Mark 9:2-13

In our lives there is usually some sort of a turning point where we decide to become someone different, rather than the person we were sliding into becoming. Turning points happen to us, and sometimes we seek them out. Any particular day can be a turning point, or it can be a day where we continue heading in the direction we were already heading. Turning points can be either good or bad. They can be when someone decides they are tired of being poor and they are going to rob a convenience store or a bank. And then everything in their lives changes from that point. A turning point can be the decision to become a better father, or a decision to walk away from fatherly and husbandly duties. I’m certain your life can be diagrammed by plotting the turning points. The decision to pursue one career over another, the decision of whom to marry, the decision to live where we do. Sometimes life just happens to us, but most of the time we can look at turning point choices to chart our lives.

Our text today is a turning point. It is a turning point for a few of the disciples, and I think for Jesus as well. The disciples, like us, have to reach a turning point in their belief about who Jesus was, and what He was doing. Jesus presents them with a turning point, a vision of reality that will shape their characters, their futures, there commitment to God’s kingdom. Mark 9, starting in verse 2. Please stand.

After six days Jesus took Peter, James and John with him and led them up a high mountain, where they were all alone. There he was transfigured before them. His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them. And there appeared before them Elijah and Moses, who were talking with Jesus.

Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters-one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” (He did not know what to say, they were so frightened.)

Then a cloud appeared and enveloped them, and a voice came from the cloud: “This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!”

Suddenly, when they looked around, they no longer saw anyone with them except Jesus. As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus gave them orders not to tall anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. They kept the matter to themselves, discussing what ‘rising from the dead’ meant.

And they asked him, “Why do teachers of the law say that Elijah must come first?”

Jesus replied, “To be sure, Elijah does come first, and restores all things. Why then is it written that the Son of Man must suffer much and be rejected? But I tell you, Elijah has come, and they have done to him everything they wished, just as it is written about him.”

Let’s pray.

We’re making great progress through Mark. We’ve been taking a long, slow, in-depth look at Mark this year. Mark was the earliest completed of the 4 gospels, according to most scholars who study this sort of thing for their careers. For many years I read Mark with less seriousness than the other gospels; I assumed Mark was just a shorter version, with less depth and interesting bits than Luke or Matthew, who both used Mark as their template, while at the same time expanding on what Mark wrote. So instead of digging into Mark, I preferred to dig deep into Matthew or Luke. Mark doesn’t have the same targets in mind like Luke, who was targeting non-Jews, or Matthew, who was targeting Jews. Mark is more generalized, a much quicker and more basic description of some of the important happenings of Jesus life. I’ve been delighted to discover there is real depth to Mark, but his writing is pithy, and so it is easy to miss the depth. I’m hopeful that the depth I’m enjoying has been blessing us all.

To catch you up into the story, Jesus has been healing and feeding His way through both Northern Israel and into Gentile lands beyond Israel’s boundaries. Last week we looked at Jesus feeding the 4000, who were mostly Gentiles. Following that episode came Peter’s confession of Christ, and then Jesus description of the seriousness following Him entails. At the same time, Jesus begins to talk about His death, because Jesus came to accomplish our salvation, which is a very serious endeavor, and was not to be accomplished without the spilling of blood. So we’re coming out of a very serious teaching place with the disciples, and then Jesus takes a couple of the disciples up the mountain to cement in their minds the commitment they have made in confessing Him to be the Messiah; this is a the completion of their turning point. They have decided that Jesus is Lord and Savior; He is from God. And when we make that conclusion, it always is a turning point, over and over.

Today’s passage should be well known. There is even a particular Sunday during the year when pastor’s who preach according to the lectionary are supposed to preach on the transfiguration. The transfiguration is about reality; it is about a temporary pulling back of the veil so that a few disciples can see reality. They were allowed to see the majesty and wonder of a reality that awaits all those who die in Christ will get someday. So let’s take a deep look at this turning point for the disciples, and for us.

Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters-one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” (He did not know what to say, they were so frightened.)

I suppose the first thing I need to do is to help us understand the context. You’ll remember from last week Jesus talked about the sacrifice needed to follow Him; that He Himself would be rejected, would be killed, and anyone else who would be His disciple could expect the same sort of treatment. Jesus talked a lot about the disciples laying their lives down, being prepared to pick up their individual crosses, an image of painful death, and follow Him. Jesus talked about them losing their lives, in order to save it. And then after that bummer of a conversation, I mean the disciples had been riding on a high, feeding people, healing people, doing wondrous things. Then comes the reality of the necessity of their own crosses. And then Jesus lets the disciples see a bit of reality.

It must have been an amazing thing to see Jesus as He is for all eternity; shining, glowing, radiating. Whiter than the best bleach, one of the other gospels describes Jesus as white as lightning. The word for changed used in the text is “metamorphesthe”, from which we get our word “metamorphosis”. The best example of a metamorphosis, is of course, when a caterpillar becomes butterfly. The reality of what the creature really is comes to the surface. The caterpillar is shown to be how it really is to be. That’s what we have here with Jesus. The few chosen disciples are granted the privilege of seeing what Jesus was really like; what He was like before taking on flesh, and what He will look like in eternity, at least, as much as the disciples can handle.

And then two people, two heroes really, of Israel’s history show up and begin to speak with Jesus. Moses was the prophet who received the 10 commandments from God and led the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt and to the verge of the promised land. Moses also wrote the first 5 books of the Bible, which we called the Pentateuch. It is these books which defined and regulated the lives of all Israelites and continue to do so. It is Moses who personifies the Law. And at the same time, it is Elijah who is the greatest of the later prophets of Israel. The Old Testament was referred to back then, and still is, as being The Law and The Prophets. Scholars say Moses represents the Law, and Elijah represents the Prophets. Here the disciples are given a representation of the entire Old Testament, or as they knew it, the only Scriptures God gave to the people of the covenant. Not only is Jesus on par with these historical religious heroes, but Jesus is the only one who turns blazing white, white as pure can be. Moses and Elijah are there, talking with Jesus, but it is only Jesus who is transformed.

In the Monday night Bible study, 7pm in the chapel, we’ve been looking at Romans. I’ve been impressed by one particular turning point in Paul’s thought, Romans 3:21ff. It says this after a diatribe on how following the law of the OT will not win anyone’s salvation because no one is righteous, all have sinned: “But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.” Here in the transfiguration we have representatives of the Law and the Prophets doing exactly that, testifying to who Jesus is by their acceptance of Him. The Old Testament testifies to Christ, and yet so many people missed it. Here at the top of the mountain, when we see Jesus transformed into what He is really like, we see His acceptance for who He is by the Law and the Prophets.

I love Peter. He is like me in that he blurts out stupid stuff at moments that are inappropriate. In a moment of peace and wonder, Peter wants to start stacking rocks. It must have been Peter himself who interjected into the gospel story that Peter didn’t know what to say, because he was frightened. One commentary suggested that Peter was imitating the Jewish festival of booths, which is a Jewish reminder of their time wandering in the desert. The festival is a time generally, of patriotic fervor and nationalism. Perhaps by offering to build the shelters Peter is asking Jesus to lead the nation, as Moses did, and defeat their enemies, as Elijah did. Also, both men died in triumph and mysterious ways. With Jesus speaking of His death, maybe Peter is trying to offer another way for Jesus to be the Messiah. Peter needs to shut up and listen. Peter’s idea comes to naught as God speaks again from Heaven.

Then a cloud appeared and enveloped them, and a voice came from the cloud: “This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!”

Suddenly, when they looked around, they no longer saw anyone with them except Jesus.

God speaks from Heaven, just as in Jesus baptism. And God says essentially the same thing as when John the Baptist baptized Jesus in the Jordan. Perhaps this transfiguration can be seen, not as a baptism, but a continued commissioning of Jesus ministry. The knowledge that Jesus and the disciples are on the right path, that they are doing God’s will, is going to become increasingly important as the head into the difficulties and struggles of the last week of Jesus life, in Jerusalem, where the cross awaits. The difference is that God tells the disciples directly to listen to Jesus. God says He is pleased with Jesus in the humble obedience He shows in getting baptized, but this time God tells the disciples to listen to Jesus. Jesus words will guide, encourage and sustain the disciples through the Passover week, through to Resurrection Sunday and beyond as they begin to take Jesus message of love and sacrifice out to the world.

This is God’s Son, whom we love as well. Certainly not as well as the God who personifies love, but we love Jesus too. One of the best ways to show Jesus we love Him is to listen to Him, and not just listen but put into practices His words. To love one another, to carry each other’s problems, to pray for one another, to listen to God in our prayer time. To show mercy, to offer grace and forgiveness through Christ, to love those lost in sin to reflect the love that we received when we were neck deep in sin and headed the wrong way. It is going to be by listening to Jesus, when He says that He will die and rise again, that the disciples should have been able to get through the last week with a minimum of trauma. But instead, the disciples don’t listen. They listen a little, and then try to bring their vast wisdom to bear on Jesus words. I think we do that sometimes as well. Jesus can’t really mean we supposed to visit those in prison, to care for the widow and the orphan. That’s hard, and following Christ is supposed to be easy, isn’t it? No. Following Christ is a laying down of our lives, our thoughts, our hopes and dreams and picking up His. Following Christ is setting aside the sins that so easily entangle us to follow Christ wherever He leads, to listen and do what He says. I wish that were easy. But most of the time it is tough.

Listening to Jesus instead of ourselves is the obedience, it is the disciple of our lives. But it is one of the very few things God says directly to us from Heaven. This is my Son, listen to Him. And then the voice is gone, as are Elijah and Moses. But Jesus is still there, headed toward the cross.

As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus gave them orders not to tall anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. They kept the matter to themselves, discussing what ‘rising from the dead’ meant.

And they asked him, “Why do teachers of the law say that Elijah must come first?”

The disciples are confused, as usual. They have seen Jesus in His glory, His majesty, whiter than white, chatting with the heroes of their people. And yet, there is all this talk of Jesus suffering and being rejected. How could this be, that Jesus who does so much good would suffer and be rejected? The term Jesus uses here for Himself is the “Son of Man”, directly out of Daniel 7. The Son of Man in Daniel gets to the throne only along the road of affliction as the faithful Jews were ready to die for their faith. But there is something else. The Jewish prophets also speak, primarily in Isaiah 53, of a suffering servant of the people.

Isaiah 53:2ff “He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.” It goes on, but you get the idea. The prophets spoke of a suffering servant, and the disciples are not yet understanding this is Christ. He is the God who was transformed before them, but He also humbles Himself to be the suffering servant, crushed for our transgressions, our sins.

Jesus was the being transformed, but He also, for us, was the Son of Man chosen to take our place on the cross that we deserve. In His wounds we are healed. The punishment that should have been ours He bore on the cross. That is what is coming for Jesus. It confused the disciples because they didn’t have the benefit of looking back on the events as we do. The disciples were at a turning point, and yet failed to realize it completely. They knew that Jesus was the Christ, and so that turning point had been reached, and completed. But there would be other turning points, where their commitment to Jesus would be challenged, is He really the Christ? Are you willing to bet your life on that? And that is true for us as well. We face turning points as well. Maybe yours is today; maybe today is the turning point in your life when you commit your life to Jesus. Maybe today is the day you accept Him, His death, His resurrection, was on your account, for your sins. And if it is, good. In fact, great! That is wonderful. For the rest of us, we depend on God’s will to help us through the turning points of our daily lives…the decision to follow God, to believe His Word, to walk by faith and not sight as we obediently lay our lives down before the King of Kings. Any day can have a turning point. Let today contain one of yours.

Let’s pray.