Jesus of Nazareth

CHAPTER NINE

Two Milestones on Jesus’ Way: Peter’s Confession and the Transfiguration

PETER’S CONFESSION

All three Synoptic Gospels present Jesus’ question to the disciples about who the people think he is and who they themselves consider him to be (Mk 8:27–30; Mt 16:13–20; Lk 9:18–21) as an important milestone on his way. In all three Gospels, Peter answers in the name of the Twelve with a confession that is markedly different from the opinion of the “people.” In all three Gospels, Jesus then foretells his Passion and Resurrection, and continues this announcement of his own destiny with a teaching about the way of discipleship, the way to follow him, the Crucified. In all three Gospels, however, he also interprets this “following” on the way of the Cross from an essentially anthropological standpoint: It is the indispensable way for man to “lose his life,” without which it is impossible for him to find it (Mk 8:31–9:1; Mt 16:21–28; Lk 9:22–27). And finally, in all three Gospels there follows the account of the Transfiguration of Jesus, which once again interprets Peter’s confession and takes it deeper, while at the same time connecting it with the mystery of Jesus’ death and Resurrection (Mk 9:2–13; Mt 17:1–13; Lk 9:28–36).

Only Matthew immediately follows Peter’s confession with the bestowal upon Peter of the power of the keys—of the power to bind and loose—and this is connected with Jesus’ promise to build his Church upon Peter as on a rock. Parallel passages concerning this commission and this promise are found in Luke 22:31f. in the context of the Last Supper and in John 21:15–19 after Jesus’ Resurrection.

It should be pointed out that John, too, places a similar confession on Peter’s lips, which once again is presented as a decisive milestone on Jesus’ way, giving the circle of the Twelve its full weight and profile for the first time (Jn 6:68f.). As we study Peter’s confession in the Synoptics, we will also need to take this text into account, since, despite all the differences, it does reveal some basic elements in common with the Synoptic tradition.

These somewhat schematic observations should have made it clear that Peter’s confession can be properly understood only in the context of Jesus’ prophecy of the Passion and his words about the way of discipleship. These three elements—Peter’s words and Jesus’ twofold answer—belong inseparably together. Equally indispensable for understanding Peter’s confession is the attestation of Jesus in the Transfiguration scene by the Father himself and by the Law and the Prophets. In Mark’s Gospel, the story of the Transfiguration is preceded by what seems to be a promise of the Parousia. On one hand, this promise is connected with what Jesus says about the way of discipleship. At the same time, however, it leads to Jesus’ Transfiguration, and as such, it interprets in its own way both discipleship and the promise of the Parousia. According to Mark and Luke, Jesus’ words about discipleship are addressed to all—in contrast to the prediction of the Passion, which is communicated only to the witnesses. They thus bring an ecclesiological note into the whole context; they open up the horizon of the whole situation, so that we see beyond the journey to Jerusalem that Jesus has just begun, toward all God’s people (cf. Lk 9:23). Indeed, these words about following the Crucified One address fundamental issues of human existence as such.

John has placed them in the context of Palm Sunday and he links them with the question the Greeks ask about Jesus, thus emphasizing the universal character of these sayings. Here too they are associated with Jesus’ destiny on the Cross, which is thus presented as something intrinsically necessary and free from all contingency (cf. Jn 12:24f.). The saying about the death of the grain of wheat, moreover, connects Jesus’ statement about losing one’s life in order to find it with the mystery of the Eucharist, which in turn had provided the context for Peter’s confession—placed by John at the end of the story of the multiplication of the loaves and Jesus’ interpretation of it in his eucharistic discourse.

Let us turn our attention now to the individual components of this great tapestry woven of event and word. Matthew and Mark identify the theater of the event as the region of Caesarea Philippi (present-day Banias), a sanctuary of Pan established by Herod the Great that was located at the source of the Jordan. Herod subsequently made this place the capital of his dominion and named it after Caesar Augustus and himself.

Tradition has located the scene at a place where a wall of rock overhangs the waters of the Jordan and thus powerfully illustrates Jesus’ words about Peter as the rock. Mark and Luke, each in his own way, introduce us into what might be called the interior location of the event. Mark says that Jesus asked his question “on the way”; it is clear that the way Mark is speaking of is the one leading to Jerusalem. To be on the way among “the villages of Caesarea Philippi” (Mk 8:27) means to be starting the ascent to Jerusalem—to the center of salvation history, to the place where Jesus’ destiny would be fulfilled in the Cross and the Resurrection, but also where the Church had its origin after these events. Peter’s confession and hence the words of Jesus that follow it are located at the beginning of this way.

The great period of preaching in Galilee is at an end and we are at a decisive milestone: Jesus is setting out on the journey to the Cross and issuing a call to decision that now clearly distinguishes the group of disciples from the people who merely listen, without accompanying him on his way—a decision that clearly shapes the disciples into the beginning of Jesus’ new family, the future Church. It is characteristic of this community to be “on the way” with Jesus—what that way involves is about to be made clear. It is also characteristic that this community’s decision to accompany Jesus rests upon a realization—on a “knowledge” of Jesus that at the same time gives them a new insight into God, the one God in whom they believe as children of Israel.

In Luke—and this is entirely in keeping with his portrait of the figure of Jesus—Peter’s confession is connected with a prayer event. Luke begins his account of the story with a deliberate paradox: “As he was praying alone, the disciples were with him” (Lk 9:18). The disciples are drawn into his solitude, his communion with the Father that is reserved to him alone. They are privileged to see him as the one who—as we reflected at the beginning of this book—speaks face-to-face with the Father, person to person. They are privileged to see him in his utterly unique filial being—at the point from which all his words, his deeds, and his powers issue. They are privileged to see what the “people” do not see, and this seeing gives rise to a recognition that goes beyond the “opinion” of the people. This seeing is the wellspring of their faith, their confession; it provides the foundation for the Church.

Here we may identify the interior location of Jesus’ twofold question. His inquiry about the opinion of the people and the conviction of the disciples presupposes two things. On one hand, there is an external knowledge of Jesus that, while not necessarily false, is inadequate. On the other hand, there is a deeper knowledge that is linked to discipleship, to participation in Jesus’ way, and such knowledge can grow only in that context. All three Synoptics agree in recounting the opinion of the people that Jesus is John the Baptist, or Elijah, or some other of the Prophets returned from the dead; Luke has just told us that Herod, having heard about such accounts of Jesus’ person and activity, felt a wish to see him. Matthew adds an additional variation: the opinion of some that Jesus is Jeremiah.

The common element in all these ideas is that Jesus is classified in the category “prophet,” an interpretative key drawn from the tradition of Israel. All the names that are mentioned as interpretations of the figure of Jesus have an eschatological ring to them, the expectation of a radical turn of events that can be associated both with hope and with fear. While Elijah personifies hope for the restoration of Israel, Jeremiah is a figure of the Passion, who proclaims the failure of the current form of the Covenant and of the Temple that, so to speak, serves as its guarantee. Of course, he is also the bearer of the promise of a New Covenant that is destined to rise from the ashes. By his suffering, by his immersion in the darkness of contradiction, Jeremiah bears this twofold destiny of downfall and renewal in his own life.

These various opinions are not simply mistaken; they are greater or lesser approximations to the mystery of Jesus, and they can certainly set us on the path toward Jesus’ real identity. But they do not arrive at Jesus’ identity, at his newness. They interpret him in terms of the past, in terms of the predictable and the possible, not in terms of himself, his uniqueness, which cannot be assigned to any other category. Today, too, similar opinions are clearly held by the “people” who have somehow or other come to know Christ, who have perhaps even made a scholarly study of him, but have not encountered Jesus himself in his utter uniqueness and otherness. Karl Jaspers spoke of Jesus alongside Socrates, the Buddha, and Confucius as one of the four paradigmatic individuals. He thus acknowledged that Jesus is of fundamental significance in the search for the right way to be human. Yet for all that, Jesus remains one among others grouped within a common category, in terms of which they can be explained and also delimited.

Today it is fashionable to regard Jesus as one of the great religious founders who were granted a profound experience of God. They can thus speak of God to other people who have been denied this “religious disposition,” as it were, drawing them into their own experience of God. However, we are still dealing here with a human experience of God that reflects his infinite reality in the finitude and limitation of a human spirit: It can therefore never amount to more than a partial, not to mention time-and space-bound, translation of the divine. The word experience thus indicates on one hand a real contact with the divine, while also acknowledging the limitation of the receiving subject. Every human subject can capture only a particular fragment of the reality that is there to be perceived, and this fragment then requires further interpretation. Someone who holds this opinion can certainly love Jesus; he can even choose him as a guide for his own life. Ultimately, though, this notion of Jesus’ “experience of God” remains purely relative and needs to be supplemented by the fragments of reality perceived by other great men. It is man, the individual subject, who ends up being himself the measure: The individual decides what he is going to accept from the various “experiences,” what he finds helpful and what he finds alien. There is no definitive commitment here.

Standing in marked contrast to the opinion of the people is the “recognition” of the disciples, which expresses itself in acknowledgment, in confession. How is this confession worded? Each of the three Synoptics formulates it differently, and John’s formula is different again. According to Mark, Peter simply says to Jesus: “You are the Messiah [the Christ]” (Mk 8:29). According to Luke, Peter calls him “the Christ [the anointed one] of God” (Lk 9:20), and according to Matthew he says: “You are the Christ [the Messiah], the Son of the living God” (Mt 16:16). In John’s Gospel, finally, Peter’s confession is as follows: “You are the Holy One of God” (Jn 6:69).

One could be tempted to construct a history of the evolution of the Christian confession from these various versions. There is no doubt that the diversity of the texts does reflect a process of development through which something at first only tentatively grasped gradually emerges into full clarity. Among recent Catholic exegetes, Pierre Grelot has offered the most radical interpretation of the contrasts between the texts: What he sees is not evolution, but contradiction (Les Paroles de Jésus Christ). According to Grelot, Peter’s simple confession of Jesus’ Messiahship as transmitted by Mark is doubtless an accurate record of the historical moment; for, he continues, we are still dealing here with a purely “Jewish” confession that saw Jesus as a political Messiah in accordance with the ideas of the time. Only the Markan account, he argues, is logically consistent, because only a political messianism would explain Peter’s protest against the prophecy of the Passion, a protest that Jesus sharply rejects, as once he rejected Satan’s offer of lordship over the world: “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not on the side of God, but of men” (Mk 8:33). This brusque rebuff, says Grelot, makes sense only if it applies also to the confession that went before, and declares this too to be false. Placed after the theologically mature version of the confession in Matthew’s Gospel, the rebuff no longer makes sense.

The conclusion that Grelot draws from this is one that he shares with those exegetes who disagree with his rather negative interpretation of the Markan text: namely, that Matthew’s version of the confession represents a post-Resurrection saying, since, in the view of the great majority of commentators, it was only after the Resurrection that such a confession could be formulated. Grelot goes on to connect this with his special theory of an appearance of the Risen Lord to Peter, which he places alongside the encounter with the Lord that Paul regarded as the foundation of his own apostolate. Jesus’ words to Peter, Blessed are you, Simon Bar Jona, “for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven” (Mt 16:17), have a remarkable parallel in the Letter to the Galatians: “But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and had called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not confer with flesh and blood” (Gal 1:15f.; cf. 1:11f.: “The gospel which was preached by me is not man’s gospel. For I did not receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through a revelation of Jesus Christ”). Common to both the Pauline text and to Jesus’ commendation of Peter are the reference to Revelation and the declaration that this knowledge does not derive “from flesh and blood.”

Grelot now concludes from all this that Peter, like Paul, was honored with a special appearance of the risen Christ (to which several New Testament texts do in fact refer) and that, just like Paul, who was also granted such an appearance, he received his specific commission on that occasion. Peter’s mission was to the Church of the Jews, while Paul’s was to the Church of the Gentiles (Gal 2:7). The promise to Peter, Grelot maintains, properly belongs to the risen Christ’s appearance to him, and its content has to be seen as a strict parallel to the commission that Paul received from the exalted Lord. There is no need to enter here into a detailed discussion of this theory, especially since this book, being a book about Jesus, is primarily concerned with the Lord himself, and deals with the topic of the Church only insofar as it is necessary for a correct understanding of the figure of Jesus.

Anyone who reads Galatians 1:11–17 attentively can easily recognize not only the parallels but also the differences between the two texts. Paul clearly intends in this passage to emphasize the independence of his apostolic commission, which is not derived from the authority of others, but is granted by the Lord himself; what is at stake here for him is precisely the universality of his mission and the specificity of his path as one engaged in building up the Church of the Gentiles. But Paul also knows that if his ministry is to be valid, he needs communio (koinonia) with the original Apostles (cf. Gal 2:9), and that without this communio he would be running in vain (cf. Gal 2:2). For this reason, after three years in Arabia and Damascus following his conversion, he went up to Jerusalem in order to see Peter (Cephas); thereafter he also met James, the brother of the Lord (cf. 1:18f.). For the same reason, fourteen years later, this time together with Barnabas and Titus, he traveled to Jerusalem and received the sign of communio from the “pillars,” James, Cephas, and John, who extended to him the right hand of fellowship (cf. Gal 2:9). First Peter, and then later the three pillars, are thus presented as the guarantors of communio, as its indispensable reference points, who vouch for the correctness and unity of the Gospel and so of the nascent Church.

But this also brings to light the indisputable significance of the historical Jesus, of his preaching and of his decisions. The Risen Lord called Paul and gave him his own authority and his own commission, but the same Lord had previously chosen the Twelve, had entrusted Peter with a special commission, had gone with them to Jerusalem, had suffered there on the Cross, and had risen on the third day. The first Apostles guarantee this continuity (Acts 1:21f.), and this continuity explains why the commission given to Peter is actually fundamentally different from the commission given to Paul.

The special commission of Peter figures not only in Matthew, but in different forms (though always with the same substance) in Luke and John and even in Paul. In his passionate apologia in the Letter to the Galatians, Paul very clearly presupposes Peter’s special commission; this primacy is in fact attested by the whole spectrum of the tradition in all of its diverse strands. To trace it back purely to a personal Easter appearance, and thus to place it in an exact parallel to Paul’s mission, is simply not justified by the New Testament data.

But it is now time to return to Peter’s confession of Christ and so to our actual topic. We saw that Grelot presents the confession of Peter transmitted in Mark as completely “Jewish,” and hence bound to be repudiated by Jesus. There is, however, no such repudiation in the text, in which Jesus merely forbids the disciples to speak openly of this confession, given that it would undoubtedly have been misinterpreted in the public climate of Israel and would necessarily have led on one hand to false hopes in him and on the other hand to political action against him. Only after this prohibition does the explanation of what “Messiah” really means then follow: The true Messiah is the “Son of Man,” who is condemned to death as the precondition for his entrance into glory as the one who rose from death after three days.

Scholars speak of two types of confessional formula in relation to early Christianity, the “substantive” and the “verbal”; perhaps it would be clearer to speak of an “ontological” and a “salvation history” type of confession. All three forms of Peter’s confession transmitted to us by the Synoptics are “substantive”—you are the Christ, the Christ of God, the Christ, the Son of the living God. The Lord always sets a “verbal” confession alongside these substantive statements: the prophetic announcement of the Paschal Mystery of Cross and Resurrection. The two types of confession belong together, and each one is incomplete and ultimately unintelligible without the other. Without the concrete history of salvation, Christ’s titles remain ambiguous: not only the word “Messiah,” but also “Son of the living God.” For this title is equally capable of being understood in a sense that is opposed to the mystery of the Cross.

Conversely, the bald “salvation history” statement remains without its full depth unless it is made clear that he who suffered here is the Son of the living God, who is equal to God (cf. Phil 2:6), but emptied himself and became like a slave, abasing himself to death, even death on the Cross (cf. Phil 2:7f.). It is therefore only the combination of Peter’s confession and Jesus’ teaching of the disciples that furnishes us with the full, essential Christian faith. By the same token, the great creedal statements of the Church always linked the two dimensions together.

Yet we know that through all the centuries, right up to the present, Christians—while in possession of the right confession—need the Lord to teach every generation anew that his way is not the way of earthly power and glory, but the way of the Cross. We know and we see that even today Christians—ourselves included—take the Lord aside in order to say to him: “God forbid it, Lord! This shall never happen to you!” (Mt 16:22). And because we doubt that God really will forbid it, we ourselves try to prevent it by every means in our power. And so the Lord must constantly say to us, too: “Get behind me, Satan!” (Mk 8:33). The whole scene thus remains uncomfortably relevant to the present, because in the end we do in fact constantly think in terms of “flesh and blood,” and not in terms of the Revelation that we are privileged to receive in faith.

We must return once more to the titles of Christ used in the confessions. The first important point is that the respective form of the title must be read within the total context of the individual Gospels and the specific form in which they have been handed down. In this regard, there is always an important connection with the trial of Jesus, in which the confession of the disciples reappears in the form of question and accusation. In Mark, the high priest’s question takes up the title Christ (Messiah) and extends it: “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed?” (Mk 14:61). This question implies that such interpretations of the figure of Jesus had found their way from the circle of the disciples into public knowledge. The linking of the titles “Christ” (Messiah) and “Son” was in keeping with biblical tradition (cf. Ps 2:7; Ps 110). Looked at from this perspective, the difference between Mark’s and Matthew’s versions of the confession now appears only relative and far less significant than Grelot and other exegetes would claim. According to Luke, as we have seen, Peter confesses Jesus as “the Anointed One [Christ, Messiah] of God.” Here we see again what the old man Simeon had known concerning the child Jesus, it having been revealed to him that this child was the Anointed One (Christ) of the Lord (cf. Lk 2:26). The rulers of the people present a counterimage of this when they mock Jesus under the Cross, saying, “He saved others; let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his Chosen One!” (Lk 23:35). There is thus an arc stretching from Jesus’ childhood up over the confession at Caesarea Philippi and down to the Cross. Taken together, the three texts display the unique sense in which the “Anointed One” belongs to God.

There is, however, another incident from the Gospel of Luke that is important for the disciples’ faith in Jesus: the story of the abundant catch of fish that ends with the calling of Simon Peter and his companions into discipleship. These experienced fishermen have caught nothing during the whole night, and now Jesus instructs them to put out to sea again in broad daylight and cast out their nets. This seems to make little sense according to the practical knowledge of these men, but Simon answers: “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets” (Lk 5:5). This is followed by the overflowing catch of fish, which profoundly alarms Peter. He falls at Jesus’ feet in the posture of adoration and says: “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord” (Lk 5:8). In what has just happened, Peter recognizes the power of God himself working through Jesus’ words, and this direct encounter with the living God in Jesus shakes him to the core of his being. In the light of this presence, and under its power, man realizes how pitifully small he is. He cannot bear the awe-inspiring grandeur of God—it is too enormous for him. Even in terms of all the different religions, this text is one of the most powerful illustrations of what happens when man finds himself suddenly and directly exposed to the proximity of God. At that point, he can only be alarmed at himself and beg to be freed from the overwhelming power of this presence. This inner realization of the proximity of God himself in Jesus suddenly breaks in upon Peter and finds expression in the title that he now uses for Jesus: “Kyrios” (Lord). It is the designation for God that was used in the Old Testament as a substitute for the unutterable divine name given from the burning bush. Whereas before putting out from the shore, Peter called Jesus epistata, which means “master,” “teacher,” “rabbi,” he now recognizes him as the Kyrios.

We find a similar situation in the story of how Jesus approaches the disciples’ boat across the storm-tossed lake. Peter now asks the Lord to bid him walk upon the waters as well—toward Jesus. When he is about to sink, he is rescued by the outstretched hand of Jesus, who then also gets into the boat. But just at this moment the wind subsides. And now the same thing happens that we saw in the story about the abundant haul of fish: The disciples in the boat fall down before Jesus, in an expression at once of terror and adoration, and they confess: “Truly you are the Son of God” (Mt 14:22–33). These and other experiences, found throughout the Gospels, lay a clear foundation for Peter’s confession as reported in Matthew 16:16. In various ways, the disciples were repeatedly able to sense in Jesus the presence of the living God himself.

Before we attempt to put together a complete picture out of all of these pieces of mosaic, we still must cast a brief glance at the confession of Peter in John’s Gospel. Jesus’ eucharistic discourse, which John places after the multiplication of the loaves, could be considered as a public continuation of Jesus’ No to the tempter’s invitation to transform stones into bread—the temptation, that is, to see his mission in terms of generating material prosperity. Jesus draws attention instead to the relationship with the living God and to the love that comes from him; therein lies the truly creative power that gives meaning, and also provides bread. Jesus thus interprets his own mystery, his own self, in light of his gift of himself as the living bread. The people do not like this; many go away. Jesus thereupon asks the Twelve: Do you want to leave me as well? Peter answers: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God” (Jn 6:68f.).

We will need to ponder this version of Peter’s confession more closely in the context of the Last Supper. It clearly reveals Jesus’ priestly mystery (Psalm 106:16 calls Aaron “the holy one of God”). This title points backward to the eucharistic discourse and it points forward, along with this discourse, to the mystery of Jesus’ Cross; it is thus anchored in the Paschal Mystery, in the heart of Jesus’ mission, and it indicates what makes the figure of Christ completely different from the then current forms of messianic hope. The Holy One of God—that also reminds us, however, of how Peter quails when brought face-to-face with the proximity of the holy after the abundant catch of fish, when he dramatically experiences his wretchedness as a sinner. We find ourselves immersed in the context of the disciples’ experience of Jesus, which we have tried to understand on the basis of certain key moments of their journey in fellowship with him.

So what firm conclusion can we draw from all this? The first thing to say is that the attempt to arrive at a historical reconstruction of Peter’s original words and then to attribute everything else to posterior developments, and possibly to post-Easter faith, is very much on the wrong track. Where is post-Easter faith supposed to have come from if Jesus laid no foundation for it before Easter? Scholarship overplays its hand with such reconstructions.

It is during Jesus’ trial before the Sanhedrin that we see what was actually scandalous about him: not a political messianism—that had manifested itself with Barabbas and would do so again with Bar-Kokhba. Both men gained a following and both movements were put down by the Romans. What scandalized people about Jesus was exactly what we have already seen in connection with Rabbi Neusner’s conversation with the Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount: He seemed to be putting himself on an equal footing with the living God himself. This was what the strictly monotheistic faith of the Jews was unable to accept. This was the idea to which even Jesus could only slowly and gradually lead people. This was also what permeated his entire message—while preserving unbroken unity with faith in the one God; this was what was new, characteristic, and unique about his message. The fact that Jesus’ trial was then presented to the Romans as the trial of a political Messiah reflects the pragmatism of the Sadducees. But even Pilate sensed that something completely different was really at stake here—that anyone who really seemed to be a politically promising “king” would never have been handed over to him to be condemned.

But we have stepped too far ahead here. Let us go back to the confessions of the disciples. What do we see when we put together the complete mosaic of texts? Now, the disciples have recognized that Jesus does not fit into any of the existing categories, that he is more than, and different from, “one of the Prophets.” From the Sermon on the Mount, from his mighty deeds and his authority to forgive sins, from the sovereign manner of his preaching and his way of handling the traditions of the Law—from all of this they were able to recognize that Jesus was more than one of the Prophets. He is the Prophet who, like Moses, speaks face-to-face with God as with a friend; he is the Messiah, but in a different sense from that of a mere bearer of some commission from God.

In him, the great messianic words are fulfilled in a disconcerting and unexpected way: “You are my Son; today I have begotten you” (Ps 2:7). At certain key moments, the disciples came to the astonishing realization: This is God himself. They were unable to put all this together into a perfect response. Instead they rightly drew upon the Old Testament’s words of promise: Christ, the Anointed One, Son of God, Lord. These are the key words on which their confession focused, while still tentatively searching for a way forward. It could arrive at its complete form only when Thomas, touching the wounds of the Risen Lord, cried out, in amazement: “My Lord and my God” (Jn 20:28). In the end, however, these words send us upon a never-ending journey. They are so vast that we can never grasp them completely, and they always surpass us. Throughout her entire history, the pilgrim Church has been exploring them ever more deeply. Only by touching Jesus’ wounds and encountering his Resurrection are we able to grasp them, and then they become our mission.

THE TRANSFIGURATION

All three Synoptic Gospels create a link between Peter’s confession and the account of Jesus’ Transfiguration by means of a reference to time. Matthew and Mark say: “And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James, and John his brother” (Mt 17:1; Mk 9:2). Luke writes: “Now about eight days after these sayings” (Lk 9:28). Clearly, this means that the two events, in each of which Peter plays a prominent role, are interrelated. We could say that in both cases the issue is the divinity of Jesus as the Son; another point, though, is that in both cases the appearance of his glory is connected with the Passion motif. Jesus’ divinity belongs with the Cross—only when we put the two together do we recognize Jesus correctly. John expressed this intrinsic interconnectedness of Cross and glory when he said that the Cross is Jesus’ “exaltation,” and that his exaltation is accomplished in no other way than in the Cross. But now we must try to delve somewhat more deeply into this remarkable time reference. There are two different interpretations, though they do not have to be considered mutually exclusive.

J.-M. van Cangh and M. van Esbroeck have explored the connection with the calendar of Jewish festivals. They point out that only five days separate two major Jewish feasts that occur in the fall. First there is the feast of Yom ha-Kippurim, the great feast of atonement; the celebration of the weeklong Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkoth) follows six days afterward. This would mean that Peter’s confession fell on the great Day of Atonement and should be interpreted theologically against the backdrop of this feast, on which, for the one time in the year, the high priest solemnly pronounced the name YHWH in the Temple’s Holy of Holies. This context would give added depth to Peter’s confession of Jesus as the Son of the living God. Jean Daniélou, by contrast, sees the Evangelists’ references to the timing of the Transfiguration exclusively in relation to the Feast of Tabernacles, which—as we have seen—lasted an entire week. On this reading, Matthew, Mark, and Luke would all be in agreement about the chronology of the event. The six or eight days would then designate the weeklong Feast of Tabernacles itself; Jesus’ Transfiguration would accordingly have taken place on the last day of the feast, which was both its high point and the synthesis of its inner meaning.

Both interpretations have in common the idea that Jesus’ Transfiguration is linked with the Feast of Tabernacles. We will see that this connection actually comes to light in the text itself and that it makes possible a deeper understanding of the whole event. In addition to the specific elements of these accounts, we may observe here a fundamental trait of Jesus’ life, which receives particularly thorough treatment in John’s Gospel. As we saw in chapter 8, the great events of Jesus’ life are inwardly connected with the Jewish festival calendar. They are, as it were, liturgical events in which the liturgy, with its remembrance and expectation, becomes reality—becomes life. This life then leads back to the liturgy and from the liturgy seeks to become life again.

Our analysis of the connections between the Transfiguration story and the Feast of Tabernacles illustrates once again the fact that all Jewish feasts contain three dimensions. They originate from celebrations of nature religion and thus tell of Creator and creation; they then become remembrances of God’s actions in history; finally, they go on from there to become feasts of hope, which strain forward to meet the Lord who is coming, the Lord in whom God’s saving action in history is fulfilled, thereby reconciling the whole of creation. We will see how these three dimensions of Jewish feasts are further deepened and refashioned as they become actually present in Jesus’ life and suffering.

Contrasting with this liturgical interpretation of the timing of the Transfiguration is an alternative account that is insistently maintained by H. Gese (Zur biblischen Theologie). This interpretation holds that there is insufficient evidence for the claim that the text alludes to the Feast of Tabernacles. Instead, it reads the whole text against the background of Exodus 24—Moses’ ascent of Mount Sinai. Now, this chapter, which recounts how God seals the Covenant with Israel, is indeed an essential key to interpreting the story of the Transfiguration. There we read: “The glory of the LORD dwelt on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days. And on the seventh day he called to Moses out of the midst of the cloud” (Ex 24:16). The Exodus text, unlike the Gospels, mentions the seventh day. This is not necessarily an argument against connecting it with the story of the Transfiguration. Nevertheless, I do consider the first idea—that the timing is derived from the Jewish festival calendar—to be more convincing. It should be pointed out, though, that it is not at all unusual for different typological connections to converge in the events occurring along Jesus’ way. This makes it plain that Moses and the Prophets all speak of Jesus.

Let us turn now to the text of the Transfiguration narrative itself. There we are told that Jesus took Peter, James, and John and led them up onto a high mountain by themselves (Mk 9:2). We will come across these three again on the Mount of Olives (Mk 14:33) during Jesus’ agony in the garden, which is the counterimage of the Transfiguration, although the two scenes are inextricably linked. Nor should we overlook the connection with Exodus 24, where Moses takes Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu with him as he climbs the mountain—though seventy of the elders of Israel are also included.

Once again the mountain serves—as it did in the Sermon on the Mount and in the nights spent by Jesus in prayer—as the locus of God’s particular closeness. Once again we need to keep together in our minds the various mountains of Jesus’ life: the mountain of the temptation; the mountain of his great preaching; the mountain of his prayer; the mountain of the Transfiguration; the mountain of his agony; the mountain of the Cross; and finally, the mountain of the Risen Lord, where he declares—in total antithesis to the offer of world dominion through the devil’s power: “All power in heaven and on earth is given to me” (Mt 28:18). But in the background we also catch sight of Sinai, Horeb, Moriah—the mountains of Old Testament revelation. They are all at one and the same time mountains of passion and of Revelation, and they also refer in turn to the Temple Mount, where Revelation becomes liturgy.

When we inquire into the meaning of the mountain, the first point is of course the general background of mountain symbolism. The mountain is the place of ascent—not only outward, but also inward ascent; it is a liberation from the burden of everyday life, a breathing in of the pure air of creation; it offers a view of the broad expanse of creation and its beauty; it gives one an inner peak to stand on and an intuitive sense of the Creator. History then adds to all this the experience of the God who speaks, and the experience of the Passion, culminating in the sacrifice of Isaac, in the sacrifice of the lamb that points ahead to the definitive Lamb sacrificed on Mount Calvary. Moses and Elijah were privileged to receive God’s Revelation on the mountain, and now they are conversing with the One who is God’s Revelation in person.

“And he was transfigured before them,” Mark says quite simply, going on to add somewhat awkwardly, as if stammering before the Mystery: “And his clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them” (Mk 9:2–3). Matthew has rather more elevated words at his command: “His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light” (Mt 17:2). Luke is the only one of the Evangelists who begins his account by indicating the purpose of Jesus’ ascent: He “went up on the mountain to pray” (Lk 9:28). It is in the context of Jesus’ prayer that he now explains the event that the three disciples are to witness: “And as he was praying, the appearance of his face was altered, and hisclothing became dazzling white” (Lk 9:29). The Transfiguration is a prayer event; it displays visibly what happens when Jesus talks with his Father: the profound interpenetration of his being with God, which then becomes pure light. In his oneness with the Father, Jesus is himself “light from light.” The reality that he is in the deepest core of his being, which Peter tried to express in his confession—that reality becomes perceptible to the senses at this moment: Jesus’ being in the light of God, his own being-light as Son.

At this point Jesus’ relation to the figure of Moses as well as the differences between the two become apparent: “As he came down from the mountain, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God” (Ex 34:29–35). Because Moses has been talking with God, God’s light streams upon him and makes him radiant. But the light that causes him to shine comes upon him from the outside, so to speak. Jesus, however, shines from within; he does not simply receive light, but he himself is light from light.

Yet Jesus’ garment of white light at the Transfiguration speaks of our future as well. In apocalyptic literature, white garments are an expression of heavenly beings—the garments of angels and of the elect. In this vein the Apocalypse of John—the Book of Revelation—speaks of the white garments that are worn by those who have been saved (cf. especially 7:9, 13; 19:14). But it also tells us something new: The garments of the elect are white because they have washed them in the blood of the Lamb (cf. Rev 7:14); this means that through Baptism they have been united with Jesus’ Passion, and his Passion is the purification that restores to us the original garment lost through our sin (cf. Lk 15:22). Through Baptism we are clothed with Jesus in light and we ourselves become light.

At this point Moses and Elijah appear and talk with Jesus. What the Risen Lord will later explain to the disciples on the road to Emmaus is seen here in visible form. The Law and the Prophets speak with Jesus; they speak of Jesus. Only Luke tells us—at least in a brief allusion—what God’s two great witnesses were talking about with Jesus: They “appeared in glory and spoke of his departure [his exodus], which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem” (Lk 9:31). Their topic of conversation is the Cross, but understood in an inclusive sense as Jesus’ Exodus, which had to take place in Jerusalem. Jesus’ Cross is an Exodus: a departure from this life, a passage through the “Red Sea” of the Passion, and a transition into glory—a glory, however, that forever bears the mark of Jesus’ wounds.

This is a clear statement that the Law and the Prophets are fundamentally about the “hope of Israel,” the Exodus that brings definitive liberation; but the content of this hope is the suffering Son of Man and Servant of God, who by his suffering opens the door into freedom and renewal. Moses and Elijah are themselves figures of the Passion and witnesses of the Passion. They speak with the transfigured Jesus about what they said while on earth, about the Passion of Jesus. But by speaking of these things with Jesus during his Transfiguration they make it apparent that this Passion brings salvation; that it is filled with the glory of God; that the Passion is transformed into light, into freedom and joy.

At this point, we need to jump ahead to the conversation that the three disciples have with Jesus as they come down from the “high mountain.” Jesus is talking with them about his coming Resurrection from the dead, which of course presupposes the Cross. The disciples ask instead about the return of Elijah, which is foretold by the scribes. This is Jesus’ reply: “Elijah does come first to restore all things. And how is it written of the Son of Man that he should suffer many things and be treated with contempt? But I tell you that Elijah has come, and they did to him whatever they pleased, as it is written of him” (Mk 9:13). Jesus’ words confirm the expectation of Elijah’s return. At the same time, however, he completes and corrects the common picture of it. He tacitly identifies the Elijah who will return as John the Baptist: the return of Elijah has already happened in the work of the Baptist.

John had come to reassemble Israel in preparation for the advent of the Messiah. But if the Messiah himself is the suffering Son of Man, and if it is only as such that he opens the way to salvation, then the work of Elijah that prepares his way must also somehow bear the mark of the Passion. And it does: “They did to him whatever they pleased, as it is written of him” (Mk 9:13). Jesus recalls the destiny that actually befell the Baptist, but his reference to Scripture is probably also an allusion to the traditions of the day foretelling the martyrdom of Elijah. Elijah was considered “the only one who, though persecuted, escaped martyrdom; but when he returns…he too has to undergo death” (Pesch, Markusevangelium, II, p. 80).

The hoped-for salvation and the Passion are thus joined together intimately and then developed into a picture of the redemption that accords with Scripture’s deepest intention, although in terms of the prevailing expectations of the day it constitutes a startling novelty. Scripture had to be read anew with the suffering Christ, and so it must ever be. We constantly have to let the Lord draw us into his conversation with Moses and Elijah; we constantly have to learn from him, the Risen Lord, to understand Scripture afresh.

Let us return to the Transfiguration story itself. The three disciples are shaken by the enormousness of what they have seen. They are overcome by “fear of God,” as we have seen them be on other occasions when they have experienced God’s closeness in Jesus, when they have sensed their own wretchedness and have been practically paralyzed by fear. “They were terrified” (Mk 9:6), says Mark. And yet Peter begins to speak, although he is so dazed that “he did not know what to say” (Mk 9:6): “Rabbi, it is good that we are here. Let us make three tents, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah” (Mk 9:5).

These words, which Peter speaks in a sort of ecstasy, in the midst of fear yet also in the joy of God’s closeness, have been the object of much discussion. Do they have something to do with the Feast of Tabernacles, on the final day of which the Transfiguration took place? H. Gese contests this and argues that the real point of reference in the Old Testament is Exodus 33:7ff., which describes the “ritualization of the Sinai event.” According to this text, Moses goes “outside the camp” to pitch the Tent of Meeting, on which the pillar of cloud then descends. There the Lord and Moses spoke “face to face, as a man speaks to his friend” (Ex 33:11). On this interpretation, then, Peter’s intention is to give permanence to the event of Revelation and erect tents of meeting; the account of the cloud overshadowing the disciples could confirm this reading. It is perfectly possible that the Transfiguration account does contain a reminiscence of the Exodus text; both Jewish and early Christian exegesis customarily interweave different scriptural references so that they converge and complement each other. Nevertheless, the proposal to set up three tents of meeting argues against such a connection, or at least makes it appear secondary.

The connection with the Feast of Tabernacles becomes convincing if we take account of the messianic interpretation of the feast in the Judaism of Jesus’ day. Jean Daniélou (in The Bible and the Liturgy) has made a convincing study of this aspect and linked it with the testimony of the Fathers, who were still quite familiar with the traditions of Judaism and reread them in a Christian context. The Feast of Tabernacles exhibits the same three-dimensional structure that we have seen to be typical of major Jewish feasts generally: a celebration originally borrowed from nature religion becomes at the same time a feast in remembrance of God’s saving deeds in history, and remembrance in turn becomes hope for definitive redemption. Creation, history, and hope become interlinked. If at one time, during the Feast of Tabernacles with its water libation, there had been a prayer for the rain needed in a drought-stricken land, the feast very quickly developed into the remembrance of Israel’s wandering through the desert, when the Jews lived in tents (tabernacles, sukkoth) (cf. Lev 23:43). Daniélou cites Harald Riesenfeld: “The huts were thought of, not only as a remembrance of the protection of God in the desert, but also as a prefiguration of the sukkoth in which the just are to dwell in the age to come. Thus, it seems that a very exact eschatological symbolism was attached to the most characteristic rite of the Feast of Tabernacles, as this was celebrated in Jewish times” (Bible and Liturgy, pp. 334f.). In the New Testament, a mention of the eternal tabernacles of the righteous in the life to come occurs in Luke (Lk 16:9). “The manifestation of the glory of Jesus,” to quote Daniélou, “appears to Peter to be the sign that the times of the Messiah have arrived. And one of the qualities of these messianic times was to be the dwelling of the just in the tents signified by the huts of the Feast of Tabernacles” (Bible and Liturgy, p. 340). By experiencing the Transfiguration during the Feast of Tabernacles, Peter, in his ecstasy, was able to recognize “that the realities prefigured by the Feast were accomplished…the scene of the Transfiguration marks the fact that the messianic times have come” (pp. 340f.). It is only as they go down from the mountain that Peter has to learn once again that the messianic age is first and foremost the age of the Cross and that the Transfiguration—the experience of becoming light from and with the Lord—requires us to be burned by the light of the Passion and so transformed.

These connections also shed new light on the meaning of the fundamental claim of the prologue to John’s Gospel, where the Evangelist sums up the mystery of Jesus: “And the Word became flesh and pitched his tent among us” (Jn 1:14). Indeed, the Lord has pitched the tent of his body among us and has thus inaugurated the messianic age. Following this line of thought, Gregory of Nyssa reflected on the connection between the Feast of Tabernacles and the Incarnation in a magnificent text. He says that the Feast of Tabernacles, though constantly celebrated, remained unfulfilled. “For the true Feast of Tabernacles had not yet come. According to the words of the Prophet, however [an allusion to Psalm 118:27], God, the Lord of all things, has revealed himself to us in order to complete the construction of the tabernacle of our ruined habitation, human nature” (De anima, PG 46, 132B, cf. Daniélou, Bible and Liturgy, pp. 344f.)

Let us return from these broad vistas to the story of the Transfiguration. “And a cloud overshadowed them, and a voice came out of the cloud, ‘This is my beloved Son; listen to him’” (Mk 9:7). The holy cloud, the shekinah, is the sign of the presence of God himself. The cloud hovering over the Tent of Meeting indicated that God was present. Jesus is the holy tent above whom the cloud of God’s presence now stands and spreads out to “overshadow” the others as well. The scene repeats that of Jesus’ Baptism, in which the Father himself, speaking out of the cloud, had proclaimed Jesus as Son: “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased” (Mk 1:11).

The solemn proclamation of Sonship, however, is now followed by the command “Listen to him.” At this point, we are reminded of the link with Moses’ ascent of Mount Sinai, which we saw at the beginning to be the background of the Transfiguration story. On the mountain, Moses received the Torah, God’s teaching word. Now we are told in reference to Jesus: “Listen to him.” H. Gese has provided a perceptive commentary on this scene: “Jesus himself has become the divine Word of revelation. The Gospels could not illustrate it any more clearly or powerfully: Jesus himself is the Torah” (Zur biblischen Theologie, p. 81). This one command brings the theophany to its conclusion and sums up its deepest meaning. The disciples must accompany Jesus back down the mountain and learn ever anew to “listen to him.”

If we learn to understand the content of the Transfiguration story in these terms—as the irruption and inauguration of the messianic age—then we are also able to grasp the obscure statement that Mark’s Gospel inserts between Peter’s confession and the teaching on discipleship, on one hand, and the account of the Transfiguration, on the other: “Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the dominion of God [the Kingdom of God] come with power” (Mk 9:1). What does this mean? Is Jesus predicting that some of the bystanders will still be alive at the time of his Parousia, at the definitive inbreaking of the Kingdom of God? If not, then what?

Rudolf Pesch (Markusevangelium, II, 2, pp. 66f.) has convincingly argued that the placing of this saying immediately before the Transfiguration clearly relates it to this event. Some—that is to say, the three disciples who accompany Jesus up the mountain—are promised that they will personally witness the coming of the Kingdom of God “in power.” On the mountain the three of them see the glory of God’s Kingdom shining out of Jesus. On the mountain they are overshadowed by God’s holy cloud. On the mountain—in the conversation of the transfigured Jesus with the Law and the Prophets—they realize that the true Feast of Tabernacles has come. On the mountain they learn that Jesus himself is the living Torah, the complete Word of God. On the mountain they see the “power” (dynamis) of the Kingdom that is coming in Christ.

Yet equally, through the awe-inspiring encounter with God’s glory in Jesus, they must learn what Paul says to the disciples of all ages in the First Letter to the Corinthians: “We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power [dynamis] of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor 1:23f.). This “power” (dynamis) of the coming Kingdom appears to them in the transfigured Jesus, who speaks with the witnesses of the Old Covenant about the necessity of his Passion as the way to glory (cf. Lk 24:26f.). They personally experience the anticipation of the Parousia, and that is how they are slowly initiated into the full depth of the mystery of Jesus.