Readings of the day: Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14; Psalm 97:1-2, 5-6, 9; 2 Peter 1:16-19; Matthew 17:1-9
Over these last couple of weeks, one of the most popular and successful movies playing in theatres has been Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer.” I just saw this movie a few days ago. Its title character, the physicist and developer of the atomic bomb J. Robert Oppenheimer, understood the explosion of the Trinity test bomb, the “successful” goal of the Manhattan Project in the desert near Alamogordo, New Mexico, as an apocalyptic moment.
In the popular sense of the term “apocalyptic,” Oppenheimer would live out his life after the Manhattan Project afraid and guilt-ridden that he had ushered in an era toward the destruction of the world. On this day in 1945, August 6, the first atomic bomb used in combat would be dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. And then, three days later, August 9, 1945, a second atomic bomb would be dropped on Nagasaki. The Cold War was soon in full swing: Nations stockpiled nuclear weapons, arguing unbelievably that their armaments assured mutual deterrence from ever having to use them.
In 1965, Oppenheimer reflected in an NBC interview (“The Decision to Drop the Bomb”) on the Trinity test explosion: “Most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita; Vishnu is trying to persuade the prince that he should do his duty and, to impress him, takes on his multiarmed form and says, ‘Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.’”
In another sense of “apocalyptic,” closer to its literal sense of uncovering or unveiling, I think Oppenheimer quickly discovered that the development of nuclear weapons was revealing something about the human capacity for evil and destruction that he had wished would remain hidden. The effect of the Fall or “original sin” has brought us to this. Countries continue to stockpile nuclear arsenals. Mutual deterrence long ago ceased to be a viable, believable argument to build and stockpile such weapons. Short of nuclear warfare, conventional warfare and its weaponry have become more precise, more deliberate, more deadly. Just look at the destruction that continues to be wrought in Ukraine; smaller-scale events in a world war being fought “piecemeal,” as Pope Francis has said, like current events in Niger or Sudan! Sometimes it takes a (literally or figuratively) apocalyptic event like the Trinity test explosion or the use of nuclear weapons in warfare over Hiroshima and Nagasaki to reveal the tremendous power of human technological progress: Its potential for good, yes, but also a disturbing potential for death and destruction.
Suffice it to say that one of my favourite styles of writing in the Bible—and one of the most recognizable—is apocalyptic. Apocalypses form entire books of the Bible, like the Book of Revelation but also Daniel from whom we hear today. Apocalyptic literature is woven into many other books of the Bible, like the Gospels. And, if we think about it, all the readings we hear today, on this Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord, are in some way apocalyptic.
The Transfiguration of our Lord Jesus Christ is an apocalyptic event. Matthew’s Gospel account of the Transfiguration immediately puts us in the presence of a complex event. A lot happens in this scene of the Lord’s Transfiguration, and all of it is apocalyptic in the sense of something or somebody being revealed, unveiled, uncovered.
Bible experts have rightly commented on how Jesus’ transfiguration reveals his divinity. A few have commented on how the Transfiguration reveals Jesus’ full humanity, his full identity and mission as a human being, the “Son of Man” (extending the imagery we hear from the Book of Daniel today) whose ultimate goal will be to die and rise from the dead for us. Still others say that the Transfiguration is the revelation of the whole Trinity at once, one God in three persons: The Father is present in the voice from heaven, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with him I am well pleased; Listen to him”! The Son is present in the physical human person of Jesus. And the Holy Spirit is present in the “bright cloud” that overshadows Jesus, Moses, Elijah, Peter, James, and John.
The presence of Moses and Elijah alongside Jesus as he is transfigured reveals Jesus as the fulfillment of the Law (Moses) and the prophets (Elijah), a point especially central in Matthew’s Gospel. Yet the Transfiguration also reveals a lot about who Jesus’ disciples (Peter, James, and John) are, who we are. We hear that, initially, the disciples understand very rightly that first, they are witnesses to an apocalyptic event, a full revelation of God’s glory in Jesus Christ and, second, as Peter says for himself and his fellow disciples to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here.”
A little detail here distinguishes Matthew’s account of Jesus’ Transfiguration from those of Mark and Luke: Matthew, unlike Mark or Luke, does not say at this point in the Transfiguration event that Peter does not know what he is saying or that the three disciples are afraid. Matthew says that Jesus’ disciples are afraid only after God has spoken from the cloud. But, for now, Peter, James, and John know perfectly well what they are saying and what is happening. Peter proposes to “make [three] dwellings… one for [Jesus], one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”
Matthew’s Greek word for “dwellings” here is skēnē, from which we get the English word “scene.” Maybe I am still too much in movie mode after having watched “Oppenheimer,” speaking of scenes, but I think Peter reminds us of a most essential approach to apocalyptic events like Jesus’ Transfiguration. Peter reminds us that, when God is revealing something of who God is and who we are (by definition, an apocalypse!), “it is good”—it is best—for us to remain on scene. For Peter, James, John, Jesus’ other apostles and disciples, the time will come when they will all flee from the scene of another apocalyptic event, the cross, to which Jesus’ Transfiguration points. Jesus’ disciples would all flee from God’s self-revelation through Jesus crucified of a God not aloof to the sin and suffering of the world, but who would willingly die for us to disempower that sin and suffering, transforming it into the greatest good possible for us.
Some time (days, weeks, years) after the Transfiguration and the cross of Jesus, Jesus’ disciples would return to the scene of these apocalyptic events. They would return to where God revealed God’s self in a specially complete and transforming way to us. Peter would be able to look back on Jesus’ Transfiguration through the lens of the cross and say, without a trace of the fear that had once overtaken him, James, and John on the Mount of the Transfiguration: “It was good that we were there. And it is still good that we are here now. We are on scene, here and now. We are as much witnesses to God’s “voice from heaven,” to God’s presence and “prophetic message” of our salvation now “more fully confirmed,” as those disciples who stood by Jesus as he was transfigured were. So, 2 Peter says to us: Good, now stay here, on scene, for a while. ‘Be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place.’”
In other words, God’s unveiling to us (an apocalypse!) of God’s presence and saving plan for us through the Transfiguration and the cross and resurrection of Jesus is ongoing. It is not a new unveiling, a new divine revelation, but it is continuous from those biblical events. It continues from Daniel’s visions of “one like a son of man coming with the clouds of heaven” who would conquer all the rulers and nations who had oppressed God’s chosen people, Israel, by the time Daniel was written. God’s ongoing unveiling to us of God’s promise of salvation continues from the visions of the Psalmist of the complete and final establishment of God’s reign over all creation, so that even great mountains would “melt like wax before the LORD.”
We have the gift of hindsight, sisters and brothers: We know that our Psalm’s vision foreshadows Daniel’s apocalypse of “one like a son of man,” which prefigures the Transfiguration of Jesus, which points to the cross of Jesus. And Jesus’ death on the cross gave way to his resurrection. We live in an ongoing apocalypse, God’s unveiling of a divine plan for our salvation that will be fully realized at the end of time.
Until then, we are free to be, as J. Robert Oppenheimer feared he had become by unleashing nuclear weaponry upon the world, destroyers “of worlds.” We are free to do violence to one another through everything from war to unkind, untrue words and actions toward one another. We are free to deny that sin and evil are still pervasive in our world. We are free to flee the scene of the ongoing apocalypse as we do, say, when we deny that climate change is an emergency and that we have a role and responsibility in contributing to or mitigating it.
Yet we are also free (and encouraged) to remain on scene, to build “dwellings” for God, the Law and the prophets. We are free to act with kindness toward one another. We are free to do what we can to consume less and protect the environment. We are free to be builders “of worlds,” co-creators of the reign of God for which we pray, “Thy kingdom come.” We are free, in all these ways, as God said from the cloud on the Mount of the Transfiguration, to “listen to him”: Listen to our Lord Jesus who reveals our salvation to us one apocalyptic moment at a time, who says, “Do not be afraid”; listen to our Lord Jesus who urges us to nurture and protect creation, who urges us not to do violence to one another. This is how we remain on scene, and how it remains good for us to be here.
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