The Transfiguration of Jesus Christ

There Is Life on the Mount, but Why? Exodus 24:8-18 (also Matthew 17:1-9)

The Transfiguration of Our Lord is a high point of the Church Year. It's the climax of the Epiphany season, the season of Christ's revealing. On the mountaintop, Peter, James, and John see Jesus' glory revealed in its heavenly fullness. What a sight that must have been! Christ in his heavenly beauty and splendor! Wouldn't we die to see that!

Peter, James, and John thought they would die for seeing that. Matthew says in our Gospel that, upon seeing the glory of Jesus and hearing the voice of the Father from heaven, "they fell on their faces and were terrified" (Mt 17:6).

No wonder. In seeing the glory of Christ, the very face of God, they saw in terrible contrast how sinful, how unholy, how unworthy they were to be anywhere near God. Once in the Old Testament, the Lord even said, "Man shall not see me and live" (Ex 33:20). But they didn't die. Neither did the men in our text, our Old Testament Reading from Exodus, when they saw God on Mount Sinai.

How could that be? How can the seeming contradiction of the Lord's words and actions be resolved? How can it be that for the sinner, there is life, not death, at the face of God?

The mountain does present an uncomfortable problem. It's God's mountain; He's there, and He is holy. Psalm 99 (1-5, 9) speaks clearly:

The Lord reigns; let the peoples tremble!
He sits enthroned upon the cherubim; let the earth quake!
The Lord is great in Zion; he is exalted over all the peoples.
Let them praise your great and awesome name! Holy is he!
The King in his might loves justice.
You have established equity; you have executed justice and righteousness in Jacob.
Exalt the Lord our God; worship at his footstool!
Holy is he!
Exalt the Lord our God, and worship at his holy mountain; for the Lord our God is holy! Man is also there, on God's mountain, at the face of God, and he is not holy. If man was holy there would be no need for the Law or the Commandments. Unholy man stands in fear for he cannot see the face of God and live.