But soon, too soon, the glory and the rapture passed and the three Apostles were conscious again of the slopes of Hermon and of the cold mountain wind and the first light of dawn as another day began.  And as they came down the mountain Jesus commanded them, “Tell no one the vision, until the Son of man is raised from the dead” (Catholic edition RSV, Matthew 17:9).

The Transfiguration, coming as it did immediately after Our Lord’s first warning of his Passion and death, was designed to implant in the Apostles’ minds and hearts the certainty that, despised and rejected though he might be of men, he was nevertheless the chosen and beloved of God.  So when, at his journey’s end, they saw his face surmounted with the crown of thorns, and his hands and feet rent with the crucifying nails, and his seamless robe become a gambler’s prize, they would remember how before the journey started, they had been dazzled by the glory of his face and hands and feet and robe.