This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.
Matthew 17: 5b
As Jesus revealed His divinity at the Transfiguration, the three disciples with Him heard the Father speak these words. In much the same way as He operates in our lives, the Lord didn’t give them perfect understanding of why they were chosen, what this revelation might mean, or how this was intended to sustain them through the suffering to come. Yet this mountaintop experience must have been held closely to the hearts of Peter, James, and John as they followed Jesus down the mountain and heard Him command them to tell no one at that time. This experience of Moses and Elijah alongside a bright cloud, the Father’s voice, and the veil of ordinariness being lifted from the person of Christ must have been quietly mused over by the disciples.
Did they look at Jesus a little differently? Did they wonder if He might again lower the veil and reveal His divinity to more people? Whatever specific questions they pondered, I am certain this experience was often in their thoughts as they followed Jesus.
“This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.”
In the moment, these words were likely easy to believe. They are on a mountain removed and the experience is all-encompassing, a dramatic sensation for all of the senses. This man who performed numerous miracles, spoke with wisdom and authority, and appeared driven and purposeful would be easy to see as one loved by God. Of course, they would listen to Him.
“This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.”
Yet from this moment forward, Jesus walks toward the cross, enduring disdain and betrayal. In the agony in the garden, when Jesus asks for what is God’s will to be different than what is laid before Him, the disciples perhaps struggle to see Jesus as beloved or to recognize in this moment the Father’s pleasure. Jesus being arrested, handed over to the authorities, scourged, crowned with thorns: this is the love of the Father? The heavy cross laid upon His shoulders, the mocking and ridicule, the nails driven through His hands and feet: this is the Father’s pleasure?
As Jesus is hurriedly laid in the tomb after resting in His mother’s arms, it is a bleak and despairing moment for the disciples. Do Peter, James, or John even remember the Transfiguration in this moment? Do they hear the Father’s words, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him“? Do they wonder now how they can listen to the Father or the Son? Do they wonder if they even want to listen if this is what happens to God’s beloved?
“This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.”
The words of the Father seem to be entirely at odds with what happens to Jesus in the following days and weeks. To our frail sensibilities, it doesn’t seem like love or pleasure which unfolds in Christ’s Passion. It could be easy to doubt that suffering is offered to one who is beloved, let alone the beloved.
And yet God is Truth and He cannot deceive. To the beloved Son, God offers the bitter cup because, united to the Father’s will, Jesus transfigures this bitterness into joy. From the the chaotic hell of the crucifixion, Jesus transforms this experience into the gateway to beatitude. Once seen from the proper perspective, the veil of suffering can be lifted to see the graces flourishing within.
“This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.”
The disciples are transformed after seeing the Risen Lord and they are compelled to listen to Christ’s parting words by trekking to the ends of the earth with the Good News pouring from their lips. Despite resting in the love of the Father, they are also welcomed into great suffering and all of the disciples die as martyrs or exiles. Perhaps as they were tortured and killed, they recalled the words the Father spoke as Jesus was transfigured, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.”
If Jesus can receive the cross while trusting in the Father’s love and the disciples can walk to their varied martyrdoms believing in the goodness of God, perhaps we, too, can move from our mountaintop moments and through our rough waters holding fast to the Lord’s faithfulness. Having known and experienced the good things of the Lord, we can enter into suffering and pain with the awareness that this will end and that, somehow in His inscrutable plan, the Lord will use this very valley for His own victory in us. It doesn’t remove the pain of the moment, but it can help give perspective to recall that every saint before us and our Lord Himself endured these highs and lows. The deepest and most profound suffering we experience does not void the truth that we are beloved sons and daughters whose very existence pleases the Father.
“This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.”
Walking with the Lord is easy in those times when He is fully revealing Himself and imprinting into our hearts clear evidence of His loving goodness. Yet these encounters with God are given, in part, to sustain us through the winter, the desert, the drought, the rough waters, the times when the cross is so clearly before us, the times when it seems nothing good or true or beautiful could ever emerge from the wreckage.
It is in these moments of despair when we are called to remember that the Transfiguration is just as true, just as present, just as enduring.
He is still Lord.
He is still providing.
He is still good.
He is still loving.
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Photo by Boris Baldinger on Unsplash
Seeking After His Heart 