The Feast of the Transfiguration
Scripture: Matthew (16:13-28) 17:1-9
Life can be full of suffering: living with pain and health issues, being rejected by people we thought we were close to, and watching a loved one die. Moreover, the Holocaust and genocides of the 20th century remind us that suffering can even happen on a large scale.
When faced with such pain, it’s easy to say that “God is dead” or to become indifferent or nihilistic towards life.
However, a bleak outlook on life only makes matters worse — it only enhances our suffering and makes our outlook on life even darker.
Today, Jesus tells Peter that he, like us, must suffer, and it’ll end in death. But Peter doesn’t want to hear about suffering, and he denies Jesus’s statement. However, in order to show Peter that he willingly picks up his cross to face suffering head-on, Christ is transfigured in front of us.
The Transfiguration shows us that Christ’s love for us is greater than evil. The wickedness of this world will not be able to change Christ’s compassion into hatred, even when it nails him to the cross. Instead of defeat, Christ’s suffering becomes victory — suffering becomes joy.
By imitating Christ’s love and willingly picking up our crosses, Christ is able to transfigure our suffering into joy as well. We are made stronger and released from the bondage of wickedness. We no longer fear evil because the worst that it can do — put us to death — is now the path to life.
Christ shows us not a way around suffering but a way through suffering, a way of transfiguring our suffering. And when we are transfigured, we become Christian examples to the world of how suffering can be turned into joy.