Mt 17, 1-9
«*This* is my Son, my beloved, my chosen one; listen to him.”
Jesus often withdraws to pray, and sometimes he does so in the company of his closest disciples. But there are three moments when his prayer has a special character, and the evangelists echo this by narrating the scene in detail. These are the moments when he must make the most important decisions of his life, and in all of them he turns to prayer in search of clarity to discern and strength to respond.
The first takes place in the Judean desert after John’s baptism. In it, Jesus must decide between launching himself onto the roads to preach the good News, or returning to the quiet existence in his Nazareth workshop. The second is the one narrated in today’s gospel, where he has to choose between remaining in Galilee or universalizing his message by bringing the good News to the very heart of Judea. If he remains in Galilee as a rural prophet, the reach of his message will be very limited, but at least his life will not be in danger. On the other hand, if he goes up to Jerusalem, he will expose himself to serious risk, as he knows that the authorities are looking for him to kill him. The third occurs in Gethsemane at the most anguished moment of his life.
Probably today’s account is based on one of these prayer retreats, but Matthew interprets what the physical eyes saw with the eyes of faith. And what he tells us is that in Jesus there is much more than what is seen; that the one who is going to ascend to Jerusalem, will be arrested by the authorities, tortured and crucified, is in reality the beloved Son; the favorite; to whom we must listen. Matthew wants to warn us in advance: “Do not be mistaken; God is with that man who apparently will be defeated by the priests; and not with those who will kill him.”
We found a similar theophany in the account of the baptism of Jesus before going out to the roads of Galilee, and given its similarity to today’s, we can venture that its intention is the same: “When you see him facing the holy and wise men of Israel, or in company with sinners, or disregarding the Law, or abandoned by a good portion of his followers, do not forget that he is the beloved Son, the chosen one…”
But it is possible that Matthew, in addition, is launching a message of much greater depth; and that message would be that “Reality” is not limited to what we see and understand, but that there is a world that neither is seen nor is comprehensible by reason, but it is the one that really matters.
Within each of us there is a provisional and a definitive reality, and the accounts of the Resurrection make sense when interpreted in this way. When Jesus is stripped of tangible reality, the definitive reality manifests in him, and the disciples are able to grasp it. And it is their testimony that opens us to the hope that we too are more than what we see; that death is not the final failure, but the transition from this ephemeral reality to the definitive one.
Miguel Ángel Munárriz Casajús
To read an article by José E. Galarreta on a similar topic, click here
English version translated with AI