This coming Sunday is the 2nd Sunday in Lent. In yesterday’s post we described the theophany and offered some comments on the OT imagery contained in the theophany. But, what purposes did this theophany serve? There are a number of possibilities. Brian Stoffregen has compiled a good list of things to consider.

1. to see the Kingdom of God coming in power. One purpose is that it may be the event referred to in 9:1: ““Amen, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the kingdom of God has come in power.” These three disciples have seen the kingdom of God in all its power with the transfiguration of Jesus. Going back another verse: Jesus said: “Whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this faithless and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.” (8:38). Do these words also point to the transfiguration? Do all three of these references: coming in glory, coming in power, the transfiguration; preview the parousia rather than the resurrection? I think that the transfiguration indicates that Jesus is the one who contains his Father’s glory and the Kingdom’s power. While that was experienced in part in the past and in the present, we are waiting for it to come in its fullness.
2. connects (and contrasts) Jesus with the Law and prophets. Another purpose is to indicate that Jesus fulfills the words of the Law and prophets, represented by Moses and Elijah on the mountain. How the disciples knew it was Moses and Elijah is not a question our text answers. We are told that they are speaking with Jesus, but we aren’t told what they are talking about. In addition, there were traditions about both that they had never died — Elijah was taken up to heaven in a whirlwind, (2 Kings 2:1-11) and the fact that Moses’ burial place was unknown (Deuteronomy 34:5-8) led to the idea that he had been taken up by God. Origin (c.185-c.254) writes that the dispute between the archangel Michael and the devil over Moses’ body in Jude 9 comes from a little treatise entitled: “The Ascension of Moses.” So there was a tradition that Moses had not died. This event may also distinguish Jesus from “the prophets.” The disciples had said that people think that Jesus might be one of the prophets (8:28). At the end of transfiguration, there is only Jesus. The “Law and prophets” have faded away. The one remaining is Jesus.
3. points to Jesus as the one whom the prophets anticipate. In contrast to the “law and prophets” interpretation above, others hold that it is more probable that Moses and Elijah appear in the transfiguration narrative as representatives of the prophetic tradition that, according to the belief of the early church, would anticipate Jesus. “All the prophets testify to [Jesus] (Acts 10:43). It is probably too specific to maintain that Moses stands for the law and Elijah for the prophets, because each figure was associated with both the law and prophets. According to Deut 18:15, 18, a passage that is recalled in v. 7, Moses is considered the prototype of the eschatological Prophet, and Moses is frequently regarded as the representative figure of the prophetic tradition in Judaism. Likewise, Elijah was associated with Mt Sinai (1 Kgs 19:1-9), where he also received the word of God, though in a different fashion from Moses. In Mal 4:4-6, Israel is commanded to remember the “instruction” (Heb. torah) of God’s servant Moses. Immediately following, Elijah is introduced as the prophet who turns the hearts of people to repentance on the Day of Yahweh. The appearance of Moses and Elijah in the transfiguration narrative likely recalls this passage and their prophetic roles as joint preparers of the final Prophet to come (so Deut 18:15, 18; Mal 4:5-6). Their joint preparation for Jesus is further signified by Marks’ description of them “talking with Jesus”; that is, they hold an audience with Jesus as a superior.

….more tomorrow…

Image credit: Detail of “The Transfiguration of Jesus” by Raphael (1516-1520) | Vatican Museum | PD-US