Isaiah 6:1-8; 2 Peter 1:16-21; Mark 9:2-8
Mark 9:2 And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, 3 and his clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them. 4 And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus. (Luke adds: 9:30 And behold, two men were talking with him, Moses and Elijah, 31 who appeared in glory and spoke of his departure (literally, exodus), which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.) 5 And Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good that we are here. Let us make three tents, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.” 6 For he did not know what to say, for they were terrified. 7 And a cloud overshadowed them, and a voice came out of the cloud, “This is my beloved Son; listen to him.” 8 And suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone with them but Jesus only.
British Bible scholar Christopher Wright, in his marvelous recent book, The Mission of God’s People, notes a pattern running through the Bible of assuring us that what the Bible is promoting is not a human-invented religion or philosophy, but the result of actual historical events that contained within them evidence of divine presence and revelation, reported in human words that were shaped by the Holy Spirit. He does not mention today’s text, but for the three disciples, the transfiguration was clearly one such event that gave them evidence of divine presence and revelation. We have Peter’s word for it.
Wright gives examples of two texts about such divine events, one from Deuteronomy and the other from Acts. Deuteronomy presents Moses addressing the people of Israel on the verge of entering the land of promise, and reminding them of the witnessed events of their history: ‘Has any god ever tried to take for himself one nation out of another nation, by testings, by signs and wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, or by great and awesome deeds, like all the things the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes? (as happened in the exodus)’ ‘Has any other people heard the voice of God speaking out of fire, as you have, and lived?’ (as happened when they received their divine covenant at Mount Sinai).” The founding events of Israel as a people, their deliverance from slavery in Egypt and their being given a divine covenant at Mount Sinai, were utterly unique events, not because God liked Israel better than other nations, but because God chose to use them to reveal his character for all nations to see. What Israel knew about God that other nations did not yet know, it knew based on the undeniable facts of its historical emergence as a nation. God had acted in unique, undeniable, knee-knocking events, and Israel would not have existed as a free nation unless God had in fact acted.
Wright notes a similar pattern in the Acts of the Apostles. Peter and John have effectively proclaimed the healing of a man lame from birth, a man who had been a well-known lifelong beggar of alms from visitors to the Jerusalem temple, and Peter has taken advantage of this situation to say that the healing is one more compelling piece of evidence that Jesus, who had been crucified not long before, was now raised and exalted, and that the healing had been done in his name and by his effective authority. The healing of the lame man was now a signpost to all who beheld it of what God could do to bless them if they would repent and believe.
The religious leaders in Jerusalem, who had arranged for the death of Jesus, could not ignore that this was a direct challenge to their authority. They had Peter and John arrested, held overnight, and brought before them the next day. Even overnight the church was growing because of what had happened. The religious leaders asked Peter and John by what authority they had acted. Peter’s inspired answer was, “Rulers of the people and elders, 9 if we are being examined today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, by what means this man has been healed, 10 let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—by him this man is standing before you well. 11 This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. 12 And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
Now the religious leaders had an even bigger problem. They had two uneducated, common men standing before them, speaking with compelling boldness and eloquence. Clearly this was due to the effect that Jesus had on them. Further, the man who had been healed was known to all temple attenders, and his healing was an undeniable fact that they could not hide. The most they could do was to try to pressure Peter and John into silence. But no matter what they said and threatened and did, Peter and John kept giving answers such as, “4:19b Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, 20 for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.” Or, again, “5:29b We must obey God rather than men. 30 The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree. 31 God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. 32 And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.”
What Peter is saying here is that tangible evidence of God’s action in history cannot be rightly ignored. Peter believes that, if the religious leaders were at all open to the truth, they would already have all the evidence they needed to believe that Jesus had been raised from the dead and was actively at work through his followers, that they had sufficient basis for being called to faith and repentance, and that their failure to repent and believe in the face of clear evidence was serious evidence in itself of their actual spiritual condition.
Fast forward thirty plus years ahead when Peter, knowing that he is up against a set of political leaders in Rome who are not going to allow him to live much longer, is writing to an audience to whom he has written before, most likely the churches of what is now northern Turkey. He is writing to encourage them to stand firm on their faith and calling, and to persist in their spiritual growth, so that they might become ever more fully the partakers of the divine nature.
As Loretta read earlier in the service, Peter recalled the events on the mount of transfiguration as an assurance that his faith was true: 16 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 were eyewitnesses of his majesty. 17 For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,” 18 we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain.
Peter went back to an event that had come at a crisis point for him. He had left everything to follow Jesus. He had concluded that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God. Then Jesus began to talk about his coming crucifixion, and Peter could not get his head around that. How could the Christ, the anointed agent of God’s reign, be crucified? It made no sense. Had he backed the wrong horse?
Jesus took the very troubled Peter, James, and John up on a high mountain with him. There they beheld Moses and Elijah, representatives of the Law and the Prophets, talking with Jesus. Luke tells us that they were talking about Jesus’ coming exodus which he was to accomplish at Jerusalem. No doubt, if the three disciples had been in a mood to absorb the content of the conversation, they would have heard why the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus were necessary to God’s plan for redeeming all creation, as indicated by a careful reading of the Law and the Prophets. They were not ready to understand this until much later when the risen Jesus took them back through the Law, the Prophets, and the other Old Testament Writings, showing them what had sailed right past them on the Mount of Transfiguration. Peter however, years later, could recall that event on the mountain as a time when the three disciples had beheld the glorious eternal majesty of Jesus. They did not yet understand, but they had seen something they could not deny, which would keep them following Jesus until they understood far more. The Mount of Transfiguration was one of those undeniable events that told them that grand and divine things were afoot through Jesus…no matter how much the events were outside their ability to comprehend.
The point of the events on the Mount of Transfiguration was not so much to give them wonder tales to tell later, but to convince them that they needed to continue to follow, to listen to, and to obey Jesus, even when they did not understand him, even when his way of doing things did not fit with the way their worldly minds were sure that things should be done.
Tradition tells us that Mark’s Gospel reports the memories of Peter about Jesus. Mark tells us that Peter remembered hearing the divine voice saying, “This is my beloved Son; listen to him.” Years later, Peter still remembers hearing that divine voice as an assuring moment in his faith journey, one of those undeniable events to which we can turn for assurance that God is part of the directing of our lives. And Peter was now passing this memory along to his readers who were about to be deprived of leaders like Peter and Paul. He wanted them to know that the gospel would not be undone by the passing of their first apostles. He wanted them to know that their faith was on solid ground guaranteed by multiple divine events.
I have a string of such events in my life, those unbelievable and undeniable occurrences, big and small, that can only be signs of God’s presence and involvement. Those events keep me listening to and following whatever I can sense of God’s leading even when my mind objects, even when my heart rebels, even when the journey is scary or painful, even when I am not hearing anything fresh, but merely having to cling to the last thing that I knew for sure long after I am less certain that it still applies. But I continue to listen, I continue to cry out, “God, if you want me to change directions, you are going to have to make it clear to me.” I find that God does not waste words, but that God is quite capable of getting my attention when necessary, often when I least expect it. I recognize that I am utterly dependent, but that my dependence is on a faithful and powerful God. It is humbling.
But I know that my life—or at least the portions of my life that count for ultimate purposes--depend on my obedient listening to what God says in Scripture, to what God says through the Holy Spirit, to what God says through Spirit-led saints, to what God says through events where he is most undeniably present and active. And I am most certain that it is God speaking when what I hear is holy, steadfast love, redeeming, restoring, and purifying the lost, the last, and me.
What about you? For what are you obediently listening? How is it sustaining you on a journey of faith? What step of faith is God asking you to make today? How does it all fit in the plan of what God is doing in Berryville, AR, today?
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