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Transfiguration Sunday
Today is Transfiguration Sunday, where we reflect upon that moment in Jesus’s ministry when the veil between the profane and the numinous was temporarily lifted and the disciples could see Moses and Elijah alongside Jesus. And like a tourist who wants to capture the perfect moment on film, Peter suggests raising dwellings to seize or concretize the moment.
Here’s the Biblical account:
Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah” —not knowing what he said.
Marianne Borg on the Marcus J. Borg Foundation blog identifies the perfect poem for the moment. Blake understands as well as anyone the dangers of possession:
Eternity
By William Blake
He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy
He who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity’s sunrise
Peter wants to bind the moment. It is not until after the resurrection that he understands what it means to live in “eternity’s sunrise.”