Attending the Lamp Within - Transfigured by Love

Attending the Lamp Within - Transfigured by Love​ – Matthew 17:1–9

Today is Transfiguration Sunday, a Sunday stands at a turning point in the church’s year – just as the Transfiguration story stands as a turning point in Matthew’s Gospel.  In terms of the Church year it comes to us as the end of the season of epiphany just before the season of Lent starts as the Christian Calendar invites us to journey towards the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. In Matthew’s Gospel, it is a moment of dazzling light, but it is not an escapist light. It is occurs, quite deliberately, on the way to Jerusalem, on the way to suffering, misunderstanding, and the cross.

In Matthew’s narrative, the Transfiguration comes immediately after a hard saying of Jesus. Peter has just confessed Jesus as the Messiah, only to recoil and be taken aback when Jesus speaks of rejection, suffering, and death. “God forbid it, Lord!” Peter says. And Jesus responds with the shocking words: “Get behind me, Satan.” He then speaks to all the disciples about taking up the cross.

It is six days later, Matthew tells us, a detail that already hints at deeper meaning, that Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up a high mountain by themselves. What happens on that mountain must be heard in the echo of what has just been said below it. This is not a retreat from the way of the cross, but a revelation given so that the disciples can endure it.

Matthew is very deliberate with his imagery. Mountains matter in this Gospel. It is on a mountain that Jesus delivers the Sermon on the Mount. It is on a mountain that he prays. It will be on a mountain in the final scene of the Gospel that the risen Christ gives the Great Commission. Mountains are places where heaven and earth feel dangerously close.

And here, on this unnamed mountain, Jesus is transfigured. Matthew says, “His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white.” In the Gospel story this is not simply a moment of glory; it is a moment of recognition. The veil is drawn back, and the disciples glimpse who Jesus truly is.

Matthew’s language deliberately echoes Exodus 24, where Moses ascends Mount Sinai and enters the cloud of God’s presence. In that story too there are six days. In that story too there is a cloud. There too the glory of the Lord is described as a light – in the Moses story as a consuming fire. In that story, Moses comes down from that mountain with his face shining, so radiant that it frightens the people.

But Matthew is also careful to show us that Jesus is more than Moses. Moses appears next to Jesus, yes, but not alone. Elijah stands beside him: symbolic of the law and the prophets, the whole story of Israel, converging on the figure of Jesus. And yet it is Jesus alone whose face shines like the sun. Moses reflected God’s glory; Jesus radiates it.

Then the cloud comes, the same overshadowing cloud we find in Exodus, the same cloud that filled the tabernacle, as well as the Old Testament stories of the dedication of the Temple, the same cloud that signified the mysterious nearness of God. And from the cloud comes a voice:

“This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him.”

These words gather together several strands of Scripture. “My Son” echoes Psalm 2, where God speaks to the anointed king: “You are my Son; today I have begotten you.” That psalm is not about private spirituality; it is about God’s commitment to justice in a world of violence and oppression. It is about a kingship that stands over against the destructive powers of the age.

But the voice also echoes Jesus’ baptism, “with him I am well pleased”, and now Matthew adds something new: “Listen to him.”

This is crucial for Matthew. Moses and Elijah are present, but they are not the final word. The disciples must not freeze this moment into a shrine, as Peter instinctively tries to do. “Let us build three dwellings,” he says, one for Jesus, one for Moses, one for Elijah. Matthew tells us, with gentle irony, that Peter is still speaking when the cloud interrupts him. God, the Divine has a tendency to disrupt our small minded pursuits. 

Revelation is not given so that we can preserve it untouched. It is given so that we can follow.

Matthew alone out of the Gospel writers tells us that the disciples fall to the ground, overcome with fear. This is not the fear of terror alone; it is the fear that comes when reality is suddenly deeper and more demanding than we expected. (In the last scene of Matthew’s Gospel, the disciples also fall down to the ground before the Risen Christ, not in fear but in reverence and worship.

Getting back to the transfiguration story, Matthew alone tells us what Jesus does next. He comes to them. He touches them. And he says, “Get up and do not be afraid.”

This is the heart of Matthew’s Christology. Glory does not distance Jesus from human vulnerability; it draws him closer. The one whose face shines like the sun is also the one who bends over and reaches out to steady frightened disciples. 

Then, just as suddenly as it began, the vision ends. Moses and Elijah are gone. They see no one except Jesus himself alone. And they come down the mountain.

The way of faith, Matthew insists, does not remain in secluded rapture. It descends into the ordinary world, into conflict, misunderstanding, and pain, but now with a deeper awareness of of the One walks with us.

This is where the words from the Second Letter of Peter offer us a gift. Reflecting on the Transfiguration, the writer of Second Peter says:

“You will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.”

That is very interesting language. According to Second Peter, the Transfiguration is not only something that happened to Jesus on a mountain long ago. It is something that can happen within us.

Notice the movement in the letter of Second Peter. We are attentive to the lamp, but the dawn rises in our hearts. The light we attend to slowly becomes the light by which we see. The glory we behold in Christ begins, quietly and imperceptibly, to transfigure the one who beholds it.

This suggests a profoundly contemplative and mystical understanding of faith. Not a faith of grasping, or striving, but attending, listening deeply. Staying with the light. Allowing ourselves to be shaped by what we behold.

What might this kind of attentiveness look like for us?

Perhaps it is a practice of returning, again and again, to the Gospels, not to master them, but to sit in their presence. To listen, as the voice commands us, “Listen to him.” This could be called a Christian form of mindfulness, gently resting attention mindfully on Christ as the light of the world and the light in our hearts. Allowing him in the Gospel stories to become the lamp that illuminates our hearts and our understanding. Holding before our awareness the pattern of his life: self-giving love, truth spoken with courage, mercy extended without condition.

Perhaps this attentiveness or deep listening is also learning to notice moments of quiet radiance in our own lives when the morning-star figuratively speaking rises in our hearts: moments of quiet compassion freely given, moments of forgiveness and letting go of the past, moments when love breaks through fear, moments of deep inner connection – the kinds of moments that can bring tears to our eyes, moments of quiet stillness when we feel the joy of simply being alive and a deep inner peace and contentment. These may not look spectacular, but they are real transfigurations.

In difficult times - and these are difficult times - perhaps the invitation of the Transfiguration is to carry the mountain within us as we descend into the valleys of our own lives. To remain attentive to the lamp shining in the dark place. And to trust that, in God’s time, the morning star will rise - not only in the world, but in our hearts as well so that the Transfiguration is not just a story about Jesus, but by Divine grace it becomes our story too as we are transfigured from the inside by the light, as we, like the disciples, walk with Christ, on the road to the cross and resurrection, the road of costly but also triumphant love. 

Amen.