Transfiguration Notes – Matthew 17:1-9

The Pre and Post-Vatican II lectionary puts the Transfiguration account as the Second Sunday in Lent. Gerhard’s Postillas puts the text as the Last Sunday in the Church Year. I could not find a Luther sermon on the Transfiguration. Bo Giertz’s “Preaching from the Whole Bible” (thank you, Lutheran Legacy, for republishing this gem!) puts the Transfiguration in place of Trinity 7. It is known that August 6 is the customary day for Transfiguration in the Western Church and for New Calendar Eastern Christians. Old Calendar Eastern Christians celebrate Transfiguration on August 19.

Luther Reed’s “The Lutheran Liturgy” says concerning Transfiguration: “Since this feast received only limited observance on August 6, usually a weekday; and since it seemed appropriate as a climax to the Epiphany season, the Reformers Bugenhagen and Veit Dietrich chose it as the theme for sermons on the Sixth Sunday after Epiphany. Eventually this became the general Lutheran use. The Common Service Book (not the Common Service), remembering that our Lord after descending from the Mount “set His face to go to Jerusalem,” appointed the Transfiguration from the last Sunday after the Epiphany in every year “except when there is only one Sunday after the Epiphany.”  (Reed 449)

Note: 2008 was a year when there was only one Sunday after the Epiphany. So the Sunday calendar went Epiphany to the Baptism of Our Lord to Septuagesima.

Pius Parsch, “The Church’s Year of Grace”

By means of the…sacred Banquet, the transfiguration becomes an actuality through the Sacrament; the glorified Christ appears and we are sharers of His glory (4:294).

Jesus passed His life on earth as a poor, ordinary, simple Jew. But at the transfiguration, one may say, He threw off the dark mantle of humanity and revealed Himself in full divine splendor (4:295).

The liturgical texts not only serve to give instruction; their principal function is to signify that which actually takes place. What once happened during the night on Mount Tabor happens again every time the holy Sacrifice is offered…. Liturgy actualizes in our very presence the sanctifying act of Christ at His transfiguration (4:296).

Church Fathers

We must note that the mystery of the second rebirth, that namely which will take place in the resurrection, when the body will be raised again, rightly agrees with the mystery of the first, which takes place in Baptism, where the soul is restored to life. For in the Baptism of Christ the operation of the whole Trinity is revealed to us: for there was the Son Incarnate, the Holy Spirit under the form of a dove, and the Father makde known by His voice. And so in the Transfiguration, which mystically signifies the second rebirth, the whole Trinity appears: the Father in the voice, the Son in man, the Holy Spirit in a cloud. If it be asked why the Holy Spirit was first shown through a dove, but here by a cloud, the answer is that He indicates His gifts through fitting forms. He bestows innocence in Baptism, symbolized by the bird of purity; He will give glory and refreshment in the resurrection: refreshment is symbolized by the cloud; the glory of the rising bodies by the brightness of the cloud (Gloss from the Catena Aurea, printed in Toal).

That the holy Apostles fall on their faces shows their sanctity: because the holy are described as falling on their faces, the wicked as falling backwards (Remigius).

Now the chief purpose of this Transfiguration was to remove from the hearts of the disciples their fear of the cross. So, before their eyes, was unveiled the splendor of His hidden majesty, that the loneliness of His freely chosen suffering might not confound their faith. But nonetheless there was also thus set forth, by the providence of God, a sure and certain hope for holy Church, whereby the whole body of Christ should know with what great a change it is yet to be honored. For the members of that Body whose Head hath already been transfigured in light may promise themselves a share in His glory (St. Leo the Great).

Peter’s errors: He does not want Jesus to go up to Jerusalem (Origen); he wanted to stay in the glory of the Transfiguration (Remigius); he sought to place Moses and Elijah equal with God and His Son (Jerome); he sought to have Christ establish an earthly kingdom (Remigius).

Blessed Johann Gerhard’s Postilla

But of what matter is, then, the transfiguration? Does it constitute an essential change in Christ’s human nature? By no means, for it is this very nature that has been transfigured here and later will suffer death. The evangelist Luke explains that it was the appearance of Christ’s face that had changed. We must understand this as follows:

During His days in the flesh the Lord Christ could have let His divine majesty, radiance, and glory shine forth without interruption, just as He has it shine forth now at the right hand of God for the angels and the elect. However, for our salvation and deliverance He humbled Himself, walked in the form of a servant, and was found to be just like any another lowly human being. This was so that He could suffer and die on our behalf. Nonetheless, so that one may not suppose He did this out of duress, or His self-denial and humiliation represented the utter discarding of His divine glory, it pleased Him to let the rays of His heavenly glory break through for His disciples. Hence, what He could have done continually, He did here as a prefiguring and mirroring of what He will do in His state of exaltation (2:277).

Hymn Plan (LSB): 414, 413, 395, 417