Ex.24:12,15-18, Ps.99
2 Peter 1:16-21 Matt. 17:1-9
Lectionary Link
How are human values set and established? How do we know what is best?
The writings of the New Testament are in short, writings about how Jesus Christ is the best exemplar for enlightened humanity. Jesus Christ is at the mountain top of human values.
The New Testament writers wrote in many discursive styles to proclaim the value of Christ. In the collection of writings there are stories of Jesus which were circulated to tell the value of Jesus Christ.
The irony of the New Testament is that they are writings which did not come about until more than two decades after Jesus lived, and the first Gospel was not written until after thirty five years after Jesus was gone.
What does this indicate? It indicates that Jesus became better known as the Risen Christ than as the historical Jesus.
The writers needed to connect the fame of the Risen Christ within spreading communities with the actual person of Jesus. So we have the Gospels written later in the Greek of educated people who lived in the cities of the Roman Empire.
The writers were those who had inherited stories and writings and word of mouth sermons about the person of Jesus.
They wanted to inspire because they had been inspired by their mystical experiences of the Risen Christ. But their mystical experience had to be connected with the historical person of Jesus and they did this through the Gospel genre.
They used writings styles and rhetorical techniques derived from the story traditions found in the Torah and the other writings of the Hebrew Scriptures, as well as the models used in the Roman Empire settings for valorizing the emperors.
If something marvelous happens, and if great person arises to be known because of unique wisdom, wonderful deeds, and charismatic winsomeness of people, a new standard becomes set for human living.
Values are set by the standard of the very best exemplar? But how does one speak about a new very best exemplar?
The new standard, the new best person's story is told in comparison and in light of great people of the past. In the time of Jesus for the Jewish people, Moses, David, and Elijah were perhaps the reigning heroes of greatness.
If the story of Jesus as the newest greatest one, was to be told, his story was told with reference to the great ones in the lore of the people.
The story of the Mount of the Transfiguration is story told to present Jesus as the successor in the train of Moses and Elijah. These two figures summed up two sections of the Hebrew Scriptures, the Law and the Prophets. Moses and Elijah were mountain men, they were water men, they were fire and light men, and they were voice of God men.
The Gospel writers, who believed that Jesus was the successor of Moses and Elijah presented a visionary event wherein Moses and Elijah were conversing with Jesus. Moses and Elijah were approving of Jesus and were passing the mission of salvation history onto Jesus as God's chosen and unique Child.
Moses went to the top of Mount Sinai to receive the law from God in clouds, dazzling fire and light and on top of a mountain to signify spatially, closeness to heaven. From his encounter with God, Moses' face shone so much that he had to cover his face among the people. Moses had heard the voice of God on many occasions. He had a way with water in the provision of water from the rock and in the crossing of the Red Sea.
Elijah went to mountains. He called down fire from heaven on Mount Carmel. He parted the waters of the Jordan. He heard the still voice of God in the mountain cave.
The Gospel writers, more than thirty five years after Jesus were telling the story of Jesus across the stories of Moses and Elijah.
Their message was this: In Jesus, a new human superlative had become evident and the proof was in the aftermath of the life of Jesus in the successive manifestations of experiences of the Risen Christ.
The experiences of the Risen Christ had become a social movement phenomenon, and the Gospel story of the transfiguration connects these experiences with the person of Jesus who was the logical successor of Moses and Elijah in the understanding of the Gospel writers.
We are invited today to connect our experiences of the Risen Christ with what is happening in human history. We do this by modeling our lives after Jesus as our Exemplar of superlative human values. We do this by living lives of love, justice, kindness, and care. From the mountain tops of our mystical experience, we must descend in transfiguring ways to change human history toward the values of love and justice.
In this way, we can honor the power and grace of the transfigured Jesus, who wants to transfigure us and the world through the love of God. Amen.
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