Luke is the only one of the evangelists who begins his account [of the Transfiguration] by indicating the purpose of Jesus’s ascent: He “went up on the mountain to pray” (Luke 9:28).

Luke is the only one of the evangelists who begins his account [of the Transfiguration] by indicating the purpose of Jesus’s ascent: He “went up on the mountain to pray” (Luke 9:28). It is in the context of Jesus’s prayer that he now explains the event that the three disciples are to witness: “And as he was praying, the appearance of his face was altered, and his clothing became dazzling white” (Luke 9:29). The transfiguration is a prayer event; it displays visibly what happens when Jesus talks with his father: the profound interpenetration of his being with God, which then becomes pure light. In his oneness with the Father, Jesus is himself “light from light”. The reality that he is in the deepest core of his being, which Peter tried to express in his confession – that reality becomes perceptible to the senses at this moment: Jesus’s being in the light of God, his own being-light as son.

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