Luke’s Transfiguration story has two details that set this scene in parallel with Gethsemane:

1. Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up on the mountain specifically to pray (Luke 9:28 // 22:40).
2. While Jesus is praying, the disciples are deep in sleep (Luke 9:32 // 22:45–46).
   

What would be the point in connecting these scenes together? That’s what this post is about. First, these scenes are already connected together by their common setting: suffering, death, and resurrection. Before Jesus is transfigured in Luke 9:28–32, Jesus begins telling his disciples explicitly that he must suffer, be killed, and rise again (9:22). In the Transfiguration, as Jesus talks with Moses and Elijah, the topic of conversation is what was “about to be fulfilled in Jerusalem.” Gethsemane and the passion story is the fulfillment itself. Both scenes have the end of the Gospel story in mind.

There’s more to say about the topic of this conversation between Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. The topic of their conversation is, more specifically, about Jesus’s exodus (Luke 9:31). That’s what is about to be fulfilled, a new exodus led by Jesus. Both Moses and Elijah know something about exodus. Moses led the paradigmatic exodus, but Elijah led one of his own. Elijah is a key figure who appears in 1 Kings 17 to lead the faithful remnant of God’s people out from among Israel-Judah’s corrupt kings. In Elijah’s story God’s power is working on the outskirts of the kingdom, leading his people to follow the guidance of the prophets in and through exile. Moses led the paradigmatic exodus, Elijah paved the prophetic exodus way, but it’s through Jesus that the ultimate exodus happens. By linking together the Transfiguration and Gethsemane, Luke makes clear that Jesus’s exodus is fulfilled in his suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension.

Linking together these two moments causes the reader to compare and contrasts Jesus’s state of being in each scene. In the Transfiguration Jesus appears in glory, and in Gethsemane he weeps and sweats drops of blood. There’s a clear contrast here, but Luke (and all the Gospel writers) wants you to see these contrasting states on analogy. It’s through his suffering and death that he is lifted up, exalted, and crowned king. His triumphal procession is his resurrection and ascension. Luke hints at this analogy in his Transfiguration setup, when he says that “the son of man” must suffer, be killed, and rise on the third day (Luke 9:22). I take almost all of the son of man references in the Gospels to be hyperlinks to Daniel 7. I know about all the literature that downplays those references, and I’ve read a good bit of it. I just don’t find it compelling. It makes much more sense to me to think that Daniel’s son of man passage is a primary lens through which the Gospel writers understood Jesus’s suffering, death, resurrection, and especially his ascension. At the end of the day, Gethsemane is as a revelation of Jesus’s glory just like the Transfiguration. Surely other New Testament authors want us to see this, too. Remember what all creation celebrates in Revelation 5 — the slain lamb. The Transfiguration is an apocalypse of Jesus’s glory as the divine Son, and so is Gethsemane. Finally, an “adam” has come who doesn’t cave to his own preferences, but demonstrates a unity of will with the Father — that’s what we see in Gethsemane.

It’s noteworthy that Jesus is praying in both scenes. His glory is revealed in both scenes as he prays. He is transfigured while praying (Luke 9:29), and it is through the words he speaks to the Father in Gethsemane that we see the mysterious beauty of his union with the Father (Luke 22:42). In both scenes, Jesus prays with friends, too. Granted, in Gethsemane he steps away from them a bit, but the disciples are with him nonetheless. The Father and the Son want the disciples to see and experience the Son’s glory. This sounds strikingly like what Jesus prayed in John 17.

There are a lot to think about by setting these scenes in parallel, but if Luke intended the hyperlinks mentioned at the top of this post, I think he did so for one primary reason: He wants his readers to become like Jesus. The path to transfigured new creation glory is the path of following Jesus through Gethsemane. It’s easy to say this—it sounds almost trite—but the older I get the more substantial the journey becomes. Every human being suffers and dies, but I don’t want to do so like every human being. I want to do so like Jesus, in union with the Father and Spirit.