Transfiguration

Mark 9:2-9

By

Reverend Litton Logan

February 26, 2006

Sombra Del Monte Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

Scriptures:

Mark 9:2-9 (NRSV)

^9:2Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves.  And he was transfigured before them, ³and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. ⁴And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. ⁵Then Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” ⁶He did not know what to say, for they were terrified. ⁷Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” ⁸Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.

⁹As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.

The New Revised Standard Version of the Bible

First

Parsons Technology, Inc.

Cedar Rapids, IA

Sermon:

The author of Mark’s Gospel writes to a persecuted church of predominately Gentile Christians whose religious origins lay in Jewish Christianity.

Mark’s church, some forty-years after the death and resurrection of Jesus, was in the process of re-interpreting or re-emphasizing certain core ideas of the Gospel, which would have been of greater significance to them in their particular situation.  Many scholars believe that Mark’s scriptures would have been the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Jewish scriptures along with a body of oral sayings about Jesus.  Therefore, we might say that Mark and his church were in the process of taking over and redefining existing religious terminology and ideas as found in the Greek translation of the Jewish scriptures, which many orthodox Jews would have said was itself a reinterpretation of Hebrew scriptures.  He was also selectively drawing on the extant oral traditions about Jesus.

Let me give a rather generalized example of this reinterpreting and redefining process.  In Mark’s community, Jesus the Christ no longer carried the same connotations for the Gentile Christians as it would for the Jewish Christians, the Hellenistic Jews, nor the Orthodox Jews.  The Orthodox, Hellenistic, and Christian Jews would have understood the Christ, the Anointed One of God, as a human being with a divine anointing from God to carry out God’s ministry like a prophet such as Elijah.  The term Son of God would have been understood as a human being chosen and anointed by God to do God’s will and work, like King David, etc. 

However, for Mark, not unlike the Apostle Paul and his Hellenistic Jewish leanings, the term Jesus Christ, has almost taken on the connotation of a proper name.  Jesus Christ, especially if the ”i“ in Christ were pronounced as a long “i” would have become a proper noun, Chrëstos in the Greek.  This proper name or term would have been understood to mean Jesus Christ, a truly human being and a truly divine being.  In this emerging understanding, there would have been a gradual loss of the sense of a Jewish expectation of a Messiah.

        Therefore, as one reads and studies the New Testament, especially passages of scriptures like today’s scriptures, please be aware that you are looking through a window into the mind of the writer as he addresses various questions and controversies within his community of faith at a given point in history as best he can with what he has.

        And, as if to make matters worse, we are still sorting out the nature of Jesus for the Church and for people of faith today, especially in light of modern science, which calls into question so many of the facts, dates, and data of scripture.  This brings us to our topic for today, the Transfiguration, a word derived from the Greek word from which we get the word metamorphosis.  In short, these scriptures deal with a particular incident wherein Jesus undergoes a change in his physical nature and what that might have meant to Mark’s church.

        In Mark, Chapter 8, in response to Jesus’ question to the disciples about who do people say he is and who do they say that Jesus is, Peter declares Jesus to be the Messiah—the Anointed One of God.  Peter’s confession is a Jewish confession that Jesus is the Messiah, which is definitely different from Jesus’ understanding because shortly after Peter’s confession, we see Jesus’ first passion announcement followed by an outline of the possible sufferings of those who follow Jesus.

        Almost as to emphasize this insight, Jesus retreats to a high place with the same three disciples whom he had taken with him when he raised the dead, daughter of Jairus.  While they were on this mountain, they witness Jesus going through some metamorphous—a transfiguration.  Jesus and his clothes glow.  Jesus is seen talking with two figures, which Mark tells us are Moses, the great lawgiver, and Elijah, the great prophet.

Notice, what Peter does next.  Peter is my favorite of all the biblical characters after Jesus.  Peter is always opening his mouth before he engages his brain.  He is quick to speak; quick to act and spends a lot of time in regret.  In Peter’s fear, he needs to do something or say something so he tells Jesus that they should erect three tents—shrines to this moment and these great personages.  Who knows, this could have become a roadside holy spot and foster religious pilgrimages. (just joking)

Suddenly, a cloud rolls in and they hear a voice, understood to be the voice of God, reaffirming Jesus’ divine relationship to God and making this unique relationship known for the first time to people other than Jesus in Mark’s Gospel.  The Voice tells the disciples they are to listen to Jesus.  The implications being that what God is doing in Jesus, as his Anointed One, is greater than the Law and the Prophets by way of the fulfillment of God’s inherent love and grace, which were intentioned in the Law and the Prophets.  So, listen to Jesus and know that what he says and does as well as what is to happen to him is of God.

        It is obvious; the disciples never quite catch Jesus’ insights into being the anointed of God, which will lead to his suffering and crucifixion.  Nor, would they understand the new, redemptive thing that God was doing in Jesus until after the resurrection.

        Like so many passages of scripture of this nature, which depict supernatural events in the life of Jesus and other biblical characters, there are two general approaches to understanding such scriptures.  The disparity between the two approaches  vhearts and minds of many Christian people by dividing us in various camps—liberals, moderates, fundamentalists, etc.  I think such scriptures cause problems because people are trying to understand them historically and rationally instead of spiritually or said another way: People are not trying to understand the Truth of the scriptures.

        We all understand that human beings with all of the limits that being human implies wrote the Bible.  As divinely inspired, as scripture are, the authors spoke of and wrote about their experiences with in the limits of their language and their understandings of the world, as they knew it.

        Some people will tell you that every word written in these scriptures about the Transfiguration are factually accurate, happen just the way the writer said. 

Others will tell you that the writer uses highly imaginative and supernatural imagery drawn from his ancient word views to describe his insights of Jesus, his life and ministry, his death and resurrection as well as the applications of Jesus’ truths for the believer’s life.

        What both sides often fail to see, is that they are saying, within the limits of their language and worldviews, the same thing.  The truth is, God was in Jesus in a unique and powerful way and is to be listen to and obeyed.  His life, his teachings, his death and his living presence, then as now, are authoritative for us being the best humans we can be in our relationship to God and one another.

        Isn’t that true?  Haven’t you proven that to be the case regardless of how you interpret these scriptures?  Haven’t you taken the truths of God into your heart and mind and when you, like Jesus, have remained true to those insights you have been ”metamorphed”?  (I acknowledge I am coining a word here).  Isn’t it true that in Christ your life has been changed by the truths he taught, lived, and died to maintain?  Haven’t those truths brought a completely different dimension to your life while you live in faith of the promise of life to come?

Peter and the others still did not get it.  After all they saw and participated in; they still did not get it until they encountered the resurrected Jesus.  There was nothing in Peter’s world that would have anticipated the Anointed One of God being crucified to redeem human sin.  There was nothing in Peter’s world and religion that would have prepared him for Jesus’ understanding of his role as the Messiah, Son of man, or Son of God.  So, let’s not be too hard on Peter and the other disciples. Okay?  I think it is obvious that many people today don’t get Jesus’ understanding of Messiah, Son of man, or Son of God either. 

As the Messiah, Jesus was not about setting up earthly kingdoms or institutions.  Jesus was about proclaiming and giving witness to God’s will for humankind.  God’s will that love, divine and human, will save us from the worst of ourselves and the worst of others unto the best that God has.

        Now what is so hard about that?  How difficult is that to sort out?  Why do folks want to make these scriptures so difficult?  Why do they want to become tangled up in the supernatural?  Why don’t we just take the easy way and let our spirits ascend to the truth—something the rational mind can never reach.  The rational mind can validate facts, but it is the over-plus of our consciousness that we call spirit that apprehends truth.

            Let, me illustrate my point.  As you may or may not know, I worked my way through the Air Force as a sign painter.  One day out side of Bellevue, Nebraska my crew and I were erecting a large sign on a hill overlooking a major highway.  It was my first big, highway bill board.  The ground was uneven so I calculated the drop between the highest point of the ground where I wanted to erect the sign to the lowest point using a string and a line level.

        My calculations indicated that if I wanted the top of my sign to be level with the tops of telephone post upon which I would was to a fix my sign while insuring that each post was six feet in the ground, I would have to add the grade drop to the depth of each hole at about four foot intervals.  My first hole would be six feet, my second six feet, plus what ever the difference was between the level point and the actual ground at that point and so on.

        Well we dug the holes, lay out, and spaced the telephone poles, affixed 2x4s to tie all the poles together.  We lifted the frame of sign up and dropped it in the holes.  With just a little manipulation, the sign settled in perfectly.  I climbed up and placed a level on the top crossbeam and it wasn’t off enough to mention.  I was so proud of myself.

        I was sharing my doubts and worries about the sign leveling up, when on of the guys, a day labor in his late fifties that I had hired just for this project said, “Yes, Sir that was some figuring.  But, I would have just put all those post six foot in the ground regardless of the slope of the ground, measured up as far as I could go on the posts, leveled it off, nailed on cross supports for the sign, and then cut the tops off flush with the top of the sign.”

        Well, let me tell you, I am certainly glad I have the ability to laugh at myself, otherwise I would have dug myself a six-foot hole and crawled into it and died of embarrassment.  We all laughed at me so hard our sides hurt and tears streamed down our cheeks.

        Let me tell you in the future that fellow’s lesson saved me many hours of work and complications.  He also taught me never to discount someone just because I perceive them not to be as smart as I am.  Truth is truth no matter where it comes from.

        I guess that is the kind of thing I see working in our story of the Transfiguration this morning.  We can do all the complicated figuring on these scriptures or do it the easy way—let the inherent truth of the scriptures made known to us by the Holy Spirit do their work in us and change us by listening and obeying the words of Christ.  That was the whole point of the story anyway--God telling us to listen to and obey His Christ, however you understand the Christ.  If you listen to Jesus and obey him, then the Truth of God will do its work in your life and set you free to be all you can be.

        As members of Mark’s church this story would have given them hope, strength, and courage to endure their persecutions, which fostered doubt and flagging commitment.  It would have told them to hang in because they too will be changed by the teachings of Jesus and in that change, they also will be resurrected to glory in God.

Yes, in the end, if we listen to God, as Jesus did, as Mark’s church did, if we don’t give in or don’t give up, we will be changed and brought into the glory of Christ.  We shall be changed, “metamorphed” if you will, transfigured by God’s love in this life and the life to come.  Just listen, obey, and live in the glow of God’s living and present Christ.