“Glimpse Behind the Veil” - Transfiguration – 8.6.23
“Glimpse Behind the Veil”
By: Fr. David Schmidt
St. Mark the Evangelist Parish - St. Kilian Church - Cranberry, PA
*No audio available
Mass Readings- https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/080623.cfm
Today, we celebrate the Feast of the Transfiguration when Jesus took Peter, James, and John up the mountain to reveal His glory and divinity to them.
At this point in the Gospels, Jesus had revealed Himself to the Apostles through healings, teachings, casting out demons, etc. and it was enough for Peter to profess that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the Living God, in Matthew 16.
Jesus walked this earth in a veiled fashion. He veiled Himself preventing the Apostles from seeing Him in His full glory. He did this because if He revealed Himself in full to the Apostles in all His glory they would probably drop dead on the spot because they would not be able to handle the glory that God was revealing to them in that moment.
In the first reading, we get this majestic and glory filled depiction of this heavenly being that is described as “one like a Son of man.” We see in this description a taste of how God revealed Himself to Peter, James, and John.
The first reading describes our Lord saying,
“Thrones were set up and the Ancient One took his throne. His clothing was bright as snow, and the hair on his head as white as wool; his throne was flames of fire, with wheels of burning fire. A surging stream of fire flowed out from where he sat; Thousands upon thousands were ministering to him, and myriads upon myriads attended him...”
Could you even image if you saw this? Again, we would drop dead because we wouldn’t be able to handle the glory of God that we were witnessing.
It is this same Jesus who walked this earth with the Apostles, and they have this moment where Jesus is revealed to them, and it made them fall prostrate and made them terrified.
Jesus Christ is terrifying. This isn’t in a bad way where He wants us to be afraid to approach Him. He is terrifying because of His divine glory that infinitely surpasses us and is greater and more majestic than we can imagine.
In the Chronicles of Narnia, CS Lewis describes Aslan, who is the lion that acts as the Christ-figure. In the book, the characters Susan and Mr. Beaver have the following exchange about Aslan.
Susan asks, “Is he-quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion"..."Safe?" said Mr Beaver ..."Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you.”
Jesus Christ is not safe. But He is Good. He is King. He has been given all glory, dominion, and kingship. All peoples, nations, and languages serve Him.
We must approach our Lord and our King with great reverence and awe. We have lost this sense of reverence of our Lord in our world today. This leads us to not take His laws and commandments seriously. We make Him into a God that we can control, so we can live the way that we desire to live.
Our Lord is constantly seeking to reveal Himself to us. He desires for us to know who He is. There are moments when Jesus gives us a peak behind the veil of who He truly is in all His glory. It is not that He is hiding from us, but we are only able to take a little at a time in how He reveals Himself to us because it is too much for us to handle.
We need to pray for those moments in our lives where Jesus reveals His glory to us. We need to pray for moments in our faith life where Jesus becomes more than just another person that existed on this earth. We need to pray for those moments where the Lord reveals Himself to us in such a way that our hearts prostrate themselves out of reverent fear for our Lord as we recognize Him as the Son of God.
Today, let us climb to the top of the mountain with Jesus, and allow Him to give us a peak behind the veil, so that we may have a greater glimpse of His glory. May we approach our Lord with reverence and a holy fear. And may we experience His love and goodness in a way that will allow us to see Him for who He truly is.
