Matthew 17:1–9
What the author of Matthew is trying to do in his gospel is actually quite simple. He is interested in establishing Jesus’ authority for a largely Jewish audience. This particular section does this by showing how Jesus is the fulfillment of the work of Moses and Elijah: the law and the prophets. Jesus’ trip up the mountain with Peter, James, and John mirrors Moses’ trip up Mt. Sinai with Israelite leaders. Moses spends 40 days on the mountain shrouded by a cloud that looks like devouring fire. This was the glory of the Lord, and within that cloud God teaches Moses how they are to live together and worship God in covenantal relationship. When Moses returns his face is shining, reflecting the presence of God. Like Moses, Jesus shines on the mountain-top. Like Moses, a bright, glowing cloud overtakes them. In case readers have gotten the message yet, a voice from the cloud says ““This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!”
There is more that readers have gleaned from this text though. Several commentators emphasize the theophany aspect of the transfiguration and suggest that this points to Jesus’ divine status. Multiple commenters in Feasting on the Word focus on Jesus’ divinity and Hauerwas notes that Moses simply reflects God’s glory after being in the cloud for 40 days, but Jesus’ whole body shines from within. Yet other commenters, like Douglas Hare in the Interpretation commentary, argue that this is certainly not an expression of Jesus’ divinity. Hare states that Jesus “is presented not as a non-human, but as a transformed human who will be the pioneer and perfecter of those who will share his heavenly experience.”1
These are actually not contradictory ideas. The union of divinity and humanity in Jesus should not distance him from us in any way. It is precisely the union of the divine and human in Christ that assures us that we will experience a similar divinized humanity. When we are divinized in Christ, our humanity isn’t annihilated, instead we become more fully human and more deeply humane. For example, for one of the early Cappadocian fathers, Gregory of Nyssa, our divinization in Christ is how the Imago Dei is realized in humanity; what was intended in our creation. This led Gregory to condemn slavery. Any violent division among humans is opposed to the Imago Dei that is at the heart of our collective humanity.2 Our god-like-ness is reflected in how humane we are. It is realized in our ability to love each other well. It is realized in our ability to delight in and advocate for one another’s well-being.
Objections to Jesus’ divine-human status are often related to how inconceivable this notion is. It is not uncommon in the Bible for people to respond to the divine with fear. The divine is so foreign, powerful, beautiful… so beyond us, that it feels threatening. Likewise, we often respond to the foreign other in fear. Our fear perverts our expression of divine attributes. We pervert beauty by hoarding it and pervert power by oppressing others. This is not what divine power and beauty are like. Christ touches us and reminds us “do not be afraid.” The beauty and power of the divine is for us. It is in the divine that we become fully ourselves, in harmonious relation with one another.
While the author of Matthew wasn’t commenting on Trinitarian doctrine, Jesus is mediating the divine in a unique way in this text. God is doing something new in Jesus. Jesus doesn’t tell us what God said, God tells us to listen to what Jesus says. Jesus doesn’t give us the word of God, he is the word of God. Yet, Jesus doesn’t want his authority established on a beatific vision. Peter, James, and John may be given some private encouragement as they enter into Jesus’ last days, but it isn’t until he becomes an executed criminal and is raised from the dead that Jesus wants people to hear about this moment of glorification. Ultimately his authority lies in his overcoming of condemnation and punishment, death and hell.
The cosmic, beautiful, divine Christ is often contrasted with the earthly suffering Jesus, but in the transfiguration the divine and human are drawn together. The man who glows with a beautiful light and is called the beloved son of God is also the Son of Man who is hung on a cross and whose flesh is eternally scarred. Courts, prisons, and execution chambers are ugly places, but this is where God goes and when God tells us to “listen to him!” God is commanding us to listen to and obey a man who suffered in these ugly places. Though our world hoards beauty and power at the expense of the weak, God’s power is not something to be afraid of, and God’s glory will descend into the ugliest places, to raise people up into their own beauty and power with transfigured scars that speak to their authority. This eschatological vision is both an encouragement for those imprisoned right now and a condemnation of the systems that imprison them today.
1 Hare, Douglas R. A.. Matthew (Interpretation, a Bible commentary for teaching and preaching). (1993) Louisville, Ky: John Knox Press, 199.
2 See Hart, D. Bentley. “The ‘Whole Humanity’: Gregory of Nyssa’s Critique of Slavery in Light of His Eschatology.” Scottish Journal of Theology 54, no. 1 (2001): 51–69. doi:10.1017/S0036930600051188.
Sarah Lynne Gershon (she/her) is an MDiv/MTS student, DOC pastor, and lives at the Bloomington Catholic Worker.