Mark 9:2-13

The Transfiguration

2After six days Jesus took Peter, James and John with him and led them up a high mountain, where they were all alone. There he was transfigured before them. 3His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them. 4And there appeared before them Elijah and Moses, who were talking with Jesus.

5Peter said to Jesus, "Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah." 6(He did not know what to say, they were so frightened.)

7Then a cloud appeared and enveloped them, and a voice came from the cloud: "This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!"

8Suddenly, when they looked around, they no longer saw anyone with them except Jesus.

9As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus gave them orders not to tell anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. 10They kept the matter to themselves, discussing what "rising from the dead" meant.

11And they asked him, "Why do the teachers of the law say that Elijah must come first?"

12Jesus replied, "To be sure, Elijah does come first, and restores all things. Why then is it written that the Son of Man must suffer much and be rejected? 13But I tell you, Elijah has come, and they have done to him everything they wished, just as it is written about him."

BACKGROUND READING:


Exodus 34


Revelation 1:9-20


Leviticus 23:33-44



Dig Deeper

This event, known as the transfiguration, was such an intense and overwhelming experience that it seems that even those who were there had difficulty in fully comprehending or describing what happened. We can be sure of one thing, this was not a case of hallucination as some critics have claimed. How can we be sure? For the simple fact that there were three witnesses. Three people simply cannot have the same hallucination any more than they can share a dream.


The three disciples are no doubt frightened, and Peter, as we are coming to see as a pattern, blurts out the first thing that comes to his mind. From our perspective his offer to build tents for Jesus, Elijah, and Moses, is a bit amusing. He probably had two motivations for doing so. First, was his desire to prolong the moment and keep Moses and Elijah with them for as long as possible. Second, was the fact that this was most likely at the time of the Feast of Tabernacles, where Jews would build a tent called the sukkoth, to remember when God brought them out of Egypt. It’s hard to imagine that Peter’s response is a later invention by Mark. No one inventing this story would include such a funny response, and risk lowering the magnitude of the moment. No, we are left to conclude, reasonably, that this incident really happened.


Let’s look at this account from the perspective of the gospel as a whole. Jesus has led his disciples up the mountain of viewing God’s kingdom from a whole new perspective. He has unveiled God’s work in new, shocking, and profound ways. Those on the outside can look, but they don’t really ‘see’. The disciples, though, had their eyes opened for the first time. They are seeing the reality of God’s kingdom, and the truth that even though it was not at all what they expected, this is the Messiah. Once again, Mark is telling us a story about their eyes being opened. Mark is, again, brilliantly telling the larger story through one incident.


Now Jesus takes his disciples up this mountain and opens their eyes, on a whole other level. Our Western minds tend to view heaven as a separate entity from our reality, but that was not the way the Jews of Jesus’ time viewed it. For them, it was more that heaven was another dimension, that would break into ours at certain times and places. There were literally, in their worldview, times when heaven and earth overlapped. This is what they believed was happening when Moses saw the burning bush or when God’s presence descended in the glory cloud. Here, the disciples were being allowed to see one of those times when heaven broke into our realm.


This did not, however, necessarily demonstrate in Mark’s mind (or the disciples that were present) that Jesus was divine. Mark is yet to explain to us why they believed that. If this incident, in itself, demonstrated Jesus’ divinity then it would also be demonstrating the divinity of Moses and Elijah. No, this incident was demonstrating God’s approval of the inner reality of Jesus’ work. He was continuing and completing the work of the two great prophets of the Old Testament. Theologian N.T. Wright says, "this is a sign of Jesus being entirely caught up with, bathed in, the love, power, and kingdom of God, so that it transforms his whole being, in the way that music transforms words that are sung. This is the sign that Jesus is not just indulging in fantasies about God’s kingdom, but that he is speaking and doing the truth. It’s the sign that he is indeed the true prophet, the true Messiah."


This is why God says that Jesus is his beloved Son. Jesus is the full revelation for which Moses and Elijah paved the way. God has always wanted to reveal himself in the person and work of Jesus Christ, and Moses and Elijah were simply forerunners to make that possible. Again, we must understand that these words of God would have confirmed that Jesus was the Messiah, yet the disciples still haven’t grasped his divinity.


Jesus’ words concerning keeping quiet about this incident until he was risen from the dead were very confusing for a first-century Jew. The expectation was that the resurrection would happen when God transformed the whole world and raised all the righteous from the dead. They simply had no concept of one person being resurrected ahead of and pointing to the resurrection of everyone else. Like many things that Jesus said, they really didn’t understand the significance of what Jesus was saying until after his death.


The disciples are still trying to figure things out when they ask about Elijah having to come before the Messiah. Was this the event? Had Elijah come in fulfillment of Scripture? Jesus’ response indicates that Elijah has already come in the work of John the Baptist; that job is done . Now the only thing left is the messianic vocation, which Jesus has already announced will involve his suffering and death.



Devotional Thought

None of us will probably ever experience anything like what Peter, James, and John did here, but there are times when God reveals things to us. When Jesus speaks to us about our own life, we are called to listen to God’s words just as the disciples were. This is God’s Son, in whom he is pleased. Listen to him; Follow him.