Thoughts on the Transfiguration of Christ

Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, ‘Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah’—not knowing what he said. While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud. Then from the cloud came a voice that said, ‘This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!’ When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen.


Anyone who has been hill walking will remember the unnerving experience of the mist rolling in. As you plod towards the summit you may fail to notice the clouds descending on distant hill tops. You might even shrug off the darkening sky and cooling air. Too late you look up to discover layer upon layer being added to the mist until hills, contours and trees disappear. Suddenly you are left with the your travelling companions, the damp moss beneath your boots and the gloom.

Your options? Retrace your steps down the hillside, stick to the path and take it slowly or take compass bearings between walkers every few yards. As a challenging Duke of Edinburgh Award trip taught me, a particular trap to avoid is taking bearings on sheep, that have a habit of moving.

The story of the transfiguration is just such an experience of mountaintops, cloud and fear. It is also a story that is far too familiar to us. Indeed, if we are really to enter into this cloud with the disciples, it must again become a strange and disturbing story.

As we ascend this mountain together we stumble over rocks, we wonder where on earth we are being taken and feel ourselves weary from our daily lives. Harder still, having arrived at the summit, we must allow ourselves to be enveloped by this terrifying cloud and to gaze upon the face of Christ as it is transfigured by prayer.

Peter’s response to the scene is a typical example of his misguided enthusiasm. As we shake our heads at his folly we too are presented with the question, ‘what is the appropriate response to glory?’ As an activist I find myself descending with the disciples demanding to know how such a vision can lead to silence? Yet the command from the cloud is not to heal and proclaim the Kingdom as has happened in Galilee but to “Listen to Him”.

The story of transfiguration is an invitation to attentive silent prayer as the proper response to glory. Too often we know that our prayer can be hurried, rote or a grudging act of will. Indeed, this is not an unfamiliar sensation as we here at Westcott approach our Lenten diet of BCP. I am reminded, however, of the story of the Cure d’Ars, quizzing the peasant who silently spent hours in Church. The peasant replies, “I look at him, he looks at me and we are happy together.” The Cure observes that the peasant had learned to pray without breaking the silence of intimacy with words.

At first reading, there seems to be little missionary insight in a mountaintop scene that leaves the disciples dumbstruck. Surely there must be engagement and communication as we involve ourselves in God’s mission? Indeed we can easily be left reeling as we flick through the resources and strategies currently promoted. Like Peter’s offer of DIY, however, we can easily confuse our highest hopes for the otherness of God’s missionary purposes.

As Stephen Cottrell reminds us the only basis for mission is for the Church to be a place of prayer. Through prayer we look upon the face of Christ and discover ourselves to be the beloved of God. The promise of this story is that like Christ our faces too can be transfigured by prayer. So to can the situations that we face as we allow them to be illuminated not by the sodium lighting of our earthly strategies but by the eternal glow of the God’s love revealed in Christ; “Listen to Him!”