Today St. Luke paints a portrait of Jesus at prayer. As we gaze upon Him, we are struck not just by His transparency, but by how He is totally at one with His Father in Heaven. He radiates the Spirit which has been given to Him without reserve and the world is better for it. His Light comes from within but it searches out the arena of engagement and action. If flows into the world. Then guests arrive. Moses and Elijah. Both were men of the high places. They went to the mountains to talk to God about what was happening in the valleys, and there they received Wisdom, Courage and Illumination for what they had to do below. They
don’t seem to be over absorbed in the Transfiguration of Jesus. There is a more pressing concern – the events which are about to unfold in Jerusalem. They are on the mountain to consider the affairs of earth. Prayer is only preparation for action! This is why all three appear in Glory. For they are not isolated individuals in touch with God. Glory is how they act on the earth, and Jesus, the Beloved Son of God, is moving to redeem the history of the world.
St. Luke portrays the disciples as being in a kind of twilight zone. They are sleepy yet managing to stay awake. They get it and don’t get it all at the same time. They see but not as clearly as they could, and they sense that something more is to come. We can therefore forgive Peter for not being sensitive to the departure of Moses and Elijah. Peter wants to hold them where they are, build three tents, as if the three were equals. All of this gets blown away by a spectacular unfolding. The cloud covers them and Jesus is revealed for who He really is. But the voice is speaking to the disciples this time. Jesus is the Beloved Son, the Chosen One. All disciples have to do is Listen to Him! With these words the cloud shatters and Jesus is now alone. I love it that these disciples are half right, half wrong, half asleep and half awake, seeing and not seeing, hearing and not hearing. So, they are commanded to listen to the Divine Teacher. They are to ponder the meaning of the events they have just seen. It will take time – learning how to listen to Him.
In ancient China, on the top of Mount Ping stood a temple where the enlightened one lived. One of Hwan’s disciples was Lao-Li and he had been a student and disciple of the Master for many years. Yet he had never reached enlightenment and he decided to return to the valleys below. When he went to tell Hwan, he was at prayer. But before he could speak Hwan said that he would make the journey down the mountain with him the next day. The next morning, as they stared out, the master looked out at the vastness surrounding the mountain peak and asked, ‘Lao-li, what do you see?” “Master, I see the sun beginning to awake on the horizon, hills, mountains that stretch for miles, a lake and an old town.” The master smiled and they walked the rest of the way in silence. When they arrived at the foot of the mountain, the master asked Lao-Li again, “What do you see?” “Master, I see cows asleep, roosters on the run, children at play, a flowing stream.”
The Master was silent till they reached the gates of the town. He invited Lao-Li to sit with him a while. “What did you learn today, Lao-Li? Perhaps this will be the last Wisdom I can impart to you.” Lao-Li was silent. After a long while the Master said, “The road to understanding is like the journey down the mountain. It comes only to those who realise that what one sees at the top of the mountain is not what one sees at the bottom. Without this Wisdom, we close our minds . But with this Wisdom there comes an awakening. We realise that alone one can see only so much, which, in truth, isn’t much at all. This is the Wisdom that opens our lives to improvement, topples our prejudices and teaches us to respect that which we do not yet fully understand. Never forget this last lesson Lao-Li: what you cannot see can be seen from another part of the mountain.”
When the Master had finished speaking, Lao-Li looked out to the horizon and saw the sun setting before him. It seemed to rise in his heart. Lao-Li turned to speak to his master but the great one was gone.
For you and me, Jesus is the other part of the mountain. There will be days when we get Him and days when we don’t. But the reason we Listen to Him is that He has the words of eternal life. But to make room for these words, we have to let go of the words that bring death. So, we listen until His Word does its work in us, until life overcomes death. For this Transfiguration was the first step on the road to Jerusalem and to the Garden of the Resurrection.
