When the Mountain Reveals What Was Always There

In 2010, art restorer Dianne Dwyer Modestini spent months carefully removing centuries of dark varnish and crude overpainting from a small panel attributed to Leonardo da Vinci. For generations, the work known as Salvator Mundi had been dismissed as a copy — a $45 painting at a Louisiana estate sale. But as Modestini's careful hands lifted away each layer of grime, she began to tremble. Beneath the dullness, Leonardo's unmistakable sfumato technique emerged: the soft curl of blessing fingers, the luminous crystal orb, the haunting gaze of Christ. The masterpiece had been there all along. The world simply couldn't see it.

On that mountain in Luke's Gospel, something similar happened — not to a painting, but to a person. Peter, James, and John had walked with Jesus for months. They knew the carpenter's calloused hands, the dust on his sandals, the weariness in his voice after long days of teaching. Then, as he prayed, everything they thought they knew was interrupted by blazing glory. His face changed. His clothes became lightning-white. Moses and Elijah appeared, and the voice of the Almighty thundered through the cloud: "This is my Son, whom I have chosen. Listen to him."

The Transfiguration didn't make Jesus something he wasn't. It revealed what he had always been. And like Modestini before that restored masterpiece, the only proper response was reverent, trembling awe.