Jesus took Peter, 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 fuller on earth could bleach them.
Then Elijah appeared to them along with Moses,
and they were conversing with Jesus.
Then Peter said to Jesus in reply,
“Rabbi, it is good that we are here!
Let us make three tents:
one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”
He hardly knew what to say, they were so terrified.
Then a cloud came, casting a shadow over them;
from the cloud came a voice,
“This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.”
Suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone
but Jesus alone with them.
As they were coming down from the mountain,
he charged them not to relate what they had seen to anyone,
except when the Son of Man had risen from the dead.
So they kept the matter to themselves,
questioning what rising from the dead meant. Sunday’s Gospel, Mark 9:2-10
Why were the disciples confused about “what rising from the dead” meant?
Part of the reason is obvious. Jewish understanding of the afterlife was not uniform or clear in their early history, and it evolved slowly right up into Jesus’ lifetime. We know the Sadducees did not believe in resurrection. The Pharisees believed in a general resurrection, apparently thinking of it as the identical physical body. The general run of Jews—I am not sure we know what they thought with any specificity.
However, there was popular belief that three human beings always lived with God, because he took them to heaven at the end of their lives: Enoch, an ancient patriarch to “was taken” and “walked with God” long before the Jews became a people. Then, two of the greatest Jewish heroes: Moses, giver of the Law, was thought to have died, but he had no known burial place, which left people free to surmise, and Elijah, the great wonder-working prophet taken to heaven in a whirlwind. What happened after death for people in general was one thing, quite bleak as depicted in most of the Old Testament, but these were special cases.
Moses and Elijah were also renowned for having “mountain-top” experiences with God: Moses received the Law there, and there Elijah received assurance and instructions to act. It is to a mountain top that Jesus takes Peter, James, and John, selecting just those three. Peter, the Rock, on which the church will be built; James, who will be the first Apostle to die for the faith; and John, “the disciple whom Jesus loved,” to whom he would entrust his mother from the cross.
These key disciples were astonished and stunned by what they saw: Jesus allowing some of his divinity to shine through, dazzling them, and then the two greatest representatives of Judaism come down from heaven to converse freely with him. Peter babbles out some nearly nonsensical response for them in their terror, only to find the ante raised again, far above anything they could have imagined. The “overshadowing cloud” which betokened the immediate presence of God in the Exodus, in the giving of the Commandments, and in the dedication of Solomon’s Temple comes over them and God speaks: “This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.”
God the Father had addressed Jesus at his baptism, but this is the only place in the Gospels where God the Father speaks directly to a chosen set of witnesses. “This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.” If Peter the Rock was nearly babbling before, and James and John were speechless, what was their mental state after they hear that? As they descend the mountain, they do listen to the Beloved Son. He orders them not to speak about this to anyone until he has “risen from the dead.” Minds whirling, emotionally drained, the statement about rising from the dead raises the stakes yet again, and they are wondering “what else??” They had heard God speak! They had already had far more than they could handle for one day.
Events will prove, in fact, that no explanation Jesus might have given them just then would have cleared up everything for them. The crushing humiliation of the crucifixion and the joy-beyond-joy of the Resurrection would have to be lived through before they could understand it all. Like many other facts in our lives.
For reflection:
Consider–the cloud does two thing simultaneously: it reveals God’s Presence while concealing it. That helps make God’s reality apparent to the disciples while at the same time shielding them from being overwhelmed. They will eventually realize, after the Resurrection, that Jesus replaces the cloud, as he both reveals the Presence and conceals it in his human form.
Consider–after Jesus Ascends to heaven, the Eucharist functions the same way for us: it reveals the actual saving Presence of the Glorified Jesus, but in an outward form that conceals his Glory. It assures us without overwhelming us.
Consider–many of the interventions or intimations of Jesus’ Presence and activity in our daily, hour-by hour existence share this concealing/revealing characteristic, as he “speaks” to us in unexpected ways or comes to us from unexpected sources.