Transfiguration – 2026
Matthew 17:1-9
Marian Free
In the name of God who knows what it is to be fully human. Amen.
Two years ago, Michael and I were privileged to visit the Segrada Familie in Barcelona. We had seen it some twenty years previously when the interior was far from finished. This time we were utterly transfixed. Not only is the church beautiful it is, as Gaudi intended, filled with a sense of peace. After spending some time there, we literally had to force ourselves to leave. We knew that no matter how long we stayed it would not seem to be enough and we knew that life awaited us beyond its walls.
Today is Transfiguration Sunday. On this day I particularly like to sing the hymn “Tis good Lord to be here”. Quoting Peter’s words in Matthew 17:3, the author of the lyrics, J. Armitage Robinson draws us into the scene on the mountain and imagines its impact on us – we see our redemption and the promise of the kingdom and we long to stay. In the final verse we sing: “Tis good Lord to be here! Yet we may not remain; but since you bid us leave the mount, come with us to the plain.” These final lines have a poignancy that always hits me. “But since you bid us leave the mount, come with us to the plain.”
Interestingly though, nowhere in the accounts of the Transfiguration does Jesus suggest leaving the mountain – Luke doesn’t even bother to mention the descent. Leaving the mountain is just the logical next step – having gone up, one has to go down.
While they may not reflect the biblical text, Robinson’s lyrics articulate a temptation that is common to all – the desire to hold on to moments of pure joy, moments of transcendence, moments that take us out of our pain or our humdrum existence. He knows how hard it can be to tear oneself away from a moment or place that inspires awe and wonder, how tempting it is to want to remain in a place where one experiences a feeling of being above and beyond the pressures of life, of being removed from the mundane, and the stressful and being in the presence of the eternal. Why would one ever seek to leave a place in which one felt safe, happy and at peace? Why would one ever want to leave a place in which one felt invincible?
Like Robinson, scholars have long thought that as important as the Transfiguration is, the message that one should return to real life is of equal value. One cannot stay in the rarefied atmosphere of the clouds (isolated and insulated) but must descend to the messiness that is daily living. As followers of Jesus we are obligated to immerse ourselves in the lives of those around us, to be part of the world, not separate from it, to shine our experience of Christ’s light in the darkness that can be human existence.
It is certainly true that we are called to come down from the mountain and to share in the lives and experiences of our fellow human beings but, as I reflect on the Transfiguration one more time I wonder if that is what the author of Matthew is trying to tell us here.
Is Matthew talking about the disciples or is he talking about Jesus? It is Jesus who leaves the exalted atmosphere of the mountain top. It is Jesus who as he is descending reminds his disciples that he is about to suffer and die. Jesus leaves the relatively safety of the mountain to face the agony of the cross. He chooses not to take advantage of his privileged status – not to be protected by God from the torment and pain that lies ahead. Jesus boldly leaves the mountain to bury himself once more in the stark realities of human existence. Despite being declared the Son of God, he makes the decision to face whatever it is that lies ahead of him as a human being.
The Transfiguration and what precedes and follows it, is part of the pattern and tension of Jesus’ life. A life in which times of exaltation are followed by times of dejection, times of being accepted are followed by times of being rejected, times of being understood are followed by times of being misunderstood, times of revelation are followed by times of concealment, times of clarity are followed by times of paradox, and times of certainty are followed by times of confusion.
At his birth Jesus is celebrated by the magis but then he is forced to for his life. At his baptism Jesus hears God’s voice declaring him to be God’s Son, but immediately he is thrust into the silence of the desert and the temptation to avoid the discomforts that that entails. On his entry to Jerusalem Jesus is cheered by the crowds only to be jeered by them when he stands before Pilate. Jesus’ disciples follow him when all seems to be going well but abandon him when he needs them most.
Jesus’ life is anything but monochrome. All three evangelists point us away from the mountain to the cross. They want to be absolutely certain – not that we leave the mountain – but that we don’t leave Jesus on the mountain, that we see the tensions and paradoxes that exist in life of one who is fully human as well as fully divine. If we forget Jesus’ humanity, his frailty and his vulnerability, if we leave him on the mountain, we miss the whole point. Jesus, fully human, suffers as we suffer and knows joy as we know joy. There is no armour of godliness that protects him from the realities of human life.
Jesus’ divinity might show us what God is like, but Jesus’ full humanity tells us that God knows what it is like to be us. To leave Jesus on the mountain is to focus on his glory to the detriment of his humanity, to allow him to come down is to embrace the complexity of who he really is.
I will still love singing: “Tis good Lord to be here,” but from now on, I will ask myself whether it is Jesus who comes with us to the plain, or whether it is we who follow him into the breadth and depth of what if means to be fully human.
Swallowsrest 