this particular disclosure of divine glory takes a decidedly tripartite shape, with its primary triptych of Moses, Jesus, and Elijah paralleled by the second triptych of disciples Peter, James, and John. Another threefold pattern discernible here is a vital interaction among the Father’s authoritative voice, the Son’s appearance as enlightened flesh, and the Holy Spirit’s overshadowing presence in the cloud. Greek Fathers of the church, including Origen and Andrew of Crete, developed Trinitarian interpretations of the pattern. And the Venerable Bede affirmed “that when the Lord was baptized in Jordan, so on the mountain, covered in brightness, the whole mystery of the Holy Trinity is declared.”4

Within and beyond this multiform texture, though, one is struck by the singular and central positioning of Jesus in the scene. Traditional iconography reinforces that impression. Jesus stands between the two great prophets of Hebrew faith and expectation. One way of understanding his placement here is to see him poised historically between Moses, through whom the Torah became mediated from the ancient past, and Elijah, the herald of Israel’s consummated future at the end of time. Or, Moses and Elijah might be seen in interpretations like that of John Chrysostom as typifying respectively a duality of Law and Prophets, dead and living. In any event, Jesus stands at the circle’s center, the point of crossing between timelessness and time. (See fig. 2, p. 6)

It is not only along the horizontal plane of this scene that Jesus upholds the center. Along the vertical axis as well, Jesus on the “high mountain” (whether identified as Tabor or Hermon) stands between earth and heaven, on a fracture point of the axis mundi where he mediates the energies flowing between God and the world. Likewise within the narrative span of the evangelist’s temporal portrayal, this transfigured Jesus stands at or near the center of things. In Mark’s version, for instance, the episode in question comes just after the eighth of sixteen chapters. At this midpoint and turning point of the gospel narratives, from a high place in Galilee, Jesus is about to descend to death in Jerusalem. Just before he is to be disfigured by the dark brutality of the passion, he is transfigured by the light of glory. In Luke’s version (9:28–36), the theophany is immediately preceded by Jesus’ warning of his approaching demise in Jerusalem, a “departure” or “exodus” about which Luke believes that Moses and Elijah can be overhead speaking on the Mount. All three evangelists insert reminders of Jesus’ suffering and death just after telling of his illumination. And no sooner has Jesus made his way down from the heights than the gospels portray him as confronted with the misery of a convulsive child.

The Transfiguration is thus a glory bounded by affliction. Framing it on one side are the past words and deeds of Jesus’ Galilean ministry; on the other, the specter of his future degradation. The Transfigured Christ not only contains the whole of history, collapsing linear time into a timeless moment, but encompasses as well the full emotive span of individual experience. And we can see this dramatic coalescence reflected visually in the mandorla and circular blocking of traditional Orthodox icons (as illustrated, for example, in the Novgorod icon, figure 2).

Figure 2

As an instance of the numinous, the Transfiguration gospel narratives convey that peculiar blend of fear and attraction characteristically associated with experiences of the sacred. The disciples are evidently awestruck—and startled directly from slumber in Luke. Yet they are also touched, uplifted, even zealous (in the case of Peter) to memorialize the occasion by leaving three booths or tabernacles on the site. Matthew specifies that these abject witnesses are “touched” quite literally by Jesus, who also urges them to “Get up” and “not be afraid” (Matt 17:17). Their sense of superlative wonder at seeing Jesus clothed in divine luminosity is suggested in Mark through the mention of garments whiter than anyone on earth could bleach. In Matthew and Luke, the disciples behold something of the brilliant source of life and light in Jesus’ face, which shines “like the sun” and thus invokes the typology of Moses’ transformed visage in the Book of Exodus. Later tradition, particularly in the Orthodox East, would ponder at some length the mystical meaning of this uncreated, all-suffusing light. Both Mark and Matthew emphasize, too, the unsettling abruptness of the apparition, which comes and goes “suddenly” and without warning.

All three synoptic writers suggest the vanity of building commemorative booths when Jesus himself is the ultimate tent or tabernacle or place of meeting between God and humankind. Peter is presumably right so far as his confiding to Jesus that “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here” (Mark 9:5). If anything, “good” (or beautiful, kalon) is an understatement. Peter, James, and John enjoy the singular privilege of entering an immense concentration of sacred space and time on the mount, which has instantaneously become a new “Beth-el,” or dwelling place of God. And this indwelling presence, as confirmed by John’s gospel and the whole body of New Testament teaching, is here to stay. But Peter cannot resist the impulse to grasp the sacred moment. “Let us make three dwellings,” he proposes, “one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” It is indeed fitting to link these great prophets to the leafy branches used in the Jewish Sukkot festival, and we shall eventually want to consider some implications of that suggestion for “green” religion. Peter seems misguided, though, to presume that fulfilling the promise of Transfiguration depends somehow on his own initiative.

One suspects that had Peter enjoyed access to modern camera equipment, he would have rushed to record this occasion visually, trying to capture the moment but failing thereby to let the moment take possession of him. As usual, Jesus’ disciples—even those in the favored inner circle—don’t quite get the point. Mark tells us outright that Peter spoke without “knowing what to say.” Even though awed silence best suits an encounter with the Absolute, nervousness often makes us want to say something—almost anything—when facing an overwhelming experience. Understandably, Peter wants to capture, prolong, and honor this startling incandescence that he witnesses but cannot understand.

We can identify readily enough with Peter’s urge to domesticate lightning,5 to tame this colossal energy within some form of human fabrication. Yet God, in order to be God, must remain wild, uncontainable. The mountain is itself a reminder of God’s creation beyond the usual scope of human use, habitation, or control. And though Jesus stands on the mountain, he inhabits nothing less than the whole earth—indeed, the whole cosmos. The author-farmer Wendell Berry has aptly declared that God “is the wildest being in existence.”6

It seems altogether fitting that Jesus had, according to Luke, sought this mountain solitude in order to pray. So it is while praying, while enacting the deepest possible communion with the Father, that his own divine nature manifests itself. If prayer entails communication beyond the usual coordinates of space and time, it is also appropriate that Jesus should be talking directly here with Moses and Elijah. The three disciples, too, are drawn—will...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Preface
• Introduction
• Part One: Three Aspects of Transfiguration
• Part Two: Consequences of a Transfiguration Gospel
• Appendix
• Bibliography