Transfiguration

Mark 9:2-9

The season of Epiphany is when Christ is presented to the entire world, all the nations, as the light of the world, for the World. The season of epiphany closes with a meditation on a vision of Jesus transfigured by light. The authors of Mark’s Gospel want us to read the story of the transfiguration together with the story of baptism and the story of the Crucifixion. Indeed, the transfiguration is given here to strengthen the disciples to face the crucifixion. In the context of the pure glory of Jesus as shimmering light, the path to the cross is defined. The way forward is the way of the cross. Without the cross and the willingness to sacrifice the self in the service of love, we remain caught in the web of competition and selfishness that tears us apart. The cross is about how the self is second place to love. Even God's Messiah has to go the way of love, the way of the cross – the alternative is just another imperial venture with the one at the top using everybody and everything for their own pleasure and profit. The transfiguration is a foretaste of the bliss that awaits us beyond the cross, in the land of Resurrection.