In
Matthew 17, we have one of the clearest depictions of how the mission of Jesus
relates to the history of Israel. The appearance of Moses and Elijah is one
thing. But another detail, easy to miss, is perhaps more significant. Verse 2
says that ‘his garments became white as the light’. We note that in Daniel 7:9,
the ‘Ancient of Days’, the judge of all creation who rules in favour of God’s
holy people, is also depicted as having ‘garments as white as snow’. This is
not the only time in the Old Testament that judgement and the purity of white
appearance go together. When Jacob speaks over his 12 sons—the twelve tribes of
Israel—Judah is singled out as having his garments ‘washed in wine’, and this
time it is his teeth that are ‘whiter than milk’ (Gen 49:11-12). Here Judah is
connected to a universal kingly, messianic figure. By depicting him as possessing
this characteristic of white, Matthew is indicating that Jesus himself is this
judge of all peoples that issues from one of Israel’s tribes. In the gospel of
John, the significance of these images is cast in propositional form: ‘The
Father judges no one, but has committed all judgment to the son’. With this
image established, Matthew then delivers the surprising bit. Having been
identified with the judge of all creation, Jesus then says that he will soon
suffer at the hands of the scribes of Israel. The mission of judging and
restoring the world is met with opposition.
This
provides an interesting perspective on temptation, one of the themes of Lent.
It is well and good to consider as temptations those things that we understand
as ‘bad behaviour’. But Matthew reminds us that the fundamental temptation
concerns siding with the forces that oppose Jesus’ mission. Temptation, in this
sense, is the refusal to suppose that the judgment of creation has already
begun. Because this is precisely what Jesus’ transfiguration means. The Ancient
of Days walked among us and pronounced his verdict. But how easy it is to
suppose that this judgment shall occur at some point beyond the panorama of
what is ours presently. Resisting temptation, then, is the imaginative posture
by which we participate in the renewal of creation in the midst of a world that
claims it will all happen on its own. Perhaps grasping this is why William Law,
whom we commemorate today, so implacably put to us the reality of Christ’s
claim on the whole of life. ‘While we are labouring after Christian
perfection’, he wrote, ‘we are labouring for eternity’. During Lent, our
awareness of Jesus’ mission should be heightened, as that eternal judgment of
God has begun in Christ and continues to work in our lives as we open ourselves
to his purposes.
Samuel
Pomeroy
The Transfiguration (La transfiguration) by James Tissot - Online Collection of Brooklyn Museum; Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 2006, 00.159.145_PS1.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/
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