Tag Archives: Theophany

Matthew 17: 1-13 The Transfiguration of Jesus

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Carl Bloch, The Transfiguration of Jesus (1865)

Matthew 17: 1-13

Parallel Mark 9: 2-10; Luke 9: 28-36

Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. 2 And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. 3 Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. 4 Then Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” 5 While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” 6 When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. 7 But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.” 8 And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone.

9 As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, “Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.” 10 And the disciples asked him, “Why, then, do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?” 11 He replied, “Elijah is indeed coming and will restore all things; 12 but I tell you that Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but they did to him whatever they pleased. So also the Son of Man is about to suffer at their hands.” 13 Then the disciples understood that he was speaking to them about John the Baptist.

Mountains in Matthew’s gospel are places of revelation, and this vision where Jesus is transfigured before the disciples continues the trend of giving insight into Jesus’ identity. The devil takes Jesus to a very high mountain to test his identity (4:8); the Sermon on the Mount puts has several echoes of Moses on the mountain and shows Jesus relation to the law; Jesus prays on a mountain prior to walking the water, saving Peter and being worshipped by the disciples (14: 29); and great crowds meet Jesus at a mountain and he feeds them (15: 32-39). In this scene which evokes multiple scriptural resonances we are again confronted with the identity of Jesus and asked to reconsider the meaning of what it means for Jesus to be the Son, the Beloved one.

Peter, James, and John are set aside as a select group within the disciples who are allowed to be present for this moment of revelation, but they are also ordered to keep this vision secret until after the resurrection. We are not given any insight into why these three disciples are selected to ascend the mountain with Jesus, but they will be the group within the disciples that are present for some of the critical moments, but they will not prove to be the ideal observers and participants in these moments. As Stanley Hauerwas notes,

Jesus will also ask Peter, James and John to be with him in Gethsemane, but there, when he is in agony, they will find it hard to be present with him (Matt. 26: 36-46). Their need to be touched will continue. (Hauerwas, 2006, p. 156)

Peter, James and John share common characteristics with all the disciples: they are not people who have easy insight into the identity of Jesus, they are ‘little faith ones’ who need to journey behind Jesus and ask questions to understand. Yet, they are precisely the people that Jesus invites to share these moments that reveal who Jesus is and the faith and understanding they have makes them open to these revelations in a way that the scribes have not been.

The primary echo of scripture in this scene is Moses’ ascent of Mount Sinai. In Exodus 24, Moses takes with him Aaron, Nadab and Abihu along with seventy elders who see God, but then Moses goes up into the cloud and waits for six days before God calls and speaks to Moses. The time marker at the beginning of the transfiguration story, along with the three named disciples and the overshadowing cloud all echo the experience of God in this scene, but remarkably Peter, James and John are invited to come all the way up to this place where the presence of God overwhelms them. We also hear that Moses is changed by his time in the presence of God and that his face was shining, and the people reacted to this change with fear. (Exodus 34: 29-35) The scene may place Jesus in resonance with Moses, but the introduction of both Moses and Elijah into the scene speaking with Jesus and the note that Jesus’ face is shining like the sun and his garments are literally ‘white as the light’ while Moses and Elijah are not described in a similar way places Jesus above both of these two exemplars of the faithful ones of God.

Peter’s ‘enthusiastic error’ to desire to construct a tent or tabernacle for Jesus, Moses and Elijah to become a fixed dwelling place for Jesus, the law and the prophets (Hays, 2016, p. 352) is a continual temptation for the generations that will follow Peter in confessing Jesus as Christ/Messiah, son of the living God. Matthew certainly dedicates more space to confession of who Jesus is, to understanding his identity in relation to the law and the prophets, but confession without following behind tends to lead the disciples to misunderstanding the content of Jesus’ identity and what it means for them. The multiple ways in which Matthew reveals the connection between Jesus and the God of Israel may be difficult for the disciples, both original and modern, to grasp but we are invited to be in the place of awe and wonder where heaven and earth come together to not only reveal the identity of Jesus, but the proper response. In the presence of the ‘sound from the cloud’ the disciples’ response is one of fear and to fall on the ground, while Jesus’ encouragement to them will be not to fear and to rise up.

Peter is silenced by the presence of God in a manner that would be familiar to those who know the way God appears in the Exodus narrative. God descends on the mountain as a cloud and a sound that is described in ways that emulate both thunder and a volcano speaks the words that Moses, the elders and the people of Israel hear. In this scene the bright cloud descends upon Peter, James, John along with Jesus, Moses, and Elijah and the ‘sound from the cloud’ (the NRSV’s rendering of phone as voice instead of sound is understandable but doesn’t capture the overwhelming and terrifying nature of the scene’s echo of the LORD speaking in Exodus. The disciples’ action of being silent, fearful, and reverent are appropriate when they realize they are in the presence of the God of Israel, but in the midst of this theophany (encounter with God) they hear the voice of God declaring not only Jesus’ identity as “my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased” but also the correct response to Jesus, “hear him.”

The words which come from the bright cloud are rich in resonance both within Matthew’s story, but also within the language of scripture. In Jesus’ baptism the ‘sound from the heavens’ declares Jesus as ‘my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased,” and we now have this direct revelation from God a second time of this exact identity. The Son of God title comes directly from the mouth of God and from the mouth of those directly opposed to God’s work in bringing in the kingdom of heaven (see my discussion on the title Son of God here). Additionally, there are two significant resonances in scripture in this title declared from the cloud. The first is from Genesis 22 where God commands Abraham:

Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you. Genesis 22:2

This scene which is pivotal in the book of Genesis because it places the covenant between Abraham and the LORD at risk, the LORD is asking Abraham to offer up the long-awaited promise of God back to God, after God has bound Godself to this promise. Hearing the echo of this scene may help those with attentive ears to be prepared for Jesus’ journey to a different mountain where the Son of Man will suffer at the hands of men. The other echo an attentive ear may hear is Isaiah 42:1

Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations.

The additional imperative to “hear him” also echoes Deuteronomy 18: 15:

The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you shall heed such a prophet[1]

These echoes point to Jesus being a prophet like Moses, the suffering servant of Isaiah, and the beloved son of the speaker, like Isaac to Abraham all within this divine pronouncement from the cloud. Jesus radiates with the same brightness as the terrifying and bright cloud where the presence of God approaches, and the scene is overwhelming for Peter, James, and John who bow their faces to the ground and are fearing exceedingly.

The disciples have been commanded to hear Jesus and after touching them, an observation unique to Matthew’s narration of this story, the disciples are invited to ‘rise up’ and to ‘not fear.’ Upon rising up they see only Jesus, no longer transfigured, inviting them to continue their journey down the mountain. They are commanded to remain speechless about this vision until the Son of Man ‘rises up’ from the dead, and only then can they tell what happened on the mountain. They were never to stay there for long, they were invited to see and hear and wonder in new ways who this one they follow is and to continue to hear him while they can. The disciples may be speechless about what happened on the mountain, but they have enough understanding to ask for clarification about the expectation of Elijah’s coming.

The scribes who study the scriptures have enough insight to know that the scriptures point to Elijah’s coming, but without faith that is open to God’s emissaries at work they are unable to interpret the meaning of John the Baptist or Jesus within God’s action. These disciples have enough faith to understand once things are explained to them. Both John the Baptist and Jesus will suffer at the hands of those who have eyes but cannot see or ears that do not hear. The word here for ‘suffer’ is pascha, the word we get Paschal (like the Paschal lamb of Passover). Peter, James, and John hear an extra reminder that Jesus’ path will be one that will involve suffering at the hands of those unable to see as they journey down the mountain to the crowd and disciples waiting below.

[1] In the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) the words are ‘hear him’ (autou akousesthe) the same verb used in Matthew.

Exodus 33: Repairing the Relationship Between God and Israel

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“Ten Commandments by Anton Losenko – Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons –

Exodus 33:1-6 The LORD’s Separation from Israel

The LORD said to Moses, “Go, leave this place, you and the people whom you have brought up out of the land of Egypt, and go to the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, ‘To your descendants I will give it.’ 2 I will send an angel before you, and I will drive out the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 3 Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; but I will not go up among you, or I would consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people.”

4 When the people heard these harsh words, they mourned, and no one put on ornaments. 5 For the LORD had said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘You are a stiff-necked people; if for a single moment I should go up among you, I would consume you. So now take off your ornaments, and I will decide what to do to you.'” 6 Therefore the Israelites stripped themselves of their ornaments, from Mount Horeb onward.

Trust was broken when the Israelites cast and worshipped the golden calf. Perhaps it is my own experience of a broken relationship as well as helping others deal with broken relationships that makes me hear this passage between the LORD and Israel being like the struggling attempts of a couple after trust was broken. The God of the Bible is not the unmoved mover that many Christians imagine, the LORD the God of Israel was passionately invested in this covenant. We see here and many other places in scriptures a wounded God nursing broken dreams and beginning the long journey to the place where trust can be rebuilt. It is not only a journey from Mount Sinai/Horeb to the promised land, it is a journey of rebuilding trust between God and God’s people.

At this point the LORD needs some space from the people. Like a couple who needs to live in separate places after an affair because the presence of the other is a continual reminder of the brokenness that exists between them, the LORD needs space and time to deal with these emotions. The Israelites too in their own way go into mourning. Their ornaments were once removed to cast the golden calf and now they are removed as a mourning of the pain and grief they caused for the LORD and for themselves. They are a people who have lost their God’s trust and who exist in the hope that in the future that trust can be rebuilt, and the relationship restored.

God has not completely walked away from the people or from hope. An angel, and emissary continues to lead and go with the people but the LORD’s desire to dwell among the people has been for a time shattered. The previous focus on the tabernacle is temporarily set aside amid the pain of the broken relationship. Moses still stands between the LORD and the people, clung to by both. For now the people and God journey in parallel paths and Moses’ job will be to bring healing to both God and God’s people.

Exodus 33: 7-11 Separate Camp

7 Now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, far off from the camp; he called it the tent of meeting. And everyone who sought the LORD would go out to the tent of meeting, which was outside the camp. 8 Whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people would rise and stand, each of them, at the entrance of their tents and watch Moses until he had gone into the tent. 9 When Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent, and the LORD would speak with Moses. 10 When all the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance of the tent, all the people would rise and bow down, all of them, at the entrance of their tent.11 Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend. Then he would return to the camp; but his young assistant, Joshua son of Nun, would not leave the tent.

Much as adults going through a strained portion of a relationship often separate because the immediate presence of the other causes too much pain, now the LORD meets with Moses outside the camp. Moses’ role as the mediator between the people and God in now intensified as Moses still has the LORD’s trust. The people who are longing for reconciliation, those who seek the LORD, wait and watch Moses’ departure to the tent of meeting and return hopeful for some sign that the relationship will be renewed. This is not the desired state of things for God. The LORD’s desire was to be in the center of the camp but now God’s place of meeting is beyond the borders of the camp.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his theological exposition of Genesis 1-3, Creation and Fall, talks about Adam’s original orientation of God placing God in the center of existence. (Bonhoeffer, 1997, p. 88f) In a similar way, the intent for the tabernacle was to echo this place in creation where God is symbolically and theologically in the center of the people of Israel’s life. Both Adam and the people of Israel were to realize their dependence on the LORD’s providence and protection. Yet both would eventually by their disobedience push God to the margins (using Bonhoeffer’s theological metaphor). Yet, God also withdraws to the margins as an act of grace. In the creation narrative it is a grace which overcomes the threat of death to Adam and Eve for eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. In Exodus it is a grace which prevents the people from being consumed by the wrath of God over their betrayal with the golden calf. Moses as the mediator will now continue to work to bring the people and their God back together and to move God away from the margins and back to the center.

Exodus 33: 12-23 The Presence of God

love me forever by syntheses on deviantart.com

12 Moses said to the LORD, “See, you have said to me, ‘Bring up this people’; but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’ 13 Now if I have found favor in your sight, show me your ways, so that I may know you and find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people.” 14 He said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” 15 And he said to him, “If your presence will not go, do not carry us up from here. 16 For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people, unless you go with us? In this way, we shall be distinct, I and your people, from every people on the face of the earth.”

17 The LORD said to Moses, “I will do the very thing that you have asked; for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.” 18 Moses said, “Show me your glory, I pray.” 19 And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim before you the name, ‘The LORD’;1 and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. 20 But,” he said, “you cannot see my face; for no one shall see me and live.” 21 And the LORD continued, “See, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock; 22 and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by; 23 then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back; but my face shall not be seen.”

For a beautiful description and meditation on this scene see Ellen Davis’ chapter ‘A Fool for Love: Exodus 33’ in Getting Involved with God: Rediscovering the Old Testament. (Davis, 2001, pp. 153-159) Even though I will be coming at the scene from a different perspective she has some beautiful insights into this scene and suggestions about the character of the LORD. Moses is, “disgusted with the Israelites, betrayed by his own brother, and now even God has bailed out, leaving him alone with a job he never wanted in the first place” (154) and yet he is the one who is caught between a people and their God attempting to make peace. Moses asks for a demonstration of the LORD’s favor and trust in this place where Moses feels abandonment. The LORD attempts to reassure Moses that Moses is seen and known and that the relationship between Moses and God remains strong, but Moses is not willing to allow things to remain as they are. God promises to be present and to walk with Moses (the Hebrew is second person singular-Hebrew has a singular and a plural you unlike English). Moses refuses to allow God to only journey with him, if God will not go with the people Moses asks him to return to the original intent of journeying with the people. For Moses sake God consents to journey with the people and to be vulnerable to the pain that they will cause God along this journey.

God grants Moses request based upon the relationship with Moses, not the people. Moses becomes the one whose prayer is heard when the prayers of the people are not. Moses is one who is righteous for the people, who stands in the gap between the people and God and who holds the relationship together.

Moses makes a bold request of God, to see God’s glory. Moses has been the one who seeks after the LORD throughout the Exodus journey and the LORD grants this request as fully as possible. Moses continues to be the one seeking after God and God consents to be seen in a manner that Moses can endure. God is not insulted by Moses’ request and, as Ellen Davis highlights, God seems to be flattered by it. (157) God has been taken for granted by the people but not by Moses and the LORD has stated that the LORD is a jealous God who will not be taken for granted. Yet, God is willing to show Godself to those who seek and to enter into the relationship with those who are willing to be open to God. Moses’ faithfulness to God’s vision for the relationship between the LORD and the people pulls the LORD back to the LORD’s original dream. Moses’ intercession for the people and desire for God becomes instrumental in the process of reconciliation.

Exodus 24: Sealing the Covenant and Approaching God at Sinai

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David Roberts, Mount Sinai (1839)

Exodus 24: 1-8 Sealing the Covenant

Then he said to Moses, “Come up to the LORD, you and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and worship at a distance. 2 Moses alone shall come near the LORD; but the others shall not come near, and the people shall not come up with him.”

 3 Moses came and told the people all the words of the LORD and all the ordinances; and all the people answered with one voice, and said, “All the words that the LORD has spoken we will do.” 4 And Moses wrote down all the words of the LORD. He rose early in the morning, and built an altar at the foot of the mountain, and set up twelve pillars, corresponding to the twelve tribes of Israel. 5 He sent young men of the people of Israel, who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed oxen as offerings of well-being to the LORD. 6 Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he dashed against the altar. 7 Then he took the book of the covenant, and read it in the hearing of the people; and they said, “All that the LORD has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.” 8 Moses took the blood and dashed it on the people, and said, “See the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words.”

Moses has taken the words of the LORD and the ordinances, presumably the content of the previous four chapters, and returned to the people to communicate and teach them these commandments and laws. The people again answer that “All the words the LORD has spoken we will do.” But now there is a liturgical sealing of the acceptance of the words of God. The covenant is cut, to use the Hebrew phrasing, and these pacts or covenants were often sealed by sacrifice or blood of some type. Genesis 15 is an example of this type of ceremony where God makes a covenant with Abraham and both pass through the pieces of the sacrificed animals, passing through the blood and in effect saying that faithfulness to the covenant is a deadly serious business. Here the blood of the oxen is sprinkled on the people and dashed against the altar binding both parties.

The place of sacrifice is very simple with an altar and twelve pillars. The pillars here correspond to the people rather than some representation of God, the prohibition against forming images of God holds here, although in later times these places with pillars will come to represent the idolatry of the people. Here an altar or earth or uncut stones (see Exodus 20: 22-26) along with the pillars at the base of the Mount Sinai becomes the only things necessary on this holy place. The mountain itself is a holy space, a place where God has come down to dwell among the people. Much of the rest of the book of Exodus will be concerned with the construction of a mobile place that God can come down to dwell with the people, but here, like when God speaks to Moses in chapter three, the people are on holy ground.

The blood of the covenant seals the relationship between the people and their God. They have now received some initial guidance from God on the type of community they are to construct and how they are to live into their identity as a ‘treasured possession, a priestly kingdom and a holy nation.’ (see Exodus 19: 5-6) They are now marked and set aside for their calling. Within Christianity this type of liturgical language of covenant sealing gets echoes both in relation to baptism and in communion. The wine in communion is the ‘blood of the new covenant’ and baptism is a point where the individual is ‘baptized into the death of Christ’ so that they might be dead to sin and alive to Christ.

Jean-Leon Gerome, Moses on Mount Sinai (1895-1900)

Exodus 24: 9-18 Meeting with the LORD on the Mountain

 9 Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up, 10 and they saw the God of Israel. Under his feet there was something like a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness. 11 God1 did not lay his hand on the chief men of the people of Israel; also they beheld God, and they ate and drank.

 12 The LORD said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain, and wait there; and I will give you the tablets of stone, with the law and the commandment, which I have written for their instruction.” 13 So Moses set out with his assistant Joshua, and Moses went up into the mountain of God. 14 To the elders he had said, “Wait here for us, until we come to you again; for Aaron and Hur are with you; whoever has a dispute may go to them.”

 15 Then Moses went up on the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain. 16 The glory of the LORD settled on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days; on the seventh day he called to Moses out of the cloud. 17 Now the appearance of the glory of the LORD was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel. 18 Moses entered the cloud, and went up on the mountain. Moses was on the mountain for forty days and forty nights.

We are given multiple views of the theophany on Mount Sinai. There is the perspective of the majority of the people at the base of the mountain which is described in a way that the closest analogy would be a volcano. To the people on the ground the approach of God is terrifying and dangerous, a devouring fire on the top of the mountain. For the seventy elders and the three priests there is the appearance of a dwelling place of God, beautiful in its description and an appearance of God that is only modestly described. There is a physical manifestation of the LORD, whose feet rest upon a pavement of sapphire stones of great clarity and the LORD is described anthropomorphically (using human features even when done metaphorically like when it states God did not lay his hands on the chief men). Yet, unlike in Isaiah 6 or Ezekiel 1 (and even these theophanies are very reticent to discuss the actual appearance of the LORD) there is no description of the LORD. Unlike other religions where there are vivid representations of the gods and goddesses, Judaism’s aniconic relationship with their God also extends to descriptions of God’s appearance with words. Yet, within the book of Exodus, there are multiple times where there is a tangible presence of God, even if it is not something to be described or even fully seen (as in Exodus 33). Finally, there is the experience of Moses who will spend extended periods of time in God’s presence.

The scene also sets the stage for the drama that will come in Exodus 32. Moses departs up the mountain for forty days and forty nights in the cloud with the LORD. The people remain at the base of the mountain waiting on Moses and Aaron and Hur are left to hear the disputes of the people. The next several chapters will have God describe to Moses the vision for the tabernacle where God can come down to dwell with the people. Yet, during this absence the people will come to Aaron and move away from God’s command not to create an image of God by creating the golden calf which they will worship. Yet, for a time we get to ascend with Moses into the cloud and see the vision of the tabernacle and enter into this time away from the people and with God.