Look and Listen: A Reflection on Mark 9:2-9

          The experience, I don’t know what else to call it, that we read about today in the gospel of Mark is called the transfiguration. It is an experience that is difficult to comprehend. Jesus and the three men in his inner circle, go up a high mountain, of which we don’t know the name. He is transfigured before them, which means his appearance morphed. That’s the Greek there, metamorphosis. Is this what Jesus actually looked like, that a sort of veil was removed for a second? Or maybe it was like when Moses came down from the mountain after getting the Ten Commandments, his face was glowing which was a distraction to the people, so he started wearing a veil until the glow went away. Does Jesus naturally glow and the disciples got to see what he really looks like? Was it a glimpse of what our resurrected bodies look like? And then Moses and Elijah, representing the Law and the Prophets, are having a conversation with Jesus. How did they know it was Moses and Elijah? Were they wearing name tags? Did Jesus address them by their names? Aren’t they dead? Well, maybe not Elijah because he was carried up to heaven in a fiery chariot so he never actually died. Then there’s a cloud, they were terrified, they hear a voice. Then it’s all over. Jesus looks like he did before it all started, and they go back down the mountain with Jesus telling them not to say anything about what they just experienced. I doubt if anyone would believe them, but can you imagine what Peter, James, and John were like for a few days after that? They would be sitting around the dinner table that evening looking at each other with that look of, “What just happened? Who is this Jesus?” It is just a crazy experience on the top of this mountain.

            It’s also interesting where this experience is placed in Mark’s telling of the gospel. The transfiguration experience is at the half way point. It’s also the second of three times when we hear Jesus identified as the Son of God. The first time is at the baptism, when God says to Jesus, “You are my Son.” Then there is this experience, when God says to the disciples, “This is my Son.” And the last time is when Jesus dies, and a Roman centurion says to no one in particular, “Surely this is a son of a god.” So there is a lot to take in and ponder about this amazing experience on the mountain top.
            One way to get a handle on what is happening is to see what happened six days earlier. Jesus and the disciples were together. They were on their way to the Roman town of Caesarea Philippi. And Jesus asked them who people said they thought he was. Some were saying he was John the Baptist, others Elijah, or one of the prophets. And then Jesus asked who the disciples think he is. Peter said, “You are the Messiah.” Then Jesus started talking about how the son of Man will undergo great suffering, be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, be killed, and then come back to life three days later. The disciples, as was often the case, were befuddled about what Jesus was saying. But Peter had something to say. So the one he just called their Messiah, he starts to rebuke. Not just a gentle, “Jesus, you sure about that?” but a real rebuke. Jesus, who is not meek or mild, yelled right back at Peter, calling him Satan. I bet it was getting pretty warm right about then. After that exchange, Jesus calls a crowd together, and then he tells everyone, “If you want to be one of my followers, you are going to have to deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me. It’s going to cost you, maybe even your life.” And then Jesus said, “Truly, I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the kingdom of God has come with power.”
            And so, six days later, some who were standing there got to see for themselves the kingdom of God with power. They got a glimpse of what is really going on. The Jesus they would later see getting beaten up and nailed to a cross, the one whose last words are actually a loud cry, whose body is then taken to a tomb, is actually full of power. It may not seem like it when he gets crucified, but there’s more to Jesus than what meets the eye. There’s more to his being the messiah than what meets the eye. The kingdom of God was with them, but it was hidden.
            But then there’s something else. As the transfiguration experience unfolds, Peter does what he does best, open his mouth and say the first thing that he can think of. He suggests building three shrines would be a good idea. Does he mean like the shrines others build dedicated to all the different gods and goddesses? I mean, that’s what everyone else does when they experience the divine somewhere. So, why not do that? He didn’t know what else to say, so he fell back to conventional wisdom. Everyone knows if you experience the divine, you build a shrine there so people can go back there and burn some incense, offer a sacrifice, say some prayers, whatever. Yeah, Peter didn’t really think that comment through.
            Then they are overcome with a heavy cloud. I wonder if it was like the white out I witnessed when working on this sermon yesterday. And then they hear this voice from heaven saying, “This is my Son, listen to Him!” Now that’s interesting. In spite of all the mind-blowing, even terrifying sights of this experience, they are not told to look at Jesus, or to see Jesus for who he really is, to make a big deal out of the light show they just experienced. No, they are to listen. That’s probably aimed more at Peter than anyone else. Stop talking, start listening. And Jesus follows it up as they come back down the mountain, telling them not to tell anybody what they just saw until after the son of Man rises from the dead. Don’t say anything, just listen to me.
            So this is very interesting. This experience that later was told after Jesus rose from the dead, may have been helpful in giving the apostles some credibility in what they were saying. The author of 2 Peter says as much, where we read in 1:16-18, “For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received honor and glory from God the Father when that voice was conveyed to him by the Majestic Glory, saying, ‘This is my Son, my Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.’ We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven, while we were with him on the holy mountain.” So, this experience gave Peter, James, and John authority to talk about Jesus because they got to see and hear things no one else got to hear and see. For those who thought those kinds of stories prove you are an authority, that works.
            But does this story mean anything for us? I don’t think any of us would buy it if someone came to you and said, “Believe everything I tell you because I had this amazing experience on the top of a mountain.” Our first question might be, “So did you use mushrooms, or, what did you do to have this hallucination?” We may need some other way to grant someone authority than them telling a story about something they experienced that no one else saw. We would be skeptical. So, this transfiguration experience perhaps is not useful for us to help us believe that Peter, James, and John have authority because they are the only ones who can attest it happened. So does this amazing story have anything else to offer for us?
            That’s a hard question to answer. Maybe one point we can take away is that the flash, the presentation, the glitz, is less important than what is said. It’s the substance of what Jesus teaches that matters more than the promises or visions of glory. Or maybe what we can get from this experience is that Jesus didn’t stay on the mountain. He put the veil back on and came back down the mountain to continue his mission. He had a job to do. We have jobs to do also. No shrines were built on that mountain top. The challenges, the suffering, the struggles of life had to be faced. By no means did Jesus or the disciples keep running back to the mountain when things got tough. They moved on, they pressed ahead, knowing that they would be heading into tough times. So that could be a lesson for us. Or maybe we can get from this that in good times and bad, during mountain top experiences, the depths of the valley, or the broad plain of daily life, Jesus is walking with us through all of it. Jesus brought the disciples up the mountain and he brought them down. Whatever we go through, Jesus is right there with us, which can be a comforting thought. It’s an affirmation that even if no one else knows what you’re going through, Jesus is with you, that you are never really alone.
            Easter is about two months away. It’s always a glorious time that we anticipate every year. These barren trees will be budding, our lawns will be green and relatively weed free, flowers and the smell of warming earth scenting the air. We’ll see people wearing their Easter best, children running around hunting Easter eggs, churches filled with lilies and hyacinths. But before we get to the sights and smells of Easter, we have to go through Lent, a time of introspection, of an increased emphasis on spiritual disciplines, a time of listening.
            My challenge for us is that as we walk through this season of Lent, as we confront our sin and our mortality, perhaps take on greater discipline and abstinence, that we proceed through these next seven weeks keeping the vision of the beauty of Easter and perhaps the vision of our own resurrection experience, to keep that vision in our minds, even as we live out our lives in the here and now, listening for what life might say to us, especially in our suffering and struggle, assured that Jesus is walking with us through it all, now and for eternity.