Petering Out On The Mountaintop

Mark 9:2-9

Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. Then Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” He did not know what to say, for they were terrified. Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus. 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. 

---

Someone once told me they hated the Lord of the Rings movies. That was a hard thing for me to hear. As a die-hard Tolkien fan who has spent countless hours immersed in the mythology and adventures of middle-earth through the novels and films, it’s hard for me to comprehend how someone could say they hated the original trilogy of films; as imperfect as they were. 

This person elaborated, saying he stumbled upon the movie on TV and gave up after about a half-hour because he couldn’t understand what was going on. In the course of the conversation it became clear that he had seen just one of the movies in the original trilogy – the last one, The Return of the King. 

It’s no wonder he didn’t understand what was going on; there are six hours of film material that sets up The Return of the King. If he didn’t understand what the ring is, why a tiny hobbit and allies had set off to destroy it, or the dynamics of the forces and obstacles in their way, then there was no way he could be invested in the outcome of the story.

In a way, jumping into the story of the Transfiguration of Christ in Mark’s gospel account is like skipping the first two Lord of the Rings movies and only watching a ten minute scene from the third movie. You might appreciate the special effects or a particular line delivered by an actor, but you’re left with no clear understanding of how the scene fits into the larger story, much less what implications the story has for you.

So, briefly, here are the stories you need to know in order to appreciate the story of the Transfiguration.

Episode 1: Moses and Mt. Sinai.

The Lord summons Moses up the mountain where, over the course of 40 days and nights, Moses encounters God through wind, earthquake, and fire. Moses receives a lengthy list of commandments, starting with what we know as the ten commandments, but also including laws about the altar, slaves, violence, property, restitution, festivals, etc. The last thing Moses does before leaving the mountaintop is he requests that the Lord’s favor would be with him and his people. The Lord agrees. 

Moses returned to camp with the commandments and finds the people had made a golden calf idol to worship, effectively rejecting the Lord who brought them out of slavery. Moses is furious and smashes the stone tablets engraved with the commandments. The Lord is furious and threatens to destroy the people. Moses intervenes, however, and the Lord’s mind is changed…although the Lord still sends a plague upon the people. One could make the case that the people got sick less due to divine wrath and more likely because Moses had ground up the golden idol and made the people drink it. 

We’ll fast-forward decades after Moses’s mountaintop experience to Episode 2: Elijah and the SIlence.

Elijah was a prophet to the Northern Kingdom of Israel. Elijah led a military victory over followers of Baal, which outraged Jezebel, the Queen of the Northern Kingdom. Fearing for his life, Elijah fled from the promised land and went into the wilderness, eventually coming to Mt. Sinai. 

Elijah hopes for a Moses-like moment. He wants The Lord to appear in the fire, wind, and earthquake. He wants the Lord to bestow to him the new rules so that he could return to the promised land and usher in a new age of fidelity. He wants to be the new Moses. 

But this time on Mt. Sinai, Lord was not in the wind, earthquake, or fire; rather, God was in the sheer silence. Not a "still, small voice" (as has been erroneously translated), but it is in the silence that God speaks. In the silence, Elijah understands what he must do; he must return to the same people who had threatened to kill him and continue to proclaim the prophetic word of justice and truth. 

Jesus’s disciples and the first Christians were very familiar with these stories. They understood mountains had played a significant role as important places of divine revelation. They also understood that things go awry once you head down from the mountain and try to communicate your divine experience back in the “real world.” 

Fast-forward once more to Episode 3: Daniel and the Mysterious Figure. 

Daniel was a noble and faithful Hebrew man whom the Lord rescued from the den of lions. The final part of Daniel’s story involves an encounter with “a man clothed in linen….His face was like a flash of lightning, and his eyes were like burning torches” (Daniel 10:5-6). This luminous figure foretells of a great military victory for the Hebrew kingdom, ushering in a time of prosperity and peace; and concludes with a mysterious statement about the resurrection of the dead. This figure was often understood as a symbol of the Christ or Messiah.  

Here we have two stories of dine revelation happening on a mountain; and one story of a figure clothed in blinding white promising the Lord would lead the Hebrew people to victory on the earth. 

With these stories in our rearview, we can now turn our attention to today’s story of the Transfiguration. 

The writer of the Gospel of Mark likely thought this was an important story to include in his collection of Jesus-stories because it is so obviously in continuity with well-known Hebrew stories, as we’ve just explored. However, as with all the great gospel stories, it’s power is precisely where the story puts a radical spin on previously-held truths.

Jesus has been very active teaching, healing, and providing for the people suffering great need. At this point Peter has proclaimed Jesus as the Messiah. Only a couple verses later Peter rebukes Jesus for claiming that he would be killed by the religious and political forces. After all, Peter knew of the promise of victory given to Daniel by the mysterious figure. By talking about being killed, Jesus was getting the story wrong.

Jesus, Peter, James and John head up a high mountain and there Jesus is transfigured. His clothes become dazzling white and Elijah and Moses show up and start talking to Jesus.

Peter’s mind in blown. He knows something incredible is happening. Some new divine revelation is about to be revealed. And then it hits him. “Uh-oh, he thinks; I know what happens when people go back down the mountain…and it’s never good.” Peter’s excitement turns to terror.

Once more Peter rebukes Jesus, this time it’s proactive and subtle; but it is a rebuke nonetheless. Peter refers to Jesus as “Rabbi.” In Mark’s gospel, the disciples only ever call Jesus “Rabbi” when they’re about to challenge or confront him. It’s a power move, designed to pin Jesus within the confines of the established Hebrew religion – the one that promised great blessings for the people so long as they remained faithful.

So Peter calls out to Jesus, "Rabbi, it is good for us to be here." But what he's really saying is something like this...

“Hey Rabbi, don’t forget your obligation is to our religion, so whatever it is you’re talking about with those two, be careful. You know what, let’s just hang out up here. We got Moses and Elijah here, which is great. Plus, as long as we’re up here, we’re safe. Whatever you three are talking about is probably bad news for everyone else, and I don’t like giving people bad news. So, what d’ya say. Wanna pitch a tent and never go back down?”

And then comes a loud voice, saying, “This is my son, the beloved; listen to him.”

And there’s the twist of the story. On the top of this new mountain, there is no new divine revelation. No new commandments. No wind, fire, earthquake, or even silence. There is only the acknowledgment that everything Peter needs to know has already been said by Jesus before they summited the mountain.

And what has Jesus been saying recently? He has been talking about how he is going to die and be raised back to life.

Jesus has been sharing a new radical divine revelation the whole time. It’s the same message Peter rebuked Jesus for saying.

God’s purpose is not a military victory over Israel’s oppressors. God’s purpose is peace..

God’s purpose is not to give the Hebrews and Christ-followers all the world’s resources. God’s purpose is for all things to be shared abundantly among all people.

God’s purpose is not a cult of adulation. God’s purpose is the way of the cross.

As one biblical commentator puts it, God’s phrase, “Listen to him!” means that the disciples are to believe Jesus’ word that “rejection, suffering, death, and resurrection are integral to his messianic mission, and that the way of the cross is equally integral and inescapable for all who would follow him (cf. Mark 8:34–38).”*

There is always a chance that we would use the relative security of religion to wall us in from doing the real work of discipleship. The real work of discipleship is cruciform. It is going down from the mountain into the world that desperately needs the message of peace, love, hope, and unlimited forgiveness.

May you be aware of the times when your faith is “Peter-ing” out – the times when you desire to choose safety over service and comfort over care. God is on the mountain just as God is on the cross; but God also comes down from the mountain the same way God comes down from the cross. 

The real work of discipleship is cruciform. It is risky and dangerous. It calls us to move away from false assurances and instead to take the leap of faith into a path we cannot see.

The real work of discipleship is cruciform. It is driven by a love “that refuses to “play the world’s power game of domination, exploitation, greed, and deception.”**

The real work of discipleship leads to the cross, where everything that needs to die is put to death; and everything beautiful rises again, and again, and again; because the beautiful things in life will come back to us. 

Amen.

* Rodney J. Hunter, Feasting on the Word, p.452.
** Hunter, p.454.

Holy Discontent

Mark 1:29-39

As soon as they left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. Now, Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever and they told [Jesus] about her at once. He came to her, took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then her fever left her and she began to serve them.

That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all those who were sick or possessed with demons. The whole city was gathered outside the door. And Jesus cured many who were sick of various diseases and he cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.

The next morning, while it was still very dark, Jesus got up and went to a deserted place, and there he prayed. Simon and his companions hunted for him. When they found him, they said, “Everyone is searching for you.” He said to them, “Let us go on to the neighboring towns so that I may proclaim the message there, also; for that is what I came out to do.” And he went, throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.

---

I’m fascinated by this last little bit of today’s Gospel, where Jesus gets up early in the morning, while it’s still dark, and goes to a deserted place, by himself, to pray. And his disciples – Simon and his companions, these new friends of his he’d just met not long before – hunted for him. They HUNTED for him!

And Jesus must have been tired. He had to be worn out. He must have been whipped after that night of crowds and healings – curing diseases and casting out demons. The whole city had gathered to bring him their sick and struggling and suffering masses. So Jesus must have spent hours holding hands and praying prayers and pouring himself out for the sake of all those strangers.

And after however much down-time and rest and solitude and prayer he was able to steal for himself in that early morning darkness, his disciples find him, interrupt him, let him know that “everyone’s searching for him,” and then he’s up again… off again… on his way again to more towns and more villages; more strangers in more synagogues; more crowds with more diseases to cure and more demons to cast out.

And you have to wonder, “Why?”. He could have stayed put. He could have let word spread and he could have waited for people to find him. He could have stayed in Capernaum – a place where it’s believed he made a home for some time and a place where he probably could have lived happily ever after – as some kind of local hero, if he’d wanted. 

But Jesus was on the move again. He wasn’t comfortable with a few cured fevers and a handful of damned demons. Jesus seems to have been moved by some holy kind of discontent that wouldn’t allow him to stay put; that wouldn’t allow him to settle; that wouldn’t allow him to limit God’s grace to a moment in time; or to a one-night-spectacle; or to a single location.

Jesus was about the kingdom of God, after all – bringing it, bearing it, becoming it for the sake of the world. “Let’s go on to the neighboring towns,” he says, “so that I might proclaim the message there as well, for that is what I came out to do.”  “Let’s get out of Capernaum; let’s get out of Galilee…”  “Let’s get out of ourselves and do more and better because even what we’ve already done – as great as it is – isn’t enough.”

Some of you noticed when I got back from Kenya a couple of weeks ago, that it took me some time to really “get back” from Kenya. It’s easy to blame a lot of that on jet-lag and the time change and the long couple of days of planes, trains and automobiles it requires to make such a trip. And all of that takes a toll on a traveler, for sure. But I’ve also realized, over the years, whenever I’ve returned home from a trip to somewhere like Kenya, or India, or of course, Haiti, it’s more than jet-lag that wearies the soul.

It’s the perspective I get about all the things I take for granted in my life. It’s the reminder – in all of those places, from all of those people – of how deep and wide the need is in this world. It’s the conviction of how much more I would, could and should be doing to make a difference.

It’s the reality check about how hungry people are in so many ways, for nourishment of all kinds. How lost people are, in so many ways. How needy… how sick… how hurting… And how all of that is true on this side of world, too. We’re just hungry in different ways. Lost in different ways. Hurting, sick, and needy in different ways.

For every house or hospital we build in Fondwa, Haiti, there’s a hungry, homeless soul in Kisumu, Kenya.

And for every family in Africa, lost to the poverty that afflicts them, there are untold numbers of families in our neck of the woods, lost, too, in their abundance, with more money and things and stuff than they know what to do with – so lost they think more money and more things and more stuff are the way to make things better.

For every gymnast in Michigan these last few weeks whose story was told, whose villain was convicted, whose justice was served there are as many more who still go unheard, not believed, and unsaved by parents, teachers, pastors and more.

For every “me too” woman whose assailant or abuser is found responsible or fired, or whatever, there are as many more, too, without resources or recourse to redeem the injustice they’ve suffered.

For every disease cured, another diagnosis is delivered. For every demon cast out, another lurks in the shadows. We get the idea. We know the drill. It can be wearying and tiresome, for sure. But it can be convicting and inspiring, too, when we look at it all through the eyes of our faith; as followers of Jesus; as children of God.

And I think it should fill us with a holy kind of discontent – like it did Jesus – every time we turn on the news and see a hungry child or a natural disaster or another school shooting or whatever it is that makes our hearts beat with a little more emotion than usual. It’s the same sort of holy discontent we’re called to every time we gather here to make our confession and receive the forgiveness we know in bread and wine and water – and feel the nudge to share those blessings with the world. It’s the same sort of holy discontent we’re called to every time we look in the mirror or say our prayers – and give thanks to God for the blessings that are ours, in spite of ourselves.

Because the gift of God’s grace in our lives is so much more than just “ours.” It’s abundance upon abundance upon abundance and it calls us be wholly discontent with the way things are – because we know how God intends for things to be. It calls us to get moving with God’s message, like Jesus did, no matter where it may carry us – to do more, to give more, to say more, to become more for the sake of the world, by God’s grace.

So let’s find and follow Jesus, in the darkness, alone this morning; and let’s pray there, with him. Let’s find rest for our souls there. And faith for the journey. And gratitude for the invitation. And good courage to go with this God – who does not grow weary – who is already and always on the move to do justice and to redeem what is lost.

And let’s do this with grace and gusto because so many – around the globe and around the corner and around this room – are desperate to hear God’s story of mercy and hope and redemption; a story that is our charge, our challenge and our privilege to proclaim, in the name of Jesus Christ, crucified and raised to new life – and promising as much – for the sake of the world.

Amen