The Glorious Man
Second Sunday of Lent. Fr Simon Francis Gaine preaches on the meaning of the Lord’s Transfiguration.
Luke’s Gospel will take a darker turn later in the chapter where today’s Gospel is found. Jesus will resolutely set his face towards Jerusalem. He will be on the road, together with his disciples, where the suffering of the Cross lies at their destination.
But the true destination of Jesus’ journey lies beyond suffering and death. He will be taken up not only on the Cross, but also to his Father in heaven. He will embrace his passion and pass over to the glory of the life of the world to come. Luke will tell us of Christ’s Resurrection from the dead at the conclusion of his Gospel, and of his Ascension into heaven at the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles. The risen Jesus will be at first unrecognizable to the disciples he meets on the road, but will then be recognised by them in the breaking of bread. He will be seen and recognised by them all before he is taken up to heaven.
In today’s Gospel we find Jesus and the disciples already on the road together, but pausing en route to Jerusalem. On the holy mountain, where Jesus has gone to pray to his Father, they experience a brief appearance of the heavenly glory that is to come. The glory of the Lord had been appearing over the centuries, to Moses and to Elijah among others, and now it is present in Jesus himself. His appearance is altered and his clothes become dazzling white. The destination of Jesus’s journey is already made known, if fleetingly. The truth of what is to come is revealed to the disciples, if they can grasp it.
We certainly have a hint of Jesus’ divinity here – he is the God of glory – but that is hardly all. Jesus is both truly God and truly human. Jesus is the God of glory, but the divine glory floods and transforms his humanity. Glory touches his true humanity, where humanity was first created in his image and likeness. Glory even touches his clothing, which humanity put on when we left the Garden of Eden. Divine glory leaves nothing in Jesus’ human life, and human need, untouched. But that glory was not there simply as something for him to enjoy. It was there for our redemption. The Transfiguration prepares Jesus to give himself in love for our salvation on the Cross.
But in our second reading, we learn from St Paul that this glory is not only for Jesus. It is not some possession he will keep to himself in his humanity, nothing more than a personal reward for redeeming the world. It is in fact for us too, who are fellow heirs with him of the Kingdom of God. It is something he will share with us out of the power of his love. Paul tells the Philippians, ‘We await a Saviour from heaven, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him to subject all things to himself.’ This is what it means to be subject to Christ: to share in his glory. We are freed from sin to journey into glory.
It is on the holy mountain that we learn where to place our hope, where to find the guide and direction of our lives. Christ’s future glory is to be our future too. Our journey is planned to end in heaven, in a new heaven and a new earth. That is our calling. To find our end in anything in this world, in our lowly bodies, needs and desires, or even in death, is to miss the point of our calling. We only know who we are, who we are called to be, when we grasp something, however fleetingly, of the glory that was shown to the disciples on the holy mountain.
The goal for which we hope instructs us for our journey. Our lowly bodies may not be the end for which we hope, but they are destined for a share in divine glory. Even now the human body shares not only in the dignity of God’s image but in this high calling. We know this because glory flooded Christ’s body and even his clothing, touching the whole of his humanity. The life and need of every human being we encounter on the road of this world deserves our respect and calls for our charity. Christ went before us to prepare a place for us in heaven, and the Church’s journey through this life continues in faith, hope and love.
Readings: Genesis 15:5-12, 17-18 | Philippians 3:17-4:1 | Luke 9:28b-36
