Introduction
As we know so well, Transfiguration texts can feel deceptively familiar. The details barely shift across the Synoptic Gospels, and many preachers have stood on this mountain more than once. But in Matthew, familiarity can become a trap. When we assume the point of the story is simply to prove who Jesus is, we miss what this moment is doing for the disciples, and for the community Matthew is shaping.
So, let’s lean into Matthew’s telling to go deeper.
Narrative Context
Matthew’s Gospel consistently uses mountaintops as places of revelation and reorientation. The Sermon on the Mount (5–7), the Transfiguration (17), and the Great Commission (28) are not isolated holy moments; they are thresholds. Each marks a shift in how authority is understood, received, and lived out. Revelation in Matthew is never static. It always presses toward formation.
The Transfiguration occurs immediately after a major turning point in the narrative. Peter has confessed Jesus as Messiah (16:13–20), and for the first time Jesus begins to speak plainly about suffering, death, and resurrection (16:21). This is not a triumphal turn but a destabilizing one. The disciples now know who Jesus is, and immediately learn that following him will not look the way they expected.
Six days later, Jesus leads Peter, James, and John up a high mountain. The timing matters. This is not a public miracle meant to convince the crowds. It is an intimate moment for those who will soon be asked to carry on the work when Jesus is no longer with them.
A Vision That Reorients Authority
Jesus is transfigured. His face shining. His clothes dazzling. And Moses and Elijah appear with him. These figures matter deeply in Matthew, a Gospel shaped by sustained engagement with Israel’s Scriptures and written for a community negotiating faithfulness amid upheaval (Gentile inclusion; destruction of the temple; new religious identity and leadership models). Moses and Elijah are not simply there to authenticate Jesus, nor are they present to be eclipsed in a triumphalist display. They represent a tradition that has already learned how to live with loss, transition, and endings that remain unfinished. Their story rings through this sacred encounter.
Neither Moses nor Elijah sees the full resolution of the story they helped shape. Moses does not enter the promised land. Elijah departs without witnessing restoration. Their authority does not culminate in completion but in continuity. They prepare a people to move forward without them.
This is where a significant tension emerges in Matthew’s Gospel. Jesus repeatedly speaks of fulfillment, of the law, the prophets, and God’s promises. It would be easy to assume a supersessionist logic here: that Jesus finally resolves what Moses and Elijah could not, bringing their unfinished stories to a decisive end. But the Transfiguration points to a different understanding.
Jesus does not stand over Moses and Elijah as the one who finally closes the story. Instead, he stands with them as one who will also hand over the work. Like Moses and Elijah, Jesus will not remain to see the community’s life unfold. He will entrust the future to disciples who must learn to live faithfully without him. For Matthew’s community (living after the destruction of the Temple and amid competing claims to religious authority) this is not a failure of fulfillment but its outcome. God’s promises are fulfilled not by removing the need for trust, but by forming communities capable of carrying the story forward.
And yet we’re not quite there yet in the community’s comprehension. And so, Peter’s response is telling. He wants to build dwellings, to preserve the moment, to contain the glory. Not realizing the meaning of the transition. But the scene cannot settle into permanence. While Peter is still speaking, the cloud overshadows them and the divine voice interrupts.
“This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!”
The command is not to admire, explain, or replicate the experience, but to listen.
In a community surrounded by rival interpretations of Law, prophetic claims, and emerging Christian leadership, listening becomes the primary posture of discipleship for Matthew. Authority is not seized or defended; it is received through attention to Jesus.
Fear, Touch, and the Shape of Leadership
The disciples fall to the ground, overwhelmed by fear. This is not simply awe or terror. It is fear of the Lord, a reverent, embodied response to the presence of God that runs deep in the Hebrew Scriptures. This kind of fear is not irrational or shameful; it is the appropriate recognition that one is standing on holy ground.
And then Jesus does something deeply characteristic of Matthew’s portrait of him: he touches them.
“Get up and do not be afraid.”
Authority in Matthew is not distant or crushing. It does not overwhelm human fear; it meets it with presence (Emmanuel). This is a crucial lesson for disciples who will soon lead without Jesus physically beside them. The authority they inherit is not the radiance of the mountaintop but the nearness of Christ in moments of fear.
When they look up, Moses and Elijah are gone. “They saw no one except Jesus himself alone.” Tradition remains honored, but it no longer stands alongside Jesus as a parallel authority. Listening to Jesus becomes the way the law and the prophets are lived rather than preserved.
Descending the Mountain
As they come down the mountain, Jesus orders them to keep silent until after the resurrection. Again, for Matthew, revelation does not immediately translate into proclamation (unlike John’s Gospel). In Matthew, glory must descend into suffering before it can be spoken aloud.
This is a vital word for Matthew’s community, and for the church today. Faithfulness is not proven by dramatic experiences or clear answers, but by learning how to walk forward when the vision fades and the road leads toward Jerusalem.
The Transfiguration does not prepare the disciples to explain God. It prepares them to trust God in ambiguity.
Preaching Possibility
Authority That Descends
Rather than framing this text primarily as a story of glory revealed, preachers might explore it as a story of authority reshaped.
What kind of leaders does God form before handing them responsibility?
The disciples are not given instructions, strategies, or certainty. They are given a glimpse and then led back into the valley. They learn that God’s authority sounds like a voice that calls for listening, looks like a hand that touches fear, and moves downward into silence, suffering, and trust.
For a people navigating change, loss, or uncertainty, this text offers reassurance without false comfort. God does not abandon the community when clarity disappears. Christ remains present (sometimes radiant, often quiet) calling the church to listen, to rise, and to follow, even when the path ahead is not yet clear.
Living with Unfinished Hope
The Transfiguration also offers a word for communities living in between promise and fulfillment. Moses, Elijah, and Jesus all stand within God’s work without seeing its final outcome. None of them remain to oversee the future they help set in motion.
For Matthew’s community (and for congregations today) this can be both unsettling and freeing. Faithfulness is not measured by completion or control, but by trust. God’s promises are not nullified by uncertainty; they are carried forward through it.
This text invites us to name the reality of unfinished hope: the call to live faithfully when prayers are still unanswered, when the future of the church feels unclear, and when God’s work seems only partially visible. The Transfiguration does not resolve that tension. Instead, it blesses it. The disciples descend the mountain not with answers, but with Jesus, and that is enough to keep walking.
Micah Krey 
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