Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord – 6^th August 2026 – Matthew 17:1-9

Think about the weight of this. What if the door was shut forever? What if you were never permitted to see the face of God, ever? But look at the grace of the house today! We are privileged to gaze at Him in the Blessed Sacrament and receive Him in Holy Communion. The God who used to be hidden behind a thick temple veil is now setting a table inside your soul

Think about the patriarchs. Think about the prophets. Even the heavy hitters of the Old Testament didn’t have this kind of access! Moses and Elijah, the two stalwarts of the Old Testament who literally showed up at the Transfiguration, never got to see God’s face. They had to hike up a brutal mountain just to get a voice memo from Heaven! The prophets spent lifetimes climbing toward a hidden God; we simply open our hands to receive Him.

So what’s with mountains? Jesus seemed to like them a lot. The second temptation is on the mountain, so is His place of prayer. The Sermon on the Mount was given on a mountain and so too, the transfiguration of today’s gospel.

 A first-century Jew wouldn’t need a commentary to explain what was happening here. The moment you mention Moses and Elijah in the same sentence; their spiritual radar would go off! Because in the Old Testament, whenever God wanted to show up, He picked a location and He brought an atmosphere. A high mountain plus a thick cloud cover? That wasn’t just bad weather. That was the ultimate setup. Put those two together, and it meant one thing: God is about to step into the room!

The presence of Elijah and Moses was not just for representational purposes to make our narrative look good. Elijah represented the prophets and Moses represented the law and no Jew would deny the importance of the law and the prophets. Besides, it makes for a great PR campaign for Jesus.

For greater clarity, (in you spare time) open your Bible to Exodus 24:12-16, 33:17-23 and I Kings 11:13. You will find a lot of parallelisms to the transfiguration of Jesus.

1. Like Jesus, both Moses and Elijah go up a mountain; in fact, the same mountain.

2. Moses takes a disciple, just like Jesus did.

3. Moses and Elijah desired to see God’s face, but were denied.

4. They both saw His glory but not His face for they were told that they would die if they saw God’s face.

5. Both of them had their faces covered by God’s hand or His mantle.

What makes the Transfiguration an absolute turning point in history? Think about it. The same God who hid His face from Moses and Elijah in the Old Testament suddenly unveils it in the New. On that mountain, Jesus peels back His humanity and reveals His transfigured glory to Moses, Elijah, and the disciples. And guess what? They finally looked upon the face of God and lived. The lifelong quest of the prophets was fulfilled in an instant, because the hidden God had finally become a man. Heaven didn’t lower its standards; it lowered its visibility so we could finally draw close.

Here in lies another irony. It is this same face that God did not want to reveal in the Old Testament, that becomes on Good Friday, the face that WE HIDE FROM. The Prophet Isaiah in Chapter 53 says, “He had no form or majesty that we should look at Him; nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him. He was despised and rejected by men; a man of suffering; as one from whom others hid their faces.”

 Think about the irony of our human hearts! In the Old Testament, we were begging, screaming, and crying out, “God, let me see you! Show me your glory!” And God had to say, “I can’t, it’ll consume you.” Then Jesus comes, the veil is torn, the restriction is lifted, and God says, “Here I am. Look at Me.” And what do we do? We look the other way! We crave the God of the spectacular mountain, but we ignore the God of the everyday mirror. ‘Away with Him, Crucify Him!’ How fickle is humankind? How quickly the Hosannas of Palm Sunday will turn to ‘Crucify Him’, on Good Friday!

So, what is the transfiguration all about, merely a Gospel guilt trip? The very word ‘transfiguration’ comes from the Greek word ‘metamorphosis’ which means change. Jesus’ appearance changed and Peter, James and John, all saw Him as God and Man. The experience left the impetuous Peter a better man. Remember Peter, the patron of spontaneous prayer who must say something every time? Well, he did so this time too, but now with greater understanding. He calls Jesus, “Lord”.

Peter has become aware of the divinity of Jesus and addresses Him with a title of faith. But even more, the change is seen in Peter’s leadership. He who, not even a chapter ago, was given the keys of the kingdom of heaven and soon after denounced for his inability to grasp the new role foisted on his shoulders, takes on the leadership, but now in humbler tones. “If you wish, I will make three dwellings.” No more arrogance, no more leaning on the disciples for support. This is the Peter who has seen the face of God and lived.

Even the highest spiritual heights cannot insulate us from human weakness. Peter, James, and John—the elite eyewitnesses of the Transfiguration—will soon fail Jesus repeatedly in the darkness of Gethsemane. Yet Jesus anticipates our collapse with radical grace. The same tender hand that touched the terrified disciples on the mountain will lift them up after the resurrection. Confronting Peter’s denial and Thomas’s doubt, He offers restoration instead of condemnation. His ultimate question to Peter, and to us, remains entirely relational: “Do you love me?” He replaces the weight of our failure with the invitation of His friendship.

Change is in the air, that’s what the Gospels invite us to.  Today we don’t have to climb a mountain to meet God. Thank God for that! But like Elijah, we can hear Him in a still small voice. Mountains don’t need to be conquered for us to be with God; pride does, hate does, anger does, and lust does. And there we find God, on our own Mt Sinai; in a chapel or in our living room, in our kitchen, or in our work place. Look around now, He is there, revealing Himself to you.