[Propertalk] Preaching Resource from GoodPreacher.com - Matthew 17:1-9

[Joe Parrish]

Free Resource from GoodPreacher.com






Understanding Matthew 17:1-9 
Matthew's gospel bears the structure of a shattered Pentateuch. It is composed of five books, each consisting of narrative and discourse, and each ending with a similar transition formula, "When Jesus completed these words, he went.."1 The fifth and last book is contained in 19:2 through 25:46, but the Gospel does not end here. The remaining chapters 26-28, which narrate the death and resurrection of Jesus, shatter the five-book design. 

The story of Jesus' transfiguration is found towards the end of the narrative of Book IV. It not only climaxes Jesus' ministry in Galilee and especially his training of his disciples for future ministry; it offers the reader a glimpse of the final outcome of Jesus' career and by inference the identical glory that awaits his disciples. The incident is introduced by a significant time reference, "And after six days.." Jesus' transfiguration will occur on the seventh day of the week, the Sabbath. It is a symbolic representation not only of his own consummation but of the culminating Sabbath of history, that time in the future when Jesus, as the founder of a New Humanity-that is the meaning of the christological designation, "the Son of Man," which Matthew employs often-will be transfigured with all the members of his New Israel. 
Jesus leads Peter, James and John "into a high mountain, by themselves." These three disciples did not form an inner circle among the larger group of twelve male disciples who in the gospel tradition represented the patriarchs of the New Israel. 

Historically speaking, they are present because this unit of tradition probably originated in the early Jerusalem church when they, according to Galatians 2:9, constituted the leadership of the Mother Church. Once again a mountain is the site of this incident. It is another architectonic center or navel of the earth. But here the mountain is not preceded by a definite article. Within the narrative world of Matthew's gospel it poses a contrast to "a very high mountain" of the wilderness of Judea (4:8) on which Jesus was tempted to worship Satan in order to receive "all the kingdoms of the world." The kingdoms of the world, however, will enter into a new moral order of justice and peace, not by worshipping Satan, but by following Jesus into the reign of God that his death and resurrection constitute. The transfiguration "on a high mountain" in Galilee adumbrates Jesus' apotheosis by his resurrection from the dead and with it the reign of God that he will receive as a result of his co-enthronement with God, according to his testimony at his trial before the Sanhedrin (26:64). 

In place of Mark's description of Jesus' metamorphosis, "And his garments became very shining white such as a bleacher on earth is unable to whiten," Matthew has substituted the language of an apocalyptic theophany, "His face shone as the sun and his garments became as white as the light." In this transformation Jesus is being disclosed to his disciples as the Son of God! Moses and Elijah, the Old Testament representatives of the Law and the Prophets, both of whom are associated with the Old Testament architectonic center of Mount Sinai, suddenly appear and Jesus begins to give them an audience, "They were seen speaking with him." The content of their dialogue is not revealed, but the sight of the three engaged in discourse evokes from Peter the christological identification of Jesus as the last prophet of history. He must be ranked with Moses and Elijah. He is the prophet Moses predicted in Deuteronomy 18:15; he must be the final prophet of the old moral order. In contrast to Mark's version of this incident, Peter expresses his willingness to construct three tabernacles, but only "if you wish." Matthew has deleted Mark's comment on Peter's ignorance and fear. His proposal, however, is embarrassingly interrupted by the heavenly voice speaking out of the cloud, "This is my beloved Son in whom I began to take pleasure. Keep on listening to him!" The significance of Jesus' metamorphosis is validated by God. Jesus is more than a new Moses! He is more than the final prophet of the old moral order! As God's Son he is superior to both representatives of the Old Testament. He is God's agent and surrogate who inaugurates the reign of God! In a reaction typical of theophanies the disciples fall on their faces in great fear. Jesus reaches out to them with a calming and reassuring touch, bidding them to "Be raised up and stop being afraid!" The first of his two imperatives employs the resurrection verb, egeirô, and could also be rendered as "Be resurrected." In the light of their experience on this very high mountain the disciples are to begin to participate in the destiny which this transfiguration foreshadows. By following Jesus into death and resurrection and engaging in the work that he has inaugurated, namely the reign of God, they will eventually have a share in the reality of his apotheosis that this metamorphosis anticipates. As Jesus states at the end of his interpretation of his parable of the wheat and the darnels in 13:43, "Then the righteous will shine as the sun in the reign of their Father." 

The epiphany of the transfiguration, as Jesus instructs his disciples, is not to be communicated to anyone until after the "Son of Man" has been resurrected from the dead. That is the time when the "Son of Man," or the New Human Being, will come into his reign, but a reign that he will share with his disciples. Jesus' transfiguration is an eschatological anticipation of the new creation that he will inaugurate after his death and its attendant dissolution of the old creation and its history. Matthew 27:52-53 bears witness to this cataclysmic event, "And the earth was shaken and the rocks were split apart." At the death of Jesus the old creation collapses into primordial chaos in fulfillment of apocalyptic prophecy. A new creation is constituted as the Old Testament saints are resurrected: "The tombs were opened and many bodies of the holy ones being asleep were resurrected (egeirô)." The long awaited new creation dawns but is not established until Jesus leads these resurrected saints out of their tombs on Easter morning (27:53). At the Great Commissioning of 28:16-20, Jesus joins the eleven disciples who have encountered him on the mountain in Galilee, and by attaching himself to them as they go forth to fulfill his final command, he becomes the twelfth and thereby establishes a New Israel. He not only shares with them "All authority in heaven and on earth," but he incorporates them into his divine I AM. As the Greek word order of 28:20 reads, "See, I with you AM even to the consummation of the age." 

Herman C. Waetjen 

1. See 7:28-29, 11:1, 13:53, 19:1 and 26:1. The last of these transition formulas contains the added word, "all," indicating that the end of Jesus' teaching, and indeed the five books of narrative and discourse, have been concluded. 

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