Sunday, February 24, 2013: Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18; Philippians 3:17-4:1; Luke 9:28-36
Today we have a theophany of light in which the Lord reveals what he is going to do and indicates that equality with God is not a thing to be grasped. This is in contrast with the theophany of darkness in the Garden of Gethsemane, where he shows himself as one humbling himself even unto death, and where he reveals his name so that those who’ve come to take him fall down before that name (John 18:6, ESV).
It took the priests in 2 Chronicles 29 eight days to cleanse their way through the temple to the portico of the Lord so that here, after eight days, the Lord could show himself. The Maccabees celebrated the dedication of the altar for eight days, and eight days was the appropriate time to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles, as Peter seems to have remembered in Luke. Much is being enacted here on the mountain.
In front of his three witnesses, Jesus’ face changes. The form of his face, Luke says, is a conscious allusion to the panim or “faces” of the Lord. This is not a passively radiant face, like Moses’ face as he came down from Sinai. This is the face of the One in whose presence Moses glowed. And Jesus’ clothes become white “like lightning”—the same word that described the appearance of the Son of Man in the throne visions of Ezekiel and Daniel. It is most certainly YHWH who is here.
