The Lord is King
by Fr. David M. Knight
August 6, 2024
Tuesday of the Eighteenth Week of Ordinary Time
Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord
Lectionary 614
Dn 7:9-10, 13-14/2 Pt 1:16-19/Mk 9:2-10
Daniel 7:9-14 prophesies the ultimate victory and glory of Jesus:
I saw One like a son of man coming, on the clouds of heaven.... He received dominion, glory, and kingship... peoples of every language serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not be taken away, his kingship shall not be destroyed.
Jesus applied the opening sentence to himself twice. The first time was at the Mount of Olives, when his disciples Peter, James, John, and Andrew “asked him privately, ‘What sign will there be of your coming, and of the end of the age?’” Jesus then told them not to worry: when it all came down they would see him “coming on the clouds of heaven.”
The next time he used the phrase was when the high priest asked him at his trial: “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?” Jesus replied:
“I am; and ‘you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power,’ and ‘coming with the clouds of heaven.’”
Then the high priest tore his clothes and said, “You have heard his blasphemy!”
This was “blasphemy” to the Jews because if Jesus still claimed to be the Messiah when it was obvious God had withdrawn his favor from him by delivering him over to his enemies, it could only mean that Jesus was Messiah by his own will and power. Jesus was claiming to be God. (See Matthew 24:3,30; 26:64; Mark 13:3,26; 14:62.)
In Mark 9:2-10, Jesus took Peter, James and John “off by themselves and led them up a high mountain,” still “privately.” There he was “transfigured before their eyes,” and out of a “bright cloud” came a voice: “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” This was to prepare them for the night when he led the same three back to the Mount of Olives again, and “began to be distressed and agitated.... deeply grieved, even to death.”
In his anguish he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down on the ground.
This was a “transfiguration” in reverse: the one they saw on the mountain lay before them now as “a worm, and not human; scorned by others, and despised by the people,” and no voice from heaven claimed him as Son. To believe then, they needed to remember. So do we, when here and now Jesus does not seem to be for us what we expected. (See Mark 14:33-34; Luke 22:44; Psalm 22:6, the Psalm Jesus quoted on the cross, when he prayed: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”)
2Peter 1:16-19 tells us we also need to remind others of the glory we have seen by the “dark” but brilliant light of faith, and of what “we ourselves heard said from heaven” when God has spoken to us through Scripture and the Spirit. This is ministry: to be for others “a lamp shining in a dark place, until day dawns and the morning star rises in all hearts.” We need to express our experience.
Initiative: Look for Jesus transfigured. Remember, speak and share.
Reflections brought to you by the Immersed in Christ Ministry
Commentaires