This coming Sunday in Lent offers Luke’s version of the Transfiguration. It is an event also described in Mt 17:1-9 and Mk 9:2-10 – readings that are traditionally proclaimed on the 2^nd Sunday of Lent in their own respective liturgical years as well as on the Feast of the Transfiguration each August 6^th.  The Lenten use of the reading, following the story of Jesus being tempted in the desert by the devil, breaks up the flow of Luke narrative at the beginning of Ordinary Time. Depending on the start of the Lenten Season the Sunday prior to Ash Wednesday includes at least the content of Chapter 5 (or as much as Chapter 6). A summary of the narrative leading up to our gospel pericope can fill in the gap.

Luke 4:14-9:50 is generally described as the Galilean Ministry with large sections further labelled:

• Preaching in Nazareth (4:16-30; 3^rd and 4^th Sundays)
• Teaching and healing in Capernaum
• Calling and Forming the Disciples (5:1-6:16; 5:1-11 is the 5^th Sunday. This longer section includes cleansing a leper, healing the paralyzed, debates with scribes and Pharisees, calling of Levi)
• Sermon on the Plain (6:17-49;  Lucan version of the Sermon on the Mount appears in the 6^th-8^th Sundays)
• Miracles and healing – One greater than the prophets (7:1-50)
• Parable of the Sower and the Seed / Gerasene demoniac / Jairus’ daughter (8:1-46)

Closer to our reading in Luke 9 we encounter

• Jesus’ commission of the Twelve for mission (vv.1-6)
• Herod’s questions about Jesus’ identity (vv.7-9)
• The feeding of the 5,000 (vv.10-17)
• Peter’s Confession of Jesus’ identity as the Messiah (vv.18-21)
• Jesus’ first prediction of his passion, death, and resurrection (vv.22-27)
• The Transfiguration (vv.28-36) – our Sunday gospel

Luke 9:50 is considered the end of the Galilean ministry. In v.51 Jesus turns towards Jerusalem.

One lens with which to view Chapter 9 is the quest to identify Jesus. The chapter begins with Jesus giving the twelve powers and authority over all demons and diseases and sending them out to preach the kingdom of God and to heal. They go about curing diseases everywhere. Their experience of that power and authority should give them insight into Jesus’ identity. In contrast to their power and success, Herod is perplexed about Jesus and wants to see him.

When the twelve return from mission they arrive at a scene where a multitude has gathered around Jesus. As Stoffergen writes: “It is getting late. The disciples tell Jesus to send the crowd away so that they might find food and lodging. Jesus tells these men, ‘You give them something to eat.’ The twelve wonder, ‘Who, us? How can we feed all these people?’ Their mighty bubble burst. They have just come back from their glorious missionary journey. They had been performing miracles right and left. They had been preaching God’s message. All the glory of the past is wiped out with one question, ‘You give them something to eat’ (vv. 12-17). They have gone from being powerful to being powerless.”

The crowd is like Herod – not quite sure what to think about Jesus. But Peter steps forward and answers the identity question: “The Messiah of God.” (v.2). It is then that Jesus predicts his passion, death and resurrection, showing what it means to be Messiah in this world – whereupon Jesus shows the disciples what it means to be the Son of God in his glory: the Transfiguration.

The location of the mountain is not given anywhere in the Gospels. Some have thought that it was a part of Mt. Hermon, near Caesarea Philippi, since the transfiguration occurs shortly after Peter’s confession there in Mark. On the other hand, since the time of Origen, the mountain has been identified as Mt. Tabor, near Nazareth, but the significance of the location may actually lie more in its parallel with the experience of Moses and Elijah on Mt. Sinai and Mt. Horeb.

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