By: The Rev. Victor Lee Austin
While Moses is speaking face to face with God, his own face is being transformed into a glowing brightness that the Israelites could not stand to look upon. Moses’ transfiguration is a type or anticipation of Jesus’ own transfiguration, when on the mountain three chosen disciples saw his altered countenance and the dazzling whiteness of his raiment. The question is: What does this brightness signify? One might say that it signifies divinity, that the disciples on the mount of transfiguration were granted a vision of Jesus as he really is, “God of God, Light of Light”; that Moses’ face shown as something like a sunburn after having been exposed to the divine. And there’s truth in that. Indeed, rather like a sunburn, Moses’ glow wore off over time, until he met with God again. And Jesus, who really is God, is at the same time really human; so his dazzlingness is shortly concealed, as he descends the mountain and goes on to Jerusalem where he will be crucified-the exact opposite of beauty and glory.
Yet it is wrong, I believe, so to contrast the divine and the human. We could equally say that through his face-to-face conversation with God, Moses’ real humanity is summoned forth. Then what the Israelites see, when they see his glowing face, is the reality of
humanity that is normally hidden from our eyes. Similarly, the chosen three behold Jesus on the mountain as he really is: the one, true, sinless, fully human being.
God reveals in Jesus what it is to be human; and what it is to be human is to shine. Let us remember that, particularly when we think of human beings who are weak or old or small.