I hope this sermon is helpful to you in your studies. I have found William Lane’s commentary on Mark (new international commentary) very helpful and highly recommend it.
There was a magician who was hired to do his act on a cruise ship. He had been there for several years and did the same act over and over because the crowd was continually changing. He enjoyed the good life, spending most of his time out on the deck working on his tan rather than new tricks. One day the Captain bought a parrot and the parrot came with him every night to see the magic show. The bird learned all the tricks as to where the cards, flower, etc. were hidden by the magician in his act. The bird would say, “the card is up his left sleeve, the flower is under the pot, he hid the money under his shoe…” Because the parrot caught on fast, it was getting harder by the day for the magician to come up with new tricks. The magician hated the parrot for giving away all of his tricks, but since he was the Captain’s, he couldn’t just weigh the bird down and throw him overboard. Late one night the engine room exploded and the ship sank within minutes. Miraculously, the magician found himself clinging to a log. He was the only one left alive. As the sun came up in the morning, he turned around and here at the end of the log was that parrot. They just glared at each other and said nothing. This went on for three days. On the fourth day the parrot finally broke the silence and asked, “OK, I give up--what did you do with the ship”
Jesus’ transfiguration. Maybe its a trick, an illusion. Maybe the three disciples had a vision, a dream like event created in their minds by Jesus, where they all experienced the same mythical reality. What about an eclipse, an earthquake, an immense fog bank or a violent storm? Maybe …the disciples had, you know, a little too many the night before? Perhaps it is simply a literary illustration used by Mark to advance his storyline.
We live in a material world bound by time, space and the laws of physics. We see this world everyday of our lives, move in it, act in it, become enveloped by it to such an extent that it is our reality, and anything beyond that reality is….well, unthinkable. So if an event occurs that does not jive with our experience in life we, especially as Americans, immediately explore rational reasons of how the event happened. I think in many ways this shows our disconnect from the spiritual. Ask yourself this question: Isn’t it odd that I claim to believe in Jesus Christ and His resurrection, isn’t it odd that I say I believe in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, but I have great difficulty in believing in miraculous events? I would say, and say this quite frankly, that if you are sitting here this morning and think that taking the miraculous events in the bible at face value is a little naïve, kind of like believing the magic of a magician is real……then the reality is, there is some naïveté about spiritual matters in your life that you need to deal with. For to claim to believe in the resurrection, which is the ultimate miracle, and then have difficulty believing in lesser miracles – well, that may shed some light for you where you honestly stand in your Christian faith.
Here in our passage from Mark chapter 9 we have a real event, with real people involved, in a surreal kind of situation, the transfiguration. I just spoke about one type of spiritual naïveté, on where we are trapped by our view of the material world, and we tend to be pulled into that kind of naïveté when we read a passage like this. But there is another kind of spiritual naïveté and we see it strongly in our passage this morning, it is the naïveté which blocks us from being able to analyze an event of spiritual proportions and apply it to our lives. For though the three disciples personally experience this powerful event, they are unable to see its application. How naïve can they be, how naïve can we be?
First of all, what is the transfiguration of Jesus? In verse 2 we see that Jesus is transfigured. The word used for transfigured is the word that we get our word metamorphous from. You know, in grade school we all learned how a caterpillar goes through metamorphous to become a butterfly. But to crossover and apply the transformation of a caterpillar directly to the transfiguration of Jesus is a mistake. Jesus does not become something else. Jesus is. He doesn’t become, He doesn’t change, He doesn’t evolve. In the truest sense a caterpillar doesn’t become something else either, no, conceptually, a caterpillar is another form of what it truly deep down is – a butterfly. A caterpillar has always had the butterfly deep within and in a sense the form of a caterpillar is veil that hides the true identity within – a butterfly. Jesus does not become something different, Jesus is seen for who He is.
What the disciples see is not Jesus becoming something else for a moment, what they see is a pulling away of the veil of humanity to expose the spiritual reality of who Jesus really is. They see a pulling away of what they thought was Jesus and are faced with reality – the divinity before them. It is a removal of the material world which the disciples are only aware of, to show the fuller reality, the spiritual world. Again, Jesus is. He is God who claimed to the prophet Moses that “I am”. Rev. 1:8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.” Jesus doesn’t start off as one thing and end up as another. Jesus, doesn’t live his life as a human being and then one day wake up to the realization that He is the Son of God. Jesus is at the creation of the world, He is before time – in fact as in infant in Mary’s arms He is the God almighty. For what Joseph and Mary see is what the disciples see. But their eyes are veiled to the reality of the glory of who Jesus is, just as the disciples are veiled to the reality of who Jesus is, that is until the transfiguration.
Take a look at verse 3. “His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them.” This image that Mark gives us is the image we see throughout the bible to show the glory of God. In the book of Revelations Jesus is seen in this way:
Rev. 1:14 His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. 15 His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters.
In the book of Exodus, when Moses comes down from Mt Siani his face shown brightly with the glory of God. Here in verse 3 of Mark we see the dazzling brightness of Jesus revealing the same kind of reality – His awesome glory.
Now clearly this is not the residual type of glory that Moses experiences from spending an extended period of time in the presence of God that fades with time. No, this is a momentary removal of the humanity of Jesus before Peter, James and John to reveal to them who He actually is. See, in verse 1 Jesus tells all the disciples that, “I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God come with power.” When Jesus makes this statement is referring to the event that will take place six days later, His transfiguration. Then He takes three of them, Peter, James and John up the mountain, most likely Mt Hermon, and these three experience the transfiguration – Which again is a removal of the veil of humanity on Jesus showing who Jesus really is in all his glory.
Jesus chooses to be transfigured at this specific time here in Mark to show first, His glorious divinity and second for the three disciples to experience life at the culmination of all things. What the three experience is more than a divine Jesus removing His humanity to expose His glory; What the three experience is apocalyptic, it points toward the promise, the hope of the final accomplishment of Jesus Lordship over all – They experience what Jesus is like at the final judgment when all things are accomplished and when every being acknowledges Jesus Christ as Lord. So the transfiguration is, yes an event that is revelatory to the disciples, but it is also an event that is full of promise and encouragement, for they have seen, that whatever may come to pass, whatever suffering they will experience, they have seen the end of all things – the glory of who Jesus is. In other words, they have experienced the full reality of the victorious God, and now they know, all other realities are dim in comparison.
Jesus is not alone is He? He has with both Elijah and Moses, who are chatting with Jesus about who knows what. This should put to rest any thoughts the disciples may have had bought into from the popular imagination that we saw last week that Jesus is the embodiment of Elijah or one of the other prophets. What are these two doing at the transfiguration? First each of them give Jesus credibility in his claim that there is a passing from old covenant to a new covenant. Moses stands for those who have died in Christ. Elijah represents all those who will not die in Christ as he was taken up into heaven as Jesus has promised that some will not die but be taken up into heaven also. The presence of Elijah also stresses that the fulfillment of all things has at last arrived. The public revealing of the Messiah is imminent.
So in the midst of all this, in the middle of this awesome event, Peter makes a ministry suggestion. Understand that this means Peter is interrupting Jesus’ conversation with the two greatest prophets from the OT. I just love that! Peter just looks past this fact and jumps right in….I have an idea….verse 5, “Let us put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” Verse 6 tells us why Peter blurts this out, 6 (He did not know what to say, they were so frightened.)
Peter says let us build tents or tabernacles. Some have suggested that Peter is thinking of setting up booths in the sense of the feast of tabernacles where the Hebrews made shelters out of intertwined branches celebrating the goodness of God in their lives. But that seems like an idea out of left field. It is quite disconnected to what is happening here. Peter is not thinking about a family festival but about The Tent Of Meeting. The background for this event is not a feast, it is ex 24 where we see Moses going up to the mountain to receive the law. It is a new Sinai, with Jesus being the central figure revealing the powerful coming of the kingdom of God.
See, the other kind of tabernacle can be in reference to here isn’t small festival booths, but The Tent of Meeting where Moses met with God after he came down from getting the ten commandments. The Tent of Meeting was built in the desert and moved from place to place as the community of Hebrews moved about the desert for forty years after their release from captivity from Egypt. It was here in the Tent of Meeting that God was met, it was from here in the Tent of Meeting that the Hebrews were guided in their time in the desert. The Tent of Meeting represents direct communication with God
See, it strikes Peter, ah ha, I have a great idea. Let us build not one, but three tents of meeting, right here on the mountain. Then we will have a place to once again to meet with God and not just one place but three. Peter, you see, thinks the best things can get with God would be a place like the Tent of Meeting, Jesus knows that communication with God will get even better when the Holy Spirit comes. Peter experiences this fantastic event, but in his naïveté Peter is unable to analyze the spiritual meaning of the event.
Peter is speaking, just chatting away, and a cloud envelopes them. Moses, Elijah, Jesus Peter, James and John. Again this is reminiscent of Moses in Exodus 24 receiving the ten commandments from the Lord. God appears within the cloud and God speaks from within the cloud; Moses goes up into the cloud to receive the law. In a sense here, the cloud is God’s is God’s tabernacle which both reveals and conceals his glory. When Jesus began his ministry God and declared him to be his beloved son in Mark 1:11, now God reaffirms this and confirms that Jesus is a second part of the Trinity – he is the Son of God who enjoys an unbroken relationship with the father. The voice of the Father paces Jesus higher than Moses and Elijah so there is no doubt about who Jesus is.
Then, suddenly it is all over. They are on their way down the mountain when Jesus tells them not to say anything until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead. This totally bewilders the three disciples. Jesus refers to himself as the Son of Man and we see them discussing in verse 10 what “rising from the dead” meant. Now, it isn’t that these men do not understand what the resurrection is, the resurrection is something that most Jews would have believed in. Their problem isn’t with the concept of the resurrection of the dead – its, what in world could Jesus possibly mean in His rising from the dead. To them it made absolutely no sense, because that would mean Jesus would have to suffer and die, and why would Jesus have to do such a thing? Elijah has come and since Elijah had come, the new age had been ushered in and now the time of the Messiah was at hand. In other words, because they had seen Elijah and since they had seen Elijah, everything was now going to be cool.
This is why they ask Jesus about Elijah in verse 11, they know the answer, they know Mal. 4:5 “See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes.
See Elijah has come, so these three surmise that we can skip over any bad stuff and go right to living the exalted life with the Messiah. Peter and the two other disciples misunderstand the situation. Peter’s desire is to erect three tents of meeting where once again God can communicate with men implies that Peter regards the time of the second exodus fulfilled and that the promise of coming glory is – now. So then the sufferings that Jesus spoke about do not need to happen as all in now accomplished.
Jesus agrees, Elijah does have to come, and Elijah has come. We have seen already that John the Baptist fulfilled this prophecy. So these men are right, Elijah has to come first, but they are also wrong because there is more to the Messiah coming then Elijah showing up. The Messiah must suffer and die. We read in Isaiah 52:13-15…Is. 52:13 See, my servant will act wisely; he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted. 14 Just as there were many who were appalled at him—his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man and his form marred beyond human likeness— 15 so will he sprinkle many nations, and kings will shut their mouths because of him. For what they were not told, they will see, and what they have not heard, they will understand.
We also see in Isaiah 53:1-12 where we see the messiah described as enduring great suffering. Why is this? It is summarized at the end of verse 12 “For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.” Jesus isn’t coming just to take a place of honor, He is coming to destroy what ruins every one of our lives, He has come to destroy sin. The blessing of the new age cannot be secured until Jesus suffered, dies and is resurrected.
Peter and the disciples are unable to see that the transfiguration is the sight of things to come, it is the glory of Jesus at the end of time; It is a guarantee of Jesus’ eschatological reality when at the end of all things He is vindicated at the revealing of His glory to all beings. The transfiguration not of a consummation of Jesus ministry here on earth. In their naïveté they see the transfiguration as the pinnacle of Jesus ministry. They figure, how could it get any more amazing than this? Oh how naïve they were.
It is clear that the disciples are not naïve about miraculous events, they see them one on top of the other, day in and day out with Jesus, nut they cannot interpret the events of God, even when they are right in the midst of them. Why? Well, to be able to push through both of these naïve attitudes we need the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The three disciples cannot understand the transfiguration for what it is because they rely on human information and human analysis to come to their conclusion – the Holy Spirit has not yet come, so they are at a loss with many things – but after the resurrection, after Pentecost they certainly will be able to discern. We have the Holy Spirit, we should be able to discern.
And here are a couple of things I would like us to walk away with this morning:
First, the event of the transfiguration is a message for us of hope. Whatever happens in our lives of faith, whatever people say about you and your faith, whatever difficulties fall upon us in our lives, especially because of our faith – Jesus is the ultimate conqueror, of all things. He will be vindicated in glory and along with him through our faith we will be vindicated as well.
Second, I would like to bring us back to being so sure about how we are not naïve about spiritual things. If you claim be a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, then that proceeds to mean that you must believe in the resurrection of the dead, and if you believe in the resurrection of the dead, why do you have difficulty with lesser miracles both mentioned in the Bible, and in our time today? I believe this shows a real disconnect with the Holy Spirit and this is a matter of some urgency in your spiritual life. Please consider this, this week as It reveals quite a bit about where you stand spiritually before God.
