RISE, AND HAVE NO FEAR | Last Sunday after The Epiphany [A] | 15.2.2026 | Matthew 17:1–9 | Paul Bieber |

17  Six days after Peter said that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain apart. ² And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his garments became white as light. ³ And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. ⁴ And Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is well that we are here; if you wish, I will make three booths here, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.” ⁵ He was still speaking, when lo, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” ⁶ When the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces, and were filled with awe. ⁷ But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Rise, and have no fear.” ⁸ And when they lifted up their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus only.

⁹ And as they were coming down the mountain, Jesus commanded them, “Tell no one the vision, until the Son of man is raised from the dead.”

also
Exodus 24:12-18
II Peter 1:16-21

RISE, AND HAVE NO FEAR

Grace, peace, and much joy to you, people of God.

The Epiphany season begins and ends with the revelation that Jesus is the beloved Son of God. The Baptism of Our Lord and his Transfiguration are the bookends of the season of light. Like Jesus’ baptismal theophany, a glimpse of Jesus’ divinity is revealed on the Mount of Transfiguration.

As Moses goes up Mount Sinai in our First Reading—and Elijah up the same mountain (called Mount Horeb in I Kings 19), so Jesus leads Peter, James, and John up a high mountain, a favored place for an encounter with God. There the One who called himself the light of the world (St. John 8:12; 9:5) is revealed as light, his face and clothing shining with light.

Moses and Elijah appear with him on the mountain and somehow the disciples recognize them. Somehow Peter has the idea of building three booths, sukkot, as at the harvest Feast of Tabernacles, commemorating God dwelling with his people in their wilderness wandering, an abiding presence which will be fulfilled in the messianic kingdom.

Our Second Reading suggests that this fulfillment is what Peter had in mind in offering his suggestion. The purpose of the eyewitnesses’ testimony to what happened on the holy mountain is to make known the power (dynamis) and coming (parousia) of the Lord Jesus Christ. Parousia generally refers to his coming in glory at the end of the age, and the Transfiguration’s revelation of Christ’s glory is even more of a glimpse of his divinity than the resurrection appearances, resembling rather the “one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden girdle round his breast; his head and his hair were white as white wool, white as snow; his eyes were like a flame of fire (Revelation 1:13–14).

Even if Peter’s intuition is correct, his idea doesn’t get a hearing, because he is interrupted by another revelation of light: a bright cloud like the one Moses entered in Exodus 24. This is the shekinah, the cloud of God’s presence that accompanies the tabernacle in the wilderness and is present at the dedication of Solomon’s temple. As in Exodus 24, a voice comes from the cloud. The voice bears witness to Jesus as God’s beloved Son with whom he is pleased, just as at the baptismal theophany.

But as we hear these words again at the end of Epiphanytide, the voice adds a command: listen to him. The voice from the cloud is not just a reaffirmation to us of Jesus’ Epiphany; it is word to us as we stand again at the threshold of the season of Lent. We are called to listen to him, to trust the word of promise spoken by and fulfilled in Jesus—and more, to trust the enigmatic way in which it will be fulfilled.

We are to listen to Jesus. What has he been saying? After Peter’s confession, only days before the event of the Transfiguration, Jesus predicted his passion and crucifixion. Is this what the fulfillment of God’s promise looks like? Jesus is taken away by his enemies, stripped of his garments, and lifted up on the cross between two criminals. At the Transfiguration, Jesus takes with him his trusted inner circle, his garments are illuminated, and he is elevated on the mountain between two saints.

On May 28, 1898, Secondo Pia, an Italian amateur photographer, made the first photograph of the cloth known as the Shroud of Turin, which bears the image of a man, thought to be Jesus, who has evidently been tortured. To the surprise and astonishment of Pia and his two helpers, a positive image appeared on the negative photographic plate. The inversion of the Shroud’s light and dark areas revealed the obscure latent image on the Shroud as a clearly visible image; the image on the negative was positive! Similarly, the Transfiguration reveals the brightness of the glory hidden by the paradoxical and shadowed enigma of the cross. It is one of those epiphanic moments when everything suddenly becomes clear in the light. This is what the fulfillment of God’s promise will look like.

Lent is about to begin; it will culminate with the revelation that the beloved Son of God demonstrates God’s love on the cross. The revelation of Christ’s glory on the Mount of Transfiguration is the “positive image on the photographic negative” of the image of Christ on the cross. As we enter into this season of bright sadness, our journey to the paradoxical revelation of the glory of the cross, we do well to be attentive to this image of the glory, like a negative that stunningly reveals the brightness of the glory concealed on Mount Calvary. This is a glory that only becomes clearly visible in the light of Easter.

The Transfiguration is a preview of Jesus’ coming in glory, the glory that the church may share even on our pilgrimage through the dark and shadowed places of our Lenten lives until the Easter Day dawns and the Son of Man, risen, ascended, glorified—Jesus Christ, the morning star so fair and bright—rises in our hearts to transfigure our lives. Don’t we hope that our Lenten repentance will be a sign of the transfiguring power of Jesus Christ in our lives that begins working already at Baptism? The promise of Easter, after all, according to I Corinthians 15, is that “we shall be changed.”

Perhaps your many failures to live a moral, pure life have convinced you that the life God has called you to live is beyond your reach. Well, it is, of course, but rise and have no fear: Every day of our baptized lives is a day in which Jesus comes in power to touch us and bid us rise and have no fear. We need not fear the daily dying and rising that juxtapose shadow and light, cross and glory in our lives. Every day is a day that can be transfigured by lifting up our eyes above the turmoil of this world. When we do that, we see no other god and heed no other voice but Jesus only.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Rev. Dr. Paul Bieber, STS
E-Mail: paul.bieber@sbcglobal.net
Retired Lutheran Pastor
San Diego, California, USA