Today, on the feast of the Transfiguration, I had to write something if only because my daughter was married on the summit of Mount Tabor, where we are told it occurred. And the reason I chose Giovanni Bellini's painting is because it is the only one I've seen where Jesus and the others are all on the same ground plane: Jesus is not perched high above, or floating in the air. The Gospels tell us only that as they were talking he was "transfigured": he shone brightly, and his clothes, now white, shone also. The Greek word is metamorphosein, to change form or shape. And Moses and Elijah turned up and were seen talking with him. I love to think of the three disciples as remaining on the same bit of ground, at the same distance, and suddenly stunned with the bright light, the white and gold, and those two great men, the patriarch and the prophet, in front of them, on the same level.
What does it mean? The shining white raiment, someone wrote, is that of the Angel at the tomb also: the sign of Resurrection. And Jesus tells the disciples not to mention this until he is resurrected. So it is a kind of foretaste in the story. A foretaste of the Resurrection; but also a taste of Jesus's divinity, and of his fulfilment of the Scriptures. He is speaking with the man who led Israel out of Egypt to the Promised Land; and with the greatest of the prophets, who ascended into Heaven without dying.
It is a strange, uncanny, numinous and entirely wonderful moment, charged with meaning -- a meaning that is not explained. It is left for the disciples, and for us, to work out. It gives us furiously to think -- which is not a bad thing, in a world where too much of religion is associated solely with either feeling or good works. I used to hang out with some delightful and very devout Charismatics, but eventually left them because, as I told their leader, they behaved as if God had created every bit of them except their intelligence. We are to love him with our heart, our soul, and our mind . . .
No comments:
Post a Comment