A Glimpse of Jesus' Glory, Mark 9:2-9

Transfiguration Sunday
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, State College PA


When I was in graduate school at Temple University, I worked part time in the continuing education department of a mission organization. The man I worked for was intensely concerned about people's perceptions. He told me that whenever he was going into a new setting he would try to figure out what the people wanted and then he'd adapt himself to fit their expectations. He functioned in ministry more-or-less like a chameleon. The problem was that I was never sure who he was, because he was so successful at changing himself. It always seemed like he was putting on a show, that he had no real convictions of his own. The longer I worked with him, the less I respected him, and I wondered in the end whether he even remembered who he was. I was more impressed when we first met than I was after I got to know him. A few years later, I was talking to the man who had been my pastor at Messiah College about a man we knew who had been very successful at planting Spanish-speaking churches in Florida. He said, "with many people, as you get to know them you find that there's less than appears on the surface; but he's not that way; the more you get to know him the more you see of his depth and character." This man is quiet and unassuming, but as you talk to him, even for a short time, you find that there is a lot hidden beneath the surface.

Peter, James, and John, at the Transfiguration, are given a glimpse into the hidden depths of Jesus' glory. They're finding that there's more to Him than what they've been able to see on the surface. It's not that they haven't known before now who He is. Just six days earlier, Peter had made his great confession: "You are the Messiah" (8:9). The disciples have grasped something of the truth, but now they're enabled to see the truth in a way, and with a depth, that they haven't before. The Transfiguration is recorded in all three of the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke); Peter refers to it in his second letter: "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" (vv. 16-18). John may be referring to this event in his gospel when he says, "we beheld his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth" (1:14). This event stayed with them; it had a major impact on them that remained for the rest of their lives. The disciples are given, in this event, a brief glimpse into the fathomless depths of Jesus' glory.

The first thing to notice in these verses is the continuity of Jesus' ministry with the Old Testament: "And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus." Moses represents the Old Testament law, and Elijah is there as the representative of the prophets. The presence of these two stresses Jesus' continuity with their ministries. Jesus isn't doing something novel; He is doing something new, but what He's doing is connected with what has gone before.

It's important for us to keep coming back to this, because our contemporary society has an attitude of arrogant superiority toward the past. The gospel is rooted in God's revelation in the Old Testament; our faith is strongly rooted in things God has said and done in the past. I often hear Protestants, especially Evangelical Protestants, speak disdainfully about tradition, but often what they're talking about is the way things have been done in a particular church. Those things often need to change, sometimes because they're connected to cultural trends that have passed, and sometimes because they were just wrongheaded to begin with. God often calls us to make changes in these kinds of things.

But there's another way of thinking about tradition that involves stepping back and considering not just our own church or our own denomination, but the Church throughout history. The early Church spoke about the apostolic tradition, some of which was written down and some of which was embodied in the corporate worship of the Church. As they encountered false teachings which required some response, they formulated creeds, authoritative statements of some of the central teachings of Scripture. And they sought, looking to the Holy Spirit for guidance, to determine the limits of the Canon, which books belonged as part of Scripture. Every time we open our Bibles we're relying on the Tradition of the Church, we're trusting that Christians of the past have gotten it right. We're trusting that God led the Church in the past to make the right decision about which books were part of His permanent, authoritative revelation and which ones were not. Christianity is inherently traditional. That doesn't mean that we only sing old hymns. It means that we respect what has been handed to us from the past. It means that every time we read Scripture we are making present things that happened in history thousands of years ago. And it means recognizing that we're able to read Scripture because of the diligent efforts of millions of other believers throughout history; we're connected with these people as part of the body of Christ, and we owe them an immense debt of gratitude.

Over the next several months, these disciples are going to experience things that will turn their worlds upside down. They're going to have to unlearn all the assumptions they've grown up with about contact with the Gentile world, because Jesus is going to lead them to take the gospel to all nations. They're going to have to make radical changes about things that have been very important to them, but these changes are rooted firmly in God's revelation in the past. The thing that's absolutely essential for them at this point is to know the truth about Jesus. So they're given this brief glimpse of His glory, a glimpse that stays with them for the rest of their lives.

The second thing to notice is the superiority of Jesus' ministry. His ministry is in continuity with the Old Testament, but He's not just one prophet among many (which is how Muslims understand Him). When Peter sees what is happening, he blurts out, "Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters – one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah." The problem is that he's thinking of Jesus as part of the group, he's putting these three on more-or-less equal footing. So a bright cloud envelops them and a voice from the cloud says, "This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!" The voice of God sets Jesus apart and says, "This is the One I want you to listen to."

Jesus' ministry is connected with that of Moses and Elijah, but it's not on the same level. He's the fulfillment of their ministries, the One they were pointing to and looking forward to. As the author of Hebrews says, "So, my dear Christian friends, companions in following this call to the heights, take a good hard look at Jesus. He's the centerpiece of everything we believe, faithful in everything God gave him to do. Moses was also faithful, but Jesus gets far more honor. A builder is more valuable than a building any day. Every house has a builder, but the builder behind them all is God. Moses did a good job in God's house, but it was all servant work, getting things ready for what was to come. Christ as Son is in charge of the house" (3:1-6, The Message).

These things that they see and hear are overwhelming. In Matthew's account of the Transfiguration, he says: "When the disciples heard this, they fell face down, terrified." I enjoy looking at icons, paintings of Jesus and the saints that originate in Eastern Orthodox churches. They often help me see things about biblical events that I would have missed otherwise. The icon of the transfiguration has Jesus, standing on the pinnacle of a mountain, in a background of light (called a mandorla, a device intended to show the reality of heaven breaking into the world). Moses and Elijah are on either side, bowed toward Him to show their submission. And Peter, James and John have fallen backward further down the mountain, overcome by the glory of Jesus. Looking at that icon gives me a glimpse of what it might have been like to have been there on that day.

The third thing to notice is that this revelation of His glory is directly connected with Jesus' predictions of the rejection and suffering He is going to endure. Seeing the glory of Jesus revealed in this way, knowing that this is the truth of who He is, we might expect that He'd allow this to be seen in His public ministry. After all, wouldn't people be more likely to believe if they saw what the disciples are seeing on the top of the mountain? But He doesn't do that; He tells the disciples, "As 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." After this brief glimpse, His glory becomes hidden again, and He continues on the way to the cross. He "did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross" (Philippians 2:6-8).

In many ways, the disciples are being stretched to the breaking point. Just a few days earlier, after Peter had made his great confession, saying "You are the Messiah," Jesus had begun "to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again: (8:31). This is too much for Peter, knowing what he does about Jesus. If Jesus is "the Messiah," how can He possibly be talking about suffering and death? "And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him" (v. 32). All their expectations for the Messiah are being shattered. They've seen this overwhelming revelation of Jesus' glory on the mountain, and yet He's still talking about dying and rising from the dead.

Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, has a wonderful series of meditations on the icons of Christ. In his meditation on the transfiguration icon, he makes this observation: "It is surely not an accident that it is Peter and James and John who are also with Jesus in Gethsemane: the extreme mental and spiritual agony that appears there is the test of what has been seen in the transfiguration. We are shown that God can be God even in the very heart of human terror" (The Dwelling of the Light, p. 12).

He goes on: "This is an icon of quite violent force, explosive quality; it shows an extreme experience. We may find it difficult to relate to it at first for that reason: we may be struck and impressed by it, yet feel also that nothing in our own experience corresponds to this. We weren't there; we haven't seen the skies opening, the light suffusing the lonely figure on the rock, the weight of divine presence forcing us back, bowing us down. But the point of this, as of any icon, is not either to depict or to produce some kind of special experience in that sense: it is to open our eyes to what is true about Jesus and the saints. And what is true about Jesus is – if we really encounter it in its fullness – shocking, devastating: that this human life is sustained from the depths of God without interruption and without obstacle, that it translates into human terms what and who God the Son eternally is. The shock comes from realizing this means that God's life is compatible with every bit of human life, including the inner terrors of Gethsemane (fear and doubt) and the outer terrors of Calvary (torment and death).... The point of this image of the transfiguration is to reinforce how the truth about Christ interrupts and overthrows our assumptions about God and about humanity" (pp. 11-12). That's what is happening to the disciples, and it's what happens to us when we encounter God in truth: He interrupts and overthrows our assumptions.

We're especially conscious right now, with Lent beginning in a few days, that Jesus is headed toward Gethsemane and the cross. It doesn't shock us that Jesus reveals His glory in such a powerful way and then continues on His journey toward Jerusalem. But part of the purpose of the Lenten season is to seek to enter into the experience of these disciples, to accompany Jesus on His journey toward the suffering of Holy Week, so that we'll also be able to taste something of the wonder and joy these same disciples experienced on Easter Sunday. I often think we hinder ourselves from this by jumping too quickly to the Resurrection, telling ourselves, "yes, but of course Jesus is risen from the dead now; all that is over."

Our experience is different than that of the apostles. But we're dealing with the same God, and if we think about it at all it might give us some pause when we realize what a shattering experience it was for them to encounter the reality of God's purposes. Their lives were turned upside down; all their assumptions were overthrown; they were called to make changes they never in their wildest dreams imagined making. Often our carefully protected assumptions are ways of protecting ourselves from God's interruptions. But from time to time we get glimpses of the fact that God has something very different in mind (something better, but, at the same time, threatening). Williams, reflecting on the disciples' experience at the Transfiguration, says "Looking at Jesus seriously changes things; if we do not want to be changed, it is better not to look too hard or too long. The apostles in the icon are shielding their eyes, because what they see is not easily manageable in their existing world" (p. 13). When we encounter God, He often calls us to make changes, both in our thinking and in our daily lives, that are not easily manageable in our existing worlds.

But the purpose of the Lenten season is to make space for Jesus, for Jesus as He is, not as we imagine Him to be. So let's cry out to Him, asking Him to make Himself known to us in truth. The wonderful thing in the Transfiguration is the realization "that God can be God even in the very heart of human terror." We can enter into the depths of human experience and find that God is there with us, that Jesus Himself knows what our darkest times are like from the inside. When the disciples are overcome by terror, Jesus comes to them, touches them and says "Get up and do not be afraid." In the same way, this One who revealed His great glory on the Mount of Transfiguration will walk with us in all the experiences of life until we arrive safely in His presence. He shatters our illusions out of kindness, so that we'll be able to perceive Him when He comes to us, so that we'll be able to hear Him when He says, "do not be afraid."