A sermon preached at St. Mary’s by Hilary Pearson on 6th August 2025
There is a semicircular apse over the sanctuary in the ancient basilica of the Greek Orthodox St Catherine’s monastery, whose official title is ‘the Holy Monastery of Saint Catherine of the God-trodden Mount Sinai’. In this apse there is a famous sixth century mosaic of the event recounted in today’s Gospel. On a background of gold, we see Jesus in white robes with a golden halo, surrounded by a deep blue oval, a mandorla. Above his head a hand points down from heaven towards him. On his right side stands Moses, on his left Elijah. James and John are on their knees on either side below him, with hands held up in astonishment. Beneath him lies Peter, seemingly completely overcome by the sight. The mosaic was recently repaired, cleaned and restored to its original glory. In November 2023 I spent five days on retreat at the monastery. Non-orthodox guests at the retreat house are allowed to attend vespers, the evening service, in the basilica. I attended vespers most days. In the latter part of the service the candles and lamps are gradually extinguished, so that by the end the church is almost completely dark On the Sunday of my stay something different happened. Just as the church became dark, the lights brilliantly illuminating this mosaic were suddenly switched on so that the scene dramatically lit up the darkened church – I instinctively said: “Wow!” out loud.
The Transfiguration, the event we celebrate today, is one of the “wow!” moments in the story of Jesus. The story appears in the Gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke, usually referred to as the ‘Synoptic’ Gospels. We also have an eye-witness description in the second epistle of Peter. It is curious that there is no equivalent account in John’s Gospel; it is possible that the statement in the first chapter that: ‘…we saw his glory, such glory as befits the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth’ could be a reference to the Transfiguration.
We must remember that the Gospels are not ‘biography’ as we understand it today. They are carefully crafted accounts of the life and teachings of Jesus, designed to bring out some important theological principles to inform our faith in Jesus as the Christ, the Saviour, the Son of God. Although the accounts of the Transfiguration in the three Synoptic Gospels differ slightly in detail, it is important to note that, in all three, this event occurs at the same point in Jesus’ ministry. To understand the significance of the Transfiguration, we have to look at the context in which it occurs, again very similar in all three Gospels.
The chapter of Luke which includes the Transfiguration begins with the choosing of the Twelve and sending them out to preach and heal. This is the commissioning of the close group who will carry on Jesus’ work after he has gone. Then we have the feeding of the five thousand with five loaves and two fishes; a sign of God’s provision for those in his kingdom. Then, we come to a critical point in the gospel story; Peter’s recognition that Jesus is the Christ, God’s Messiah, immediately followed by Jesus’ prediction of his suffering, death and resurrection. His disciples are told that anyone who wants to follow Jesus must be prepared to lose their own lives for his sake. It is not difficult to imagine the confusion and anxiety this must have caused in the disciples. They were expecting a political Messiah, who would remove the Roman occupiers and restore the Jewish kingdom. They would be his key assistants and would have earthly power and glory. What Jesus was telling them made no sense.
Now we come to today’s part of the story. Jesus takes the three disciples he seems closest to, Peter, John and James, and goes up a mountain to pray. That would not have surprised them, Jesus often did that. What happened next was very surprising: Jesus was transformed into a figure of dazzling whiteness and Moses and Elijah appeared with him. Mark says that the disciples were terrified. And then a cloud descended and overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said: “This is my Son…listen to him.”
This is one of the three events in the Gospels where an audible voice of God confirms Jesus. The first is his baptism, at which a voice from heaven said: “You are my beloved son, in whom I take delight”. This seems to have been directed to Jesus, a confirmation to him of the ministry he was about to begin. At the Transfiguration, the voice from the cloud is speaking to the three disciples, confirming their recent realisation that Jesus is the Son of God and telling them that they must listen to what he says; including this unsettling message that he is to suffer, die and rise again. In John’s Gospel the divine voice is heard close to the end of Jesus’ earthly life, while he is in the Temple the day after his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Again, he is talking about his imminent death, which he does in the words: “the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” He talks of his inner turmoil, but refuses to ask to be saved from this fate. Instead, he asks: “Father, glorify your name”. A voice from heaven replied: “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.” John shows that this was not just an internal voice in Jesus’ mind, because those around heard it, who would have included more than his immediate disciples. Jesus tells them the voice spoke for them, not for him. So, at three key points, God audibly confirms who Jesus is and why he has been sent.
The two people who appear with Jesus are also significant. Moses is usually taken as representing the Law, and Elijah the prophets. But there is more to it than that. Both had unusual deaths. We are told that Moses died after he was taken up a mountain to see the Promised Land, but his burial place has never been discovered. Elijah was swept up into heaven by a whirlwind. And Luke says that Moses and Elijah “spoke of his departure, the destiny he was to fulfil in Jerusalem.” This is evidence that Jesus’ death was also to be unusual: that it was a central part of God’s plan for his life rather than a mere ending of that life.
Another important factor is that the three disciples who saw this told no-one about it at the time. They were given this experience so that, after Jesus’ terrible death and incredible resurrection, they could help the other disciples understand why these things had happened. Sometimes we are sure God is speaking to us, perhaps when reading the Bible and something suddenly jumps out of a well-known passage, but it does not seem to make any sense at the time. Keep it in your heart, it may be needed in the future to make sense of something that has happened to you or someone close to you.
I cannot end without mentioning what happened 80 years ago today: the dropping of the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The city “shone like the sun” and around 80,000 people were killed instantly. Tens of thousands of men, women, and children died over the following months and years from radiation exposure. The intense radiation from the explosion vaporized people, leaving behind only burnt images on walls to mark the place where they were standing. As we contemplate the divine glory shining in the face of Jesus on the mount of Transfiguration, we must not forget the suffering caused by wars, including the conflicts that are right now destroying lives and communities all over the world, particularly in the land where our Lord spent his human life.
So, let us be like those disciples who were the first to see God incarnate in Jesus. We must go where Jesus asks us to go, whether up a mountain to pray or to take up our cross and follow him. Whatever happens, we need to keep our spiritual eyes open to seeing his glory as God’s son. And to keep our spiritual ears open to hear God’s voice. And to be ready to speak out for peace and justice and to do what we can to help the victims of war, violence and oppression.