Oct 28 2008
Matthew 17
Immediately after speaking of the passion, Matthew leads us directly into the Transfiguration, thus connecting the suffering and the glory of Christ. Green suggests that specifying the number of days is to emphasise the link between these two pericopes (p184). However, he does not mention that what is six days in Matthew and Mark is eight days in Luke. Chrysostom comments that this is merely a difference in counting, one counting all the days from first to last and the others counting only the days in between (LVI:1). However, it is more likely, especially given Luke’s deliberate change from Mark (then adding ‘about’) that there is a theological meaning. Perhaps Mark had in mind the six days of creation, with God resting on the seventh: the Transfiguration. Perhaps Luke had in mind the eighth day being symbolically eternity, the completion, the day on which the resurrection is celebrated. If true, these are two only very slightly different theological emphases.
The mountain was a fitting place for the Transfiguration to take place, given the history in the Old Testament of God’s manifesting himself on mountain tops. In Matthew’s gospel, there has been a mountain of temptation and a mountain for teaching the righteousness of the Kingdom. Now at the culmination of this section of the Gospel where we have seen unbelief and acknowledgement of Jesus as “Christ, the Son of the living God” (16:16), we see Jesus transfigured and his glory made clear. As at the earlier theophany of Jesus’s baptism, here too there is a voice from the cloud acknowledging him (3:17, 17:5).
At a fitting time and a fitting place, there were also fitting guests. Moses and Elijah appear to be with Christ. Why Moses and Elijah? Chrysostom has a host of reasons. First, as some had supposed Jesus to be one of the prophets come back to life, here Jesus is shown with the prophets so the difference could be clearly seen: Peter was right in calling him “Son of the living God”. Second, since Jesus was accused of breaking the Jewish Law and even blaspheming, here he could be seen with Moses, bringer of the Law, and Elijah, jealous for the glory of God. Further, he was with one who had died and one who had never suffered death to show his power over life and death; and having spoken of the passion and death, here he showed the disciples how this was in the context of his glory. Green suggests that Moses was the supreme representative of the Law, and Elijah of the prophets, and that further, both had “something uncanny about the way they left this life” (as he puts it, p185). Moses died, but he was apparently buried by God and his grave was never found (Deut 34:5-6) whereas Elijah was taken away in front of Elisha’s eyes in a chariot and horses of fire (2 Kings 2:11). Certainly there was expectation that Moses and Elijah would be seen again in the last days, and here they stand at the Transfiguration and bear witness to Christ as the eschaton, with all the authority of the Law and Prophets of God’s chosen people. They disappear as suddenly as they came, leaving only Jesus, along with the disciples to wonder at what they had seen.
