“He was transfigured before them,” the scripture says (Mark 9:2; Matt. 17:2). The Greek word is not fancy: metemorphothe, from which we get the word metamorphosis. It means “changed”: The caterpillar is changed into a butterfly. It is a metamorphosis.
This is what seems to happen to Jesus. The caterpillar Messiah—who was poor and persecuted, who once said of himself, “the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head” (Luke 9:58), of whom Christians (borrowing from Isa. 53:2) said, “he had no form or majesty that we should look at him”—that one is suddenly changed from caterpillar to butterfly. Suddenly he is beautiful, shining like the sun.
This is no parable of seeds, no prophet on a donkey. This is Epiphany’s aurora borealis. God takes to the mountain, as God will do, and there he stands with the great lawgiver Moses and the great prophet Elijah, like stars on God’s walk of fame.
