Sermon for Transfiguration Sunday, February 15, 2015

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.