Sunday)

St Andrew’s Woodhaven

2 Kgs 2:1-12; Ps 50:1-6; 2 Cor 4:3-6; Mark 9:2-9

 

Opening Prayer: Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life! Help us now to hear and obey what you say to us today. Through Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Today’s gospel story is one of those amazing stories in scripture. A story that really deserves our examination.

(Share experience of trip to Belarus in 2014)

Let us begin by reflecting on the backdrop of our gospel story:

It would likely have been the late afternoon as Jesus led his inner circle of disciples (Peter, James, and John) up the higher elevations of Mt Hermon “to pray.” The climb would have taken the better part of the day. Mt Hermon is the mountain in Palestine, as its peaks rise some 9,000 feet above sea level, and 11,000 feet above the Jordan Valley.

If it were a clear day (and it likely was), the scene would have been unforgettable.

But why this long climb with his most intimate disciples to this dramatic setting? The answer is - because they needed encouragement. They needed to be encouraged because just six days before, Jesus had jolted them with the reality of his impending death on the cross and the necessity of his suffering. This alarming revelation was shared with the disciples right after Peter’s great confession that Jesus was the Christ!

The thought of Jesus suffering was a radical and revolutionary revelation to the disciples – totally out of sync with their expectations of the Messiah. It was also very confusing and depressing. And with what was coming their way, the Lord realized that it needed to be balanced with some positive realities - some encouragement.

So, for this encouragement, Jesus brought them to the heights of Mt Hermon. They were on top of the world with Jesus. Here they were going to be bombarded with the most tremendous blast of encouragement that any human being has ever known.

The disciples probably would not understand or grasp it all at this time. As we know from scripture, they apparently let these realities slip during the darkness period of the cross, but with the Resurrection and in the ensuing years they grasped them ever more closely.

This same encouragement remains for us disciples today, as we live as Jesus followers in this world. The experience of the disciples on Mt. Hermon is something we are all called to put our arms around and hold close to our hearts. We need to stand on top of the world with Jesus, to help us get through the challenges we face as disciples of Jesus.

How does this story apply to us? Let us dive into our gospel reading.

Encouragement on the Mountain

The first thing we should take hold of is the Transfiguration itself:

As verses 2 and 3 tell us, “And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them.”

What a spectacle this would have been! The version of this story in the gospel of Matthew says, “His face shone like the sun” or another interpretation – Jesus was “dazzling white”. Jesus was shining like the stars above him – he was the Midnight Son.

Jesus was “transfigured,” more literally he was “transformed.” For a moment on Mt Hermon, the veil of humanity was lifted, and his true essence was allowed to shine through. Or put another way, he slipped back into eternity, to his pre-human glory. It was a glance back, and a look forward into his future glory.

John would later describe it saying, “We have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father.”

As the disciples were watching spellbound, they were given something else to embrace – which we read in verse 4, “And there appeared to them Elijah and Moses, and they were talking with Jesus”. How did the disciples know who these two men were? We do not know for sure (perhaps they addressed each other by name), but that is not the most important question here.

A more important question is: Why Elijah and Moses? Why not say, Isaiah and Abraham?

There are several reasons why it would be Elijah and Moses……….

  • Both men had previously conversed with God on mountain tops. Moses on Mt Sinai (Exodus 31:18) and Elijah on Mt Horeb (1 Kings 19:9).
  • These men had both shown God’s glory.
  • Both had famous departures. Moses died on Mt Nebo, and God buried him in a grave known only to himself. Elijah of course being taken up in a chariot of fire, which we read about in our Old Testament reading.
  • Moses was the great lawgiver, and Elijah was the great prophet. Moses was the founder of Israel religious economy, and Elijah was the restorer of it. Together they were a summary of the Old Testament.

What were they and Jesus talking about? They were talking about the cross and Jesus’s looming death.

What a theological conversation this must have been, which likely flew over the heads of the three disciples. The bottom line here was that Peter’s very recent confession that Jesus was the Messiah, was being confirmed by these grand representatives of the old covenant.

Jesus was the fulfillment towards everything which the Law pointed. He fulfilled what the sacrificial system was teaching. He fulfilled every messianic prophecy, everything to which their religion and history had been moving.

In this moment, if there was ever a time for silence, this was it.

But enter Peter! A man who always had something to say when there was nothing to be said. As Peter offered to build dwellings for the three, we see the Lord’s only answer was silence. There was nothing more that needed to be said or done.

It had been six hundred years since anyone in Israel had seen the Shekinah glory. A study of the Old Testament reveals that a luminous cloud (the shekinah glory) was a sign and manifestation of the presence of God, the form of which God revealed himself to Isarael. But as Jesus and his inner circle stood in silence in the night air, “a cloud overshadowed them.” It was the shekinah! Amazingly, Peter, James, and John were in the cloud that Moses was not even permitted to directly behold. Jesus was with them, and thus they could stand radiant in the shekinah glory!

This was not only a declaration about who Christ is, but a prophecy of what was to come. In the future, in death, they would meet the risen Christ in the luminescent clouds to be with him forever. They were to put their arms around this blessed experience and pull it into themselves.

So must we! Someday we are going to be in that cloud! The Shekinah glory is going to surround us!

Then we read in verse 7, as the silence continued, a voice came out of the cloud, “This is my beloved Son; listen to him.”

This was the voice of the Father, who said almost the same thing at Jesus’ baptism. “Listen to him,” was the command!

The law and the prophets (Moses and Elijah) were only partial expression up to this point. But here is the final statement. ‘Listen to him.”

Jesus is the ultimate expression of truth! Peter, James, and John were to listen to what Jesus said about the necessity of his death and of their embrace of the cross.

Just like the disciples then, we also need to listen to Jesus’ words about all of life. Not just what fits into our lives and our ways of doing things. Not trying to fit his words into the latest trends of this world. But rather, we need to listen to all he has to say which includes comforting words as:

“If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scriptures has said, “Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” And

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” but also harder teachings such as:

“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”

We need to seek to live in ways that clearly reflect the words” “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”

Verse 8 concludes: “And suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone with them but only Jesus”. The cloud was gone, Mosses and Elijah disappeared, and all the three disciples saw was Jesus. Only Jesus!

Conclusion

This is what all our experience, all our theology, all our work should come to – seeing only Jesus. When this happens, our hearts honor him in worship. We will love all mankind as we should. We give our lives in his service, and we come to embrace the cross in our own lives as disciples.

Our Risen Lord wants to encourage us. Each one of us. He has called us to confess him as Christ, and that involves confessing him as a suffering Messiah. This means that we ourselves embrace the suffering that comes from the cross, the suffering that comes from being like him, from living his ethics in a fallen, confused, and hurting world. By confessing him when it brings opposition. We must make this our own if we are to follow him in this world.

But along with this, amazingly, we are to take for ourselves the encouragement that comes from putting our arms around the Christ of the Transfiguration and drawing him to ourselves. We do not have to climb Mt Hermon to be with Christ, we can allow ourselves to be with him here (anywhere). This is the glorious Saviour that you will know and love through eternity.

Encourage yourselves now by hearing and receiving this truth; that Jesus Christ was completely man and yet completely divine, so that in a split second he could let his glory shine like the sun. He is the fulfillment of everything Moses and Elijah, the Law, and the Prophets, ever intended or suggested, and he brings that fulfillment to us. Jesus brings the presence of the Triune God to our lives and illuminates them, and one day we will bathe in the shekinah glory in his presence.

The disciples (Peter, John, and James) found great encouragement that day on Mt Hermon, which encouraged them through their most difficult trails.

(Share about how the underground church in Belarus has found encouragement from this)

And how amazing for us, that we can enter God’s presence through Christ. Jesus is the Shekinah glory! We are to put our arms around the Midnight Son and draw him close.

Let us open our hearts and receive his encouragement for all our struggles and trials.

While allowing our veils of humanity to be removed, so we can see and be transformed by his illuminating light.

Closing Prayer: Lord God, we wish to see Jesus. By your Spirit’s power, give us eyes to see his glory. Through Christ we pray. Amen.