Feast of The Transfiguration · AfterMass · Radar

Tabor, Sinai, and the New Exodus2:08 – 5:14

2:08

Matthew, Mark, Luke all record it.

2:10

Christ takes Peter, James, and John up to a high mountain, traditionally identified as Tabor, and in front of them, his appearance completely changes.

2:18

His face shines like the sun.

2:19

His clothes become white.

2:21

No bleach on earth could ever produce.

2:23

Moses and Elijah appear, standing there, talking with him.

2:27

Peter, in classic Peter fashion, doesn't know what to say, so he offers to build three tents, one for each of them.

2:33

And Luke tells us flatly that Peter didn't know what he was even saying.

2:36

Then a cloud overshadows them, and a voice comes from it.

2:40

"This is my beloved Son.

2:41

Listen to him." The apostles fall on their faces in terror, and then it's over.

2:46

Christ is standing there alone, looking normal again, telling them to get up and stop being afraid.

2:52

Dr. Scott Hahn points out something about this scene that most of us read straight past.

2:57

This exact combination already happened once before, centuries earlier, on a different mountain.

3:02

In Exodus, Moses climbs to Sinai to meet with God, and he doesn't go alone.

3:06

He brings three named companions, Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and a cloud covers the mountain, and glory is revealed inside of it.

3:15

Three companions, a mountain, a cloud, glory.

3:18

Christ is restaging that exact scene on purpose with Peter, James, and John standing in for Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu.

3:25

That is not a coincidence.

3:27

That is a claim.

3:29

Moses needed God to come down and reveal himself in a cloud on a mountain.

3:33

Christ doesn't need that.

3:34

He's the one that the cloud and the voices are testifying about.

3:37

Now, there's a second layer to that Exodus connection, and it's the part that really shows you that Christ isn't just repeating what Moses did.

3:43

He is instead surpassing it.