1 Six days later Jesus took with Him Peter and James and John his brother, and led them up on a high mountain by themselves. 2 And He was transfigured before them; and His face shone like the sun, and His garments became as white as light.
The six days must have been unbearable for the disciples. Ringing in their ears was the whirlwind sequence of events that boggled their minds. Following their huge expression of faith, they were hit with Jesus’ prediction of His suffering and death, their first Satan-inspired failure, the ramifications of what they had really gotten themselves into, a call to personal self-denial. They had six days to process this. (Luke’s account indicates eight days had elapsed, but this is not problematic. In the ancient world, different methods of counting time were used. Matthew was counting whole days, whereas Luke was most likely including partial days. Thus from the first day to the last would have included two partial days plus the six intervening whole days).
The event which now begins to unfold in the gospel account would be a welcome “specimen” of the kingdom, a foretaste of infinitely better things to come. The whirlwind continues, but now with a better purview. The call to discipleship is so difficult that supernatural motivation is required—and that comes in a vision of Christ glorified. Repeatedly in Scripture, we are encouraged to join the disciples in perceiving Jesus, by faith. The writer of Hebrews, for example, exhorts us to “consider,” to “fix our eyes on Him” (Heb 3:1, 12:1).
Jesus takes along what has been called the inner circle. These were three of the first four disciples called, namely Peter, James and John. Why just these three were included is left to conjecture. James later became the first martyr, and Peter and John became prominent in the early church. The venue for this event was a high mountain, away from the crowds and other disciples.
The Greek word used to describe what happened to Jesus is the word from which our English word “metamorphosis” comes. He was changed, similar to how a caterpillar morphs into a butterfly. Just as the essence of the butterfly was contained in the caterpillar, so the essence of Christ’s true nature was temporarily constrained to a human body. But one day Christ will morph back into His full glory upon resurrection from the dead and ascension back to His Father. This is captured in Philippians 2:6-11. On the mountain, for an instant, the disciples caught a glimpse, a sneak preview of that glory manifested.
Lord, when life gets hard, I want the proof of my faith “to be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:7).
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