Every year on August 6, we read one of the most important stories of the Gospels, the Transfiguration. It is so important we will read it again twice in the next church year (which begins the Sunday nearest November 30, the feast of St. Andrew. In 2021 it falls on the 28th.). It is hugely ironic that on this date in 1945, the first nuclear weapon destroyed the Japanese city of Hiroshima: the revelation of who Jesus is, and who we are…
Jesus finishes reprimanding Peter for misunderstanding who he is (“get thee behind me…”), and “six days later,” Matthew, Mark, and Luke tell us, Jesus takes him and James and John — the inner circle of disciples — up a mountain. This is one of the many small mountains dotting Israel. There Jesus’ clothes become “whiter than any bleach” could make them. As the dazzled disciples look on in awe, Elijah and Moses appear and begin speaking with him.
How they know these two were Elijah and Moses is intriguing. Perhaps they overheard their names. In any event, Elijah is the greatest wonder-working prophet of Israel who did not die but was famously taken up in a fiery chariot to heaven; Moses of course is the great lawgiver of Israel, who led them out of bondage in Egypt. So Jesus is above these two, and he is in a sense the completion of the life of these two prophets and all they represent.
