In our 1st lesson, the Old Testament lesson we see Moses trudge up the long trail of an extremely high mountain. In accordance with the command of God, Moses climbs the pathless slope to the summit of the mount, which was enshrouded with the cloud that marked the Divine Presence and Glory of God. Back in 1967, when I went to the top of that mountain, it was still dark (about 3 or 4 in the morning) so that one could reach the summit so as to see the sunrise over the Arabian desert. The climb was treacherous, even more so in the dark, and so we rode up on a donkey who was more sure footed than man. In Moses’ day, there on the summit, the Shekinah of Yahweh was clothed in the cloud of awe and mystery.
The thick cloud opened in the sight of all Israel, and the glory of the Lord broke forth like devouring fire. And to the eyes of the children of Israel the appearance of the glory of the LORD was like a consuming fire on the mountain top. God, even our God, is a consuming fire, and He was pleased to manifest himself in the giving of the Torah, that, we knowing the terrors of the Lord, we may be persuaded to obey, and by the Torah be prepared for the comforts of the Gospel, that the grace and truth which came by Jesus may be all the more acceptable. The Torah wasn’t mere rules and regulations, they were and are the foundation for God’s relationship with the people of God. They describe the covenant that God makes with you… Us. His people.
Today, the day of Transfiguration, the climb was up a mountain in today’s Lebanon, a mountain near Dan; completely in the opposite direct from Mt. Sinai [360 miles in a straight line]. Peter, James and John climb with Jesus up the high mountain, which is part of the Mt. Herman mountain range.
There Jesus was Transfigured (the Greek word is metemorfovw) – a transformation of Jesus, whose human body was transfigured to reveal His heavenly, divine, invisible glory. All three of the gospel writers who have a Transfiguration account mention this detail, each saying it in his own way. Matthew has ‘and his clothes became white as light.’ Luke says, ‘and his clothing became dazzling white.” And in Mark we find the most complete description, where it says, “and his clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them.” “White as light,” “dazzling white,” “radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them.”
Surely the glorious appearance of our Lord made a deep impression on the disciples who witnessed it. They hadn’t seen anything like it. I think it is more significant than bright white garments. Let me get back to that later.
Then there appeared Moses and Elijah. When we think about it, these two characters fit perfectly in this scene. Moses delivered the Torah to the Israelites, but he was also the first of God’s great prophets [cf. Deut 18:14ff]. Elijah too was a great prophet. Furthermore, both of them saw an appearance of God in their lifetimes [Moses: Exod 33:17ff; Elijah: 1 Kings 19:9ff] and both of these occurred on a mountain. Both of them, like Jesus, had performed mighty works in the name of the Lord God of Israel, and both had experienced, to some degree, the rejection of their own people. These two characters have symbolic significance as well. Together they represent the Bible – the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings all of which pointed to Jesus, as St. Paul says in Romans [3:21].
The other important and significant part of the story is that “suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud (the) voice (of God the Father) said, “This is my Beloved Son, with him I am well pleased; listen to him!”
Then as they were coming down the mountain “Jesus ordered them, Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.” The Greek word that Jesus used is interesting: ejntevllw: it means “command, give orders.” Jesus didn’t just say “don’t talk about this,” “don’t tell anyone,” but Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone what they had seen until after the Resurrection. Why?
Well, for the answer why, let’s quickly jump to the Resurrection, Easter Sunday, Peter and (John) started for the tomb but (John) out ran Peter and reached the tomb first. John bent down to look in and saw the linen shroud (ojqovnia) lying there, but he did not go in. Then Peter came, following him, and Peter went into the tomb. He also saw the linen shroud (ojqovnia) lying there, and the cloth (soudavrion) that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. Then John also went in, and he saw and believed; [John 20:4-8]. Now we’ve heard the story many times, but I don’t think it really hits home until we connect the burial shroud with the Transfiguration. At the Transfiguration Jesus transfigured into what He God was Light and that’s what the corpse turned into Light to be resurrected.
John uses the vivid Greek word “he sees” (ei\don, which literally means “of perception by sight, to become aware of, understand”). What he sees is remarkable: the linen bands which tied the shroud to the body were lying wholly undisturbed in their proper place but without the body of Jesus; the body was gone. Nothing whatever had been done with them, they were merely lying there.
The shroud lay there, flat, unwrinkled, just as if there still was a corpse in it, but there was no body there. John is to be the first to realize that the resurrection was just like the transfiguration. Jesus’ body became light.
This hints that a momentous, unprecedented event occurred at the moment of Jesus’ resurrection – a milli-burst of radiation emanating from Jesus’ body, a brilliant flash of light upon its return to life that delicately seared image on the fibrils of the shroud. (One of the suggestions is that the only source of energy which would not burn the cloth would be electrons, and that they would radiate perpendicular to the shroud.)
The blood on the shroud was made first when the bloody Body was placed on the shroud.
The image was secondary; the image was made at the resurrection, by the resurrection; there is no image under the blood. The intensity of the radiation was so perfect that it did not go through the blood. The energy was not enough to burn the cloth but enough to leave the image. The depth of the image is one micron (thinner than a hair). The images are a surface phenomenon—the image affected only the very top fibrils of the linen fibers.
St. John of Damascus in the 7th century wrote in his sermon named “Oration on Holy Saturday” that the light that filled the Tomb of Jesus was the uncreated Light of the Creator, the same Light that shone during the Transfiguration. And all this (by the way) gives us a clue not only to the Resurrection of Jesus but what our resurrection will be like.