The story of Jesus’ transfiguration is a strange story.  We have just heard Matthew’s account.  Mark and Luke give similar accounts.  The disciples who accompany Jesus up the mountain become so confused.  Mark in his gospel says they didn’t know what to say or how to react because they were so gripped by fear.  Matthew portrays Peter’s attempt at response as remarkably inappropriate.  Peter wants to construct booths to somehow contain the experience.  He’s immediately cut off by the voice from heaven.

What does it all mean?  What does it mean for Jesus to be transfigured and shine so brightly before his disciples?  And why should the burst of brightness radiating from him bring on such fear and confusion in his disciples?  What is actually being said here in the gospel?

Scholars tell us the gospel writers are trying to convey and communicate an experience the disciples had on the mountain.  In the experience the disciples gained penetrating insight into Jesus’ depth – into Jesus’ true self.
And that movement toward insight into Jesus, we are told, was frightening for the disciples.  Frightening – because to get to Jesus’ depth and truth – they had to move beyond all that had become familiar and important to them about Jesus.  They had to move beyond his looks and moods – beyond the familiar manner and behavior they had become used to.

Now that should not surprise us.  Coming to know another person – as that person truly, deeply is – does require profound self-denial on our part.  It requires we give up our favorite expectations of and our ready projections onto that person.  And when that other person is Jesus, then a particular kind of self-denial is called for – what biblical and spiritual writers call “unknowing”.  They speak of entering into “the cloud of unknowing” – just as we see in the transfiguration account.  There – in “the cloud of unknowing” – the disciples learn by un-learning.  They know by un-knowing.

Let’s take a closer look at what happens with the disciples in the cloud.  There they learn: “Jesus is my beloved son.  In him you see what pleases me.  Listen and learn from him what it means to be a child of God – what it means to be divine.  Listen and learn from him what I, God, am like.”

There begins a frightening task – for the disciples and for us.  There begins our profound self-denial.  If Jesus is the true face of God, then we must un-learn much that we hold to be holy and godly.  It’s a fearful journey to un-know the God we thought we knew.

What do we unlearn and learn?  In Jesus we un-learn what it means for God to wield divine power.  We learn wielding divine power means becoming vulnerable, hurt-able, turning the other cheek.  In Jesus we un-learn God’s heavenly majesty – seeing him seated on some heavenly throne.  We learn God’s humility – God’s passionate need to be here with us, here in us, here among us.  In Jesus we un-learn God’s violent, punishing justice.  We learn God’s justice forgives and blesses the enemy.

In Jesus we see the Father.  We must un-learn the false faces we give to God – and too the false faces we give to ourselves and our church.  That is the self-denial we must learn to practice in Lent.  Lent calls us to enter into “the cloud of unknowing”.  There we will be confused – be gripped by fear.  There too Jesus will touch us and take away our fear.  And somehow – like Peter – we will know deep-down it is good for us to be in the cloud.  We will really be experiencing Jesus.  We will see Jesus.