On the second Sunday of Lent, every year, the Church invites us to contemplate the scene of the transfiguration of Jesus. It is an episode that occurs during the time of his mortal life before his passion and death, but in which he manifests himself with the glory proper to his glorious state to which he attained through his resurrection. Curiously, in the Gospels, when the apparitions of the resurrected Jesus are narrated, in none of them does Jesus manifest himself glorious, radiant, ultramundane as in this one of the transfiguration. Only in the book of the
In Revelation, at the beginning, the seer who writes the book narrates a manifestation of the glorious and divine Jesus that in some aspects resembles his appearance at the transfiguration (Rev 1:13-16). When the risen Jesus appears to his disciples, it is not his glory, his splendor, his majesty that characterizes his presence. Sometimes he has the appearance of an unknown man, or he appears without passing through doors or windows, or he shows rather some signs of his passion, such as the scars of the nails. These are extraordinary features, no doubt, but they do not evoke the glory and splendor of God. Perhaps this is so, because the path to faith passes through discernment and proof; not evidence. In this scene of the transfiguration we are before a very special episode.
Two considerations can be made: What purpose could this manifestation of Jesus have had for the three disciples who witnessed it? What purpose does the account of this manifestation have for us, the readers of the Gospel?
I think we should pay attention that only three of Jesus’ twelve disciples or apostles witnessed the transfiguration. They are the same three who will accompany him more closely in the prayer of Gethsemane. They are the same three who will be with him when he awakens the girl that everyone thought was dead. They are the three disciples closest to Jesus: Peter, James and John. An important apostle is left out, Andrew, Peter’s brother, and of course the other eight. In the Gospel account, immediately before the narration of this episode, Jesus declares and explains for the first time to all his disciples that his days will end in rejection, passion and violent death. Peter had just recognized that Jesus is the Messiah of God, and so that they would not have vain imaginations of a Messiah with divine power to establish a temporal kingdom, Jesus explains to them that yes, it is true that he is the Messiah, but that his mortal days will end in failure and not in overwhelming victory. That must have puzzled the disciples. Then the transfiguration takes place, which occurs only before the select group of the three. I highlight three facets of the scene.
The manifestation takes place on a mountain, where Jesus has gone up to pray. Only St. Luke emphasizes this facet of prayer. The three disciples are with him. While he was praying, his face changed in appearance and his garments became white and flashing. Jesus changes his appearance to reveal the invisible dimension of his identity and his future: he is divine, he will rise again. Then, and this is the second aspect, two personages appeared conversing with him, surrounded by splendor: they were Moses and Elijah. These are the two great characters of the Old Testament, whom God used to establish the faith of 
Israel. They represent the Law and the Prophets. And they spoke of the death that awaited Jesus in Jerusalem. The two characters surrounded by glory and splendor speak of the tragic future that awaited Jesus; the same future that Jesus had announced. The death of Jesus on the cross is not an unforeseen event, but is part of God’s plan announced in the Scriptures. Finally, the third aspect is the manifestation of God himself. A cloud envelops the three heavenly characters and the three disciples who are frightened to see themselves part of a divine manifestation. From the cloud comes a voice proclaiming the identity of Jesus: “This is my Son, my chosen one; listen to him”. The voice corroborates both Jesus’ identity and destiny. God does not disprove the conversation of Moses and Elijah; he confirms it. As the letter to the Hebrews says: “Jesus Christ, though he was a Son, learned obedience through suffering” (Heb 5:8). This is a life lesson for us, who believe that because we are believers, everything should go our way and be convenient for us.
In the middle of the vision there is an intervention by Peter in which he comments that it would be good for us to stay here and make three huts, one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah. The evangelist comments that Peter did not know what he was saying. Peter’s proposal simply underscores the extraordinariness of the vision that corresponds to the human desire for wholeness and divinity. They have glimpsed heaven and want to stay there.
But let us answer the second question: what does the scene mean for us, the readers of the gospel? Today’s second reading helps us to articulate an answer. Paul censures certain of his adversaries who put forward a Judaizing gospel. There are many who live as enemies of the cross of Christ. They are enemies of the 
cross of Christ who do not see in it the way of God, but the failure of man. They are enemies of the cross of Christ who do not believe that God saves through actions that seem weakness and foolishness to human eyes (1 Cor 1:22-25). They are those who trust more in human power, in human cunning, in human wisdom.
St. Paul refers, in his time, to those whose god is the belly, that is, to Judaizers more attentive to the Jewish dietary laws than to the following of Christ; he refers to those who are proud of what they should be ashamed of, that is, who presume more to have submitted to Jewish circumcision while Gentiles than to obey the gospel; he refers also to those who think only of things of the earth, that is, who are believers only for the temporal benefits they could obtain from that condition.
On the other hand, the Christian must think, from now on, that we are citizens of heaven, in order to have our gaze fixed on the transcendent destiny that is the goal of our life. This is the usefulness of the story of the transfiguration for us: there we have the image of our future. From heaven we await Jesus Christ, who will transform our miserable body into a glorious body like his. The transfiguration of Jesus is also a model and figure of our own destiny. But that destiny will be reached by those of us who from now on plan our lives according to that hope.
Mario Alberto Molina, OAR