Text: Mark 9:2-9
Beloved
in Christ, if you read Mark’s gospel carefully, you notice this pattern
emerging. Christ casts out a demon. Sh. Keep it a secret. Don’t tell anyone.
Christ heals people. Sh. Keep it a secret. Don’t tell anyone. Christ tells parables
that confound people, while offering an explanation only to His disciples. But
sh. Keep it a secret. Don’t tell anyone its meaning, for they will not
understand. And then He does the most amazing thing. He is transfigured before
three of His disciples. He shines as no human being has ever shone before. He
is attended by Moses and Elijah, the two greatest prophets of the Old Testament
era. But sh. Keep it a secret. Don’t tell anyone.
Why
did Jesus want to keep these things secret? Casting out demons and healing
people are good things. Why not talk them up? And what would be wrong with His
disciples telling the whole world that they knew for certain that Jesus was
truly God, for they had seen proof of His divinity with their own eyes? Well,
let me give you an earthly example. Imagine that someone has decided to throw a
surprise birthday party. Now there are all sorts of things that have to be
done. Invitations have to be sent out. A cake has to be ordered, balloons
bought, and presents purchased. If the honored guest catches wind of even one
of these details, the whole effect is ruined. It is only when everything is ready
and assembled that the secret is let out of the bag. And in the same way our
Lord knew that His miracles and especially His transfiguration would be
misunderstood “until [He] had risen from the dead.” Only after
His crucifixion and resurrection would we be able to understand what had
happened.
You
see, God’s glory and majesty and power mean nothing to us in themselves. It
would have been wonderful if Christ could have shone in great glory and convinced
all people to turn from sin and believe in Him and be saved from eternal
damnation. But it doesn’t work that way. The glory of God by itself does not
convince sinners to repent. The Israelites who were alive in Moses’ day had
seen God pour out ten plagues upon the Egyptians. They had seen all the
firstborn sons of the Egyptians killed in one night by the avenging hand of God
while they themselves had suffered no loss. They had seen the Red Sea part so
that they could cross it. When the Egyptians had tried to do the same, they had
drowned. These Israelites had seen manna descend daily from heaven. They had
seen Mount Sinai smoking with God’s presence as if it were a fiery volcano.
They had then seen a bit of that glory stay with them in the form of a pillar
of cloud by day and of fire by night that never left the camp.
There
has been no group of people in the history of the world who saw God’s hand so
clearly as did that generation of Israelites who left Egypt. But what did they
do? They constantly grumbled and complained. They behaved wickedly. They had
heard God thunder from the mountain that they were not to worship any idols.
And then, as the mountain was still smoking, what did they do? They made a
golden calf and worshipped it.
A
similar thing happened in Elijah’s day, some six centuries later. The
Israelites were worshipping Baal, a rain-god who claimed to be able to provide
rain at regular intervals. So what did Elijah do? He prayed and God stopped any
rain from falling in Israel for three and a half years. Some rain-god Baal
proved to be! Then, to drive home the point, Elijah proposed a contest. Let
those who worshipped Baal call on him to send fire from heaven to start a
sacrifice. Elijah would do the same with the LORD God. Then they would see who
the true God was. The worshippers of Baal prayed all day long but to no avail,
but the LORD God consumed Elijah’s sacrifice. What a great victory for Elijah!
But what did the Israelites do? They went back to worshipping Baal not long
thereafter.
God’s
glory in itself will never change people. By itself it is a sign of judgment
and thus it is a manifestation of the law. We can be terrified by His law for a
while, but human stubbornness, selfishness, and sinfulness is more ingrained into
us than is the fear of God. The effect of God’s glory wears off and we revert
to our former wickedness. At best, a glimpse of God’s glory and the thundering
of the law keeps us in check for a while. But it will not last for long. And
sometimes it doesn’t even have that effect on us. Instead, we are so overwhelmed
by the experience that we babble as Peter did.
That
is why God the Father didn’t tell Peter and the others to look more intensely
at Christ’s glory. Instead, He said, “This is my beloved Son; listen to
Him.” And at that time, when their ears were finally open to hearing
Him, Christ was no longer transfigured or surrounded by the two prophets of
old.
Mark
doesn’t tell us exactly what Jesus had been saying that Peter hadn’t been
paying attention to. But Luke does. Luke tells us that Christ was discussing
His upcoming mission to Jerusalem, where He would suffer and die on the cross
before rising from the dead. And, indeed, Mark does relate that Jesus talked
about those matters when He was coming down the mountain. Thus, it is clear
that the most glorious thing that Christ could think about in His most
glorious, transformative moment was the cross and the resurrection that would
follow the cross. And that should be our focus too.
You
see, it is good to know that Jesus Christ is true God, but it is just as vital
to know why He is true God in human flesh. He has come to save the world, and
that could not be done while His face shone with glory. He had to be handed
over to the authorities, and He had to look as if He were the least important
person in all human history. The powers of that day had to think that He was
the one person who could be manhandled with impunity because He was of no
account. For He could not have died any other way.
And
yet Peter, James, and John were given this insight into Jesus so that they
could have a different view of what was happening. Jesus wasn’t the weak,
helpless man He appeared to be, but was the almighty Son of God. God hadn’t
turned His back on Him, but rather approved of His mission of reconciling
sinners to Himself. Christ was transfigured so that three of His disciples
could understand better what He was up to. And we are told about His transfiguration
so that we can understand His death and resurrection in a deeper way. Christ
was no mere victim. He was no mere martyr for a cause. He was Almighty God, on
a mission that only God could have accomplished.
And
this helps us to understand our lives too. If the Almighty Son of God did not
show off His glory at all times, we too should expect that our lives here on
earth will not always reflect the glory that will be ours in the resurrection,
when we will receive our full adoption as God’s beloved children. If the
Almighty Son of God put aside His glory and trod along the path that led to the
cross, we too must expect to suffer while we are still here. But just as Christ
knew that He was God’s beloved Son despite all that He would undergo, so we too
should know that we are God’s beloved children, no matter what pain or grief we
experience. Just as Christ continued to trust in His Father when His enemies
beat and mocked Him, so we too should trust in our heavenly Father when we
suffer, especially for our faith. God is still in control. Christ still is the
glorious Son of God. Nothing we undergo can separate us from that truth.
We
know that our life here on earth is an episode in a much greater story. It isn’t
the whole story. Yes, it is full of sadness and gloom at times. It is set in a
dark valley, the valley of the shadow of death. But it is these dark chapters
that set up a more glorious end to the tale. We think back to the glories that
began the story and we press on to the glories that will be ours in the end.
This
is especially important for us to remember as we approach the Lenten season. Lent
is a time when we take discipleship more seriously than we usually do. We might
be tempted to grab onto a moment of glory and let it compel us to be better
disciples than we have been. But that is just as foolish as Peter trying to
build three tents and camp on the Mount of Transfiguration for the rest of his
life. Instead we are sent back down into the valley and on a lonely, winding
path that leads inexorably to the cross. It is in the cross of Christ that we
will find our redemption. It is the cross of Christ that will renew us and make
us better disciples.
Therefore,
beloved in Christ, keep this vision of Christ in your heart. Let it be a secret
that sustains you on your Lenten journey and prepares you to celebrate Him who
has risen from the dead. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
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