The Transfiguration is such a strange and unusual event. Jesus takes his disciples Peter, James, and John up to a mountaintop where a metamorphosis happens. He and his clothing begin to glow. Meanwhile, Moses and Elijah appear and speak with the transfigured Jesus.
Peter somehow identifies the Lawgiver and prophet, and he suggests building three tabernacles in honor of each holy man. “While he was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud cast a shadow over them, then from the cloud came a voice that said ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; hear him’” (Matthew 17:1–9).
This part about the “bright cloud” gets my attention. A bright cloud. How can a cloud be bright? English idioms usually employ the language of clouds to connote confusion, disorientation, and foreboding.
William Wordsworth wandered lonely as a cloud. Thinking becomes clouded when heads are in the clouds. There’s the fog of war, and the future may seem cloudy. A person floats on cloud nine, but the cloud of suspicion hovers over a shady character. If you take too much cold medicine, your head will get foggy. Issues become clouded. Take cover when storm clouds are on the horizon.
On the mountaintop, the bright cloud overshadows Peter, James, and John. How could a bright cloud cast a bright shadow? A cloud usually has the connotation of obscuring truth, but here the cloud makes a profound revelation.
How can all this be?
Bright Clouds play significant roles in the Bible. The Pillar of Cloud led the Israelites through the wilderness, a cloud filled the tabernacle and the temple, and a bright cloud represented God’s presence in Ezekiel’s vision. In all these cases, Bright Clouds represented the Presence of God.
Sirach 23:19 uses the same Greek word “bright” that St. Matthew employs to describe the cloud. “This man is only afraid of other people. He doesn’t realize that the eyes of the Lord are 10,000 times brighter than the sun, that he sees everything we do, even when we try to hide it.” For Sirach, God’s brightness is infinitely more brilliant than the sun and illuminates everything so that God can see all human actions, so that nothing is hidden, including the thoughts and intentions of our hearts that might remain hidden from our own awareness.
The old saying asserts that every cloud has a silver lining, but it rarely feels that way. Blithely announcing to people undergoing a severe crisis that their cloud surely has a silver lining is beyond insensitive. How can war, disease, or loss have a silver lining?
Every cloud may not have a silver lining, but people overshadowed by the darkest clouds have often found light more luminous than the sun.
Countless people have discovered indescribable love, significance, and peace through their experience of illness, disaster, and tragedy. This is not to suggest that we should seek suffering, nor does it mean that people who haven’t encountered such depth of meaning are somehow morally or spiritually deficient. It’s just that God does not abandon us in our clouds.
Our clouds real, and the emotions they elicit should not be ignored. Peter, James, and John “were very much afraid.” Casually disregarding our clouds is not a sign of strong faith; it’s foolish. However, Jesus heartens his three friends (and us) to be courageous.
As the four of them descended the mountain, Jesus instructed his followers, “Do not tell the vision to anyone until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.” It’s not appropriate to speak about certain spiritual truths, realities, and experiences with just anyone. There needs to be mutual trust, humility, and understanding when discussing one’s spiritual experiences especially related to their clouds.
The author of 14th century spiritual classic, The Cloud of Unknowing, warns in the prologue that no one should “read it, nor write it, nor speak it, nor yet suffer it be read, written, or spoken, of any or to any but if it be of such one, or to such one, that hath by thy supposing in a true will and by an whole intent purposed him to be a perfect follower of Christ.”
Spiritual truths, St. Paul contends in 1Corinthians 2:14, must be spiritually discerned.
If you’ve ever tried to communicate a spiritual experience you’ve had, you know words can it’s impossible to find appropriate words. Talking or writing about it always seems less than what it was. But someone who wants to understand in love can get it because deep calls unto deep — and both deeps empty into the Ultimate Deep that is God. As Meister Eckhart said, The eye with which I see God is the eye with which God sees me. They are the same eye.”
We all experience clouds, even on our mountaintops. Anticipating our cloudy days can provoke anxiety, and waiting for them is not a spiritual virtue. However, we can prepare with the trust that our clouds are suffused with the presence of God.
On those cloudy days, don’t look for the silver lining. Listen for the voice coming from the cloud that is only heard with the ear of the spirit. The Bright Cloud will reveal more than it conceals and illuminate more than it obscures. With that, we may find that we’re the ones who have been transfigured.
