NOTES for Luk 9:28-36

In the account of the Transfiguration, the themes of Christ's glory and His suffering merge into one. On the mountain He speaks with the prophets about His "exodus"—about Golgotha. Coming down from the mountain, Jesus foretells to the disciples what awaits Him in Jerusalem. Interestingly, the disciples prove unable either to see the glory of the transfigured Jesus or to hear His words about the Cross. Perhaps these things are also connected. We can judge this from our own experience: the less we see the Lord's presence in our lives, the less we know what glory is, the less well we understand the words about the cross. The cross appears to us as our ordinary daily troubles rather than the path of faith and self-denial. We can acquire this new understanding of the cross only by seeing the Glory, the living presence of God—openly, as the Apostle Paul did, or in a hidden way, by discerning His action in the circumstances of life.