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The Transfiguration is one of those head scratchers in the New Testament. Even those who witnessed it were not sure what they were witnessing.
As I’ve looked more and more at the Transfiguration over the years, I have come to see it more like an icon. The written icons of the church are meant to bring us closer to God, but they often present theological understandings in picture form. The Transfiguration is a sign of Jesus as a fulfillment of the law, in the form of Moses (who we saw this past Sunday in our Scripture readings), and the prophets, as seen in the form of Elijah, often seen as the greatest of the prophets of old (who we will see more of this coming Sunday in our lessons).
Icons don’t just draw us in, though. They are written so that it looks like they are coming out at us. We are not just meant to admire them and get sucked in. Instead we are meant to take their beauty and reflect on it. We are meant to take that moment we are interacting with God and bring it out with us as we do the Lord’s work and will in the world. That is the lesson we receive from Peter’s response due to a lack of thinking.
Why did the Transfiguration happen? So that we could have a better understanding of who Jesus is and so that we would go out to share that message with the rest of the world.