Communion With the Christ:: Jesus the Radiance of God

"And Jesus was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white."Matt:17:2

The Transfiguration Sunday or The Transfiguration is celebrated by many Christian Churches and is comes after the Epiphany which is in January, and the Sunday just before the Lenten Season begins.

The Apostles of Jesus had spent nearly two and a half years as part of Jesus' inner circle of Disciples, they had heard him preach the Gospel of the Kingdom of God, they witnessed the deliverance of many and the power which Jesus so willingly used to heal and to restore the sick and downtrodden.

Atop the Mountain

Jesus chose three of his Disciples to whom he would give just a glimpse of who he is, so that, in the coming weeks and months they could encourage the other Disciples and affirm to them the reality of the divine nature of their Lord.

While Jesus and his Disciples were at Caesarea Philippi, which was located at the foot of Mt. Hermon, Jesus took St. Peter, St. James and St. John atop the mount and it is here that the glorious divine truth of who Jesus is, is disclosed to the three Disciples.

"Six days later Jesus took with him Peter, James, and his brother John and led them upon a high mountain alone " Matt:17:1

At the mountain top it is here that the glory of their Lord is revealed to the three Disciples in power in an unmistakable way, and not only to them, but to all who would come to believe in Jesus down through the ages through the pages of Scripture.

Here on the summit of the mountain before the Disciples eyes their Lord is transfigured and seen in the glorious radiance which Jesus would receive again through his resurrection. Jesus is transfigured before them.

This glorious radiance of Jesus' deity was temporarily set aside in the incarnation, yet without the diminishing of Jesus' deity in the least. Jesus still retained his full deity as he assumed up our full humanity. This truth is captured in the ancient creedal hymn sung in the Apostolic Church.

"Who, existing in the form of God,

did not consider equality with God

something to be grasped,

but emptied Himself,

taking the form of a servant,

being made in human likeness.

And being found in appearance as a man,

He humbled Himself

and became obedient to death—

even death on a cross." Philp: 2:6-8

The Radiance

"and Jesus was transfigured before them; and his face shone like the sun, and his garments became as white as light" Matt:17:2

The three Disciples see the Holy truth as to who Jesus is. They are seeing Jesus as the glorious Son of God by whom and through whom we are given the purest revelation as to who God is. All that the great God has to reveal to us about himself, Jesus shows to us. All of the glory of God, the divine Holy Trinity is found in Jesus.

"For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form" Col: 2:29

Jesus is not the Son of God because of the incarnation, but rather the incarnation is because Jesus is the Son of God and it is through the incarnate Son that God has spoken to us to reveal his divine Glory.

"in these last days has spoken to us in his Son" Heb: 1:1a

Jesus is the living embodiment of the glory of God, the very divine radiance which has shown for all eternity now revealed through the incarnation of the Son of God and confirmed in the Resurrection.

"And Jesus is the radiance of his glory and the exact representation of his nature" (1:3a)

The glorious display of the transfiguration which is shown to the Disciples also hearkens to the dawn of creation and the conformation that Jesus as God's eternal Son is the Second Person of the Holy Trinity and the very one by whom all things have been made and are upheld even to this very hour.

"through whom also he made the world" (2c) and " up holds all things by the word of his power" (3c)

Out of the Darkness

In Jesus, we see God's Holy glory as the very God who brought all things into being. The one who, at the very creation shined the divine light of God out of the chaotic darkness.

St. Paul speaks of this very thing as the supernatural light of God breaking through the darkness of the world and illuminating our hearts and minds shining in full strength the divine truth of who Jesus is, the very Son of God.

"It is God who commanded the light light to shine out of the darkness, has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" 2Cor:4:6

His Face Shone Like the Sun

What St. Paul is telling us is, that the very one who brought all things into being leads us through the spiritual darkness and chaos of ignorance regarding the person of Jesus. Out of this darkness the light shines forth with power and glory with the glorious truth of Jesus, which is he is God's Son, leading us to worship and to praise our God.

We, like the Disciples upon the Mount of Transfiguration, have had Jesus' son-ship revealed to us seeing his face radiant in glory. We are seeing what the Prophet Moses desired to see. The Prophet upon the mountain wished to see the glory of the Lord.

" and Moses said "show me your glory" Ex: 33:18

Seeing His Back

This is the very same glory which the Apostles witnessed there upon the Mount of Transfiguration of Jesus. Even as Moses sought this divine disclosure, the Lord would only permit him but a faint glimpse of his divine self, that is, his "back" only.

"And he said "I myself will make all my goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you" (19a)

Moses receives the affirmation from the Lord that he would be permitted but a glimpse of the Great God's Holy person, but only his back. This tells us that there would be but a partial revelation of the Great God to be seen upon the mount with Moses, God's face would not be revealed.

"But the Lord said “you cannot see my face" Then the Lord said "There is a place near me where you may stand upon a rock. When my goodness passes by you, I will put you into the cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I pass by. Then I will remove my hand and you may see my back; but may face must not be seen"(20-23)

Seeing the Face of God

What Moses so earnestly sought was not fully revealed and seen until the Disciples ascended the Holy Mountain with their Lord Jesus; and there the face of God through Jesus was seen in glory in its holy radiance.

The vision of the Transfiguration is then confirmed in the Resurrection on Easter, which is one reason that the Church has been led to place the observance of the Transfiguration just weeks ahead of Easter Sunday.

Moses could not see the face of God because the Lord had not yet assumed the very face of humanity through the incarnation of the Second person of the Holy Trinity, the Eternal Son of God. This is why Moses could not see his face, meaning that the incarnation had not yet occurred.

The Great God has come to us in the person of Jesus. This is to say that when we read the Old Testament portion of the Holy Word of God we are like Moses seeing the back of God, it is glorious but not the full glory we see in Jesus found in the New Testament.

This makes the Old Testament the incarnation anticipated and the New Testament the incarnation fulfilled. Jesus is the Face of God upon which we might gaze and see the glory of the Great God, we no longer look upon his back only as did our spiritual predecessors who had only a partial revelation of the Holy God. We rather have been given the fullest possible disclosure of who God is in and through the incarnation of Jesus.

We believers in Christ are like the Disciples who witness the radiance of the face of Jesus in the Transfiguration seeing the express image and divine revelation of the Great God in the holy person of Jesus.

St. Peter wrote of this very truth, which we Christians experience when he penned his second general Epistle to Christians, but not just to believers two thousand years ago, but to believers in all and every age. St. Peter noted that this glorious Transfiguration came with confirmation of the Father that Jesus is the Holy Son of God.

"For Jesus received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice from the Majestic God said to Jesus "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased". And we ourselves heard this voice from Heaven when we were with Jesus on the Holy Mountain" 2Pet: 1:17-18.

God the Father is telling us more than about his relationship with Jesus, he is in truth, speaking of his relationship with us through Jesus. The Father is telling us that in Christ we are able to experience knowing him as our very own Father.

The Transfiguration of Jesus and the divine declaration out of Heaven is an invitation to any and all to enter into that Son-Ship with God all through Jesus alone.

We can come to understand what Jesus meant when he said to St. Phillip when he asked our Lord to "show us the Father". Our Lord answered St. Phillip "Don't you know me Phillip? have I not been with you such a long time and you do not yet know me?"

What our Lord is telling St. Phillip and all believers is that the Father is revealed to us through himself, when we come to look upon Jesus, we are seeing the Father.

"he that looks upon me is seeing the one who sent me" Jhn: 12:45

This is true for believers throughout the ages, that when we come to Jesus in prayer, the study of the Holy Scripture or when we gather together in worship, we are looking upon Jesus and in so doing we are seeing the Father.

It is as if we have ascended the lofty summit of the Mount of Transfiguration and there as we look upon our Lord Jesus he is transfigured in the eyes of our hearts and minds. We see the radiance and the express image of the Father in its most perfect way. We see the glory and the light which shines out of the darkness, the same light which was shown at the creation, the pure radiant light of holiness that beckons us to come to our God, the Holy Trinity, and to know his unconditional divine love for us all, the love which calls us to be Children of God all through Jesus, and in Jesus we see the eternal truth which Moses desired of the Lord to see there on the mountain top , and the ancient prophets so dearly sought to know and to experience that "Jesus is the radiance of his glory and the exact representation of his nature" .

This is what the Disciples and we see there with Jesus upon the Mount of Transfiguration, we see in Jesus the face of God the divine radiance of God.

Benediction: May we each and all see in the face of our Lord Jesus the image and exact representation of the Great God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit today, tomorrow and forevermore. Amen