Transfiguration - Rev Allister Lane
READING: MARK 9:2-9
Here is a mountain-top experience that is written to impress.
Jesus is transfigured. His disciples see him dazzling, and with him are Moses and Elijah. Then from a cloud a voice says
This is my Son, the Beloved
And what does the voice say next?
Look at him! Isn’t this a stunning display! What a light show!
That’s what I’d expect God the Father to say. But he doesn’t. Why not? Isn’t it about the light show?
There are some impressive light shows around for us to see. The Botanic Gardens here in Wellington have had impressive light shows this summer. Last week the SuperBowl in the US had an amazing half-time light show.
These are done to impress. And yet, in Mark 9 at the climax of one of the Bible’s grandest visual light shows of glory, God the Father comes and advises not that the disciples look at Jesus.
Nope, what we get is:
Listen to him.
Listen to him??
In the film Forrest Gump, his girlfriend Jenny really aspires to be a folksinger. But the only gig she can secure is one that requires her to appear on stage wearing nothing but her guitar. Perched on a stool naked as the day she was born, she finds it powerfully difficult to get the audience to listen to her singing. The men in the audience had come to look, not listen, and the figure on the stage was ensuring that looking was what it was going to be all about no matter how well she tried to also sing.
Why are the disciples told they need to listen to Jesus? What are the three words at the start of today’s reading?
Six days later…
Well, what had happened six days earlier? A couple of really important things:
Firstly, Jesus had asked “Who do you say that I am?” (8:29)
And Peter had answered correctly: “You are the Messiah”
Probably just as Peter was feeling deserving of ‘Disciple of the Year’ award, Jesus starts talking about what messianic ‘glory’ will look like:
…the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, …and be killed, and after three days rise again. (8:31)
This understanding of ‘glory’ clearly didn’t resonate with Peter. And perhaps feeling ‘pumped’ from getting his previous correct answer, Peter rebukes Jesus for all this ‘doom-and-gloom talk’.
For this, Jesus gives Peter that surprising title of ‘Satan’s little helper’.
And then corrects the expectations by explaining the real dynamic of the Good News: It’s an upside-down, counterintuitive reality. It’s a world where living under the sentence of death, giving up oneself, losing one’s very life, are all the ticket to true glory.
Six days later, it would seem the disciples still haven’t ‘got it’. And so God the Father says
listen to him!
Indeed, after this event Mark tells subsequent arguments among the disciples:
as to who is the greatest among them (cf. Mark 9:33ff) and
how James and John’s request for the top two cabinet posts in the upcoming Jesus Administration (cf. Mark 10:35)
These events tell us that they had not listened to Jesus’ words – or if they had listened, they had not taken the words seriously, much less to heart.
Perhaps we shouldn’t be too harsh on the disciples for initially misunderstanding the nature of the gospel, which inverts the usual power dynamics.
A characteristic way Mark tells the Jesus Story is by jumping quickly from moment to moment. The story is fast-paced, with lots of paragraphs starting with “Immediately…” and “And then…”
It’s possible Mark has included this event to bring a clearer understanding, balancing the various dynamics of what Jesus’ messiahship is, and bringing cohesion to the whole story.
Jesus is at the centre of this divine light show and deliberately associated with Hebrew heavyweights: Moses and Elijah. This is not to impress us with the visuals exactly, but to back up everything Jesus has ever said, including what Jesus had just said six days ago.
We are to see Jesus as consistent with, and continuing on, the Big Story of God. Jesus is located within the big story, and Mark wants us to see the coherence (even when the disciples struggled at the time).
Can I draw your attention to one pattern in Mark’s Gospel that strongly suggests this story is told to provide coherence to the events of the Gospel as it bears witness to who Jesus is? There are 3 ‘Son of God’ confessions Mark has in his gospel.
1. The first is the voice of God at Jesus‘s baptism.
You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased. (1:11)
2. The second is the transfiguration – today’s event.
3. The third is the crucifixion – which is sort of a ‘reverse transfiguration’ in which the vision of Jesus dying in utter abandonment to the will of God brings from the lips of the Roman Centurion the confession:
Truly this man was God’s Son! (15:39)
The first is full of radiant promise, the last witnesses to steadfastness in despair.
And here in the middle one, the Transfiguration combines glory and suffering to present the paradox of divine power and weakness, lowliness and majesty, that is the full ‘glory’ of Jesus Christ.
This still challenges our understandings today, doesn’t it…? Many want to say that our existence is merely material. What we see is what we get. All there is to understand is what we can see, hear, touch and measure.
Many scientists feel science itself struggles to limit our reality to materialism. Materialism certainly can’t explain love, hope, passion. Materialism can’t explain the mystery we sense is close by. The movement of the Spirit within us, between us, around us.
We talk here at St John’s about The Pathway of Faith we are on as a community. This Pathway of Faith has eight pillars, and two of these are Peak experiences and Encounters with Jesus.
What are these moments in our lives; where we become more aware of God’s light dazzling?
Seeing a child holding the hand of their Dad
Fun had with a balloon
Floating an old stick
Rude sounds with hands and armpits!
Kindness given without expectation of return
Beauty of nature that can’t be captured, just enjoyed in the moment
Can such Peak Experiences also be Encounters with Jesus? When we are sensitive and still enough, we might encounter Jesus.
Reminding us God is greater/bigger than my own little ‘patch’.
We have a chance to re-calibrate and reset our focus and priorities.
We find our emotions engaged and our imagination captured.
Maybe it is through a difficult time we encounter Jesus, as that is all you have to hold onto.
Our encounters with Jesus sustain our faith in the valleys, and refresh the life journey.
What might be something you can try? It will be different for all of us, but you might be able to identify when you feel closer to God. Would you consider taking some time to intentionally place yourself where you feel close to God?
Walk
Music
Cooking for others
Act of service
Silence…?
What ways do you know already make you feel close to God? Will you give yourself some time this week to do this? Will you allow yourself to be still and listen to Jesus?
It is good for us to be with Jesus. Amen.