Mark 9:2-10
“Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves.”
After proclaiming last week my undying love for the immediacy with which everything happens in Mark, we have this passage that begins “[s]ix days later”. What the hell? Six days after Peter’s confession of Christ, Peter’s misunderstanding of Messiahship, and one of my favorite of Jesus’ teachings, they do this thing. I can’t figure out why. There’s no indication what day this might be, so there doesn’t seem to be a sabbath teaching. Why the wait? Or is this just one of those historical particularities that don’t really have any significance?
Peter, James, and John are set apart a lot in Mark. Obviously, this indicates their importance to the early Jesus movement. This isn’t really relevant to preaching, but I always wonder if this is historical revisionism to empower the leaders in Jerusalem.
“And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became a dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them.”
I never really know what to do with magic Jesus. The rationalist in me knows that this is metaphorical language to make a confessional claim about the Jesus’ nature, but I also know that most people throughout history have taken it literally, probably even Mark himself. On top of that, I know that neither of these positions are relevant. It’s like looking at a sunset and arguing whether God designed it or is it truly random. The best thing to do is just shut up and look at it.
But that won’t do for a sermon. One of a preacher’s main jobs is to talk everyone out of being mystified. We can’t just sit and stare forever, though. Some amount of explication and exhortation is necessary if this is to have any effect on our lives, and what’s the point of worship and study if not transformation of the self and the world.
“And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus.”
Many of the commentaries I read about this are blatantly supersessionistic, seeing this as proof of Jewish tradition bowing before Jesus, or of a proclamation that Jesus is the culmination of the Torah and the Prophets. However, the text (and all translations I consulted) clearly reads that they “were talking with Jesus”. This seems to commend to us a conversational model of interreligious dialogue. To the best of my knowledge, Christians at Mark’s time would view themselves as something other than Jews, even if they were born into the Jewish tradition. But this is clearly not holding Jesus over Moses and Elijah. Not even Matthew, the most supersessionistic of the synoptics, does this. Jesus is in conversation with them. Jesus is one of them.
“The 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.”
Despite his terror, Peter wants to stay im the presence of majesty. Rather than taking the experience with him and living a life transformed by this manifestation, he wants to remain in the realm of majesty. Anyone who has had a transcendent experience would rather remain in the fugue state than return to the real world, but, as Aslan tells Peter and Susan at the end of Prince Caspian, we have to return to our worlds and learn to recognize Christ there.
Which makes me wonder what the source of the disciples’ terror is. Are they afraid of what is happening, or are they afraid it will end? If Peter speaks for them, it seems that they are more worried that it will end than that it will continue.
Just before one of the worst experiences of my life, I was in a sanctuary, preparing myself with prayer. My heart was literally strangely warmed. It was exactly like I had rubbed Icy Hot all over my insides. I would have given anything to remain in that sanctuary, in the state, forever. But, of course, time didn’t stand still. I had to take that experience with me into the real world, but I entered the real world transformed.
“Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!’”
I especially like this passage in Mark because of the parallel with Jesus’ baptism, in which it seems only he hears God’s voice. At some point between the two events, Jesus’ Son-of-Godness has gone from being an internal conviction to an external reality. Of course, this challenges orthodox notions of Jesus’ divinity, which I tend to ascribe to, but in all honesty those notions are nowhere in Mark.
This makes me think of Jesus in The Last Temptation of Christ, a Jesus who does, for a time, reject his Messiahship. I like the idea of Jesus having a choice about who he will be, and because he has chosen over the last nine chapters to work towards the establishment of the Kingdom, he has made his divinity a real thing, rather than an inward calling. It makes it all the more poignant when Jesus is called the Son of God for the third and final time, this time by a human being. His divinity is not only real; it is recognizable to anyone with eyes, even a Roman.
If this is true, I have to wonder of some of the terror that “they” felt back in v 6 was also felt by Jesus. We’ve all been afraid at times of the things God might want to do with our lives. Anyone who hasn’t has probably never opened up to the radical possibilities of God. If Jesus is truly human, such fear must be a part of his emotional palette. It’s humbling and reassuring to think that Jesus might share our own trepidation.
“Suddenly, when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.”
I feel like Barclay here, but what more so we need than Jesus? Is this not sufficient for 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. So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what this rising from the dead could mean.”
The lectionary cuts this passage of at v 9, but I like including 10. It makes a nice parallel with last week’s reading, wherein the leper did not keep quiet, and with previous stories of Peter, where he just doesn’t understand what’s going on. This is evidence that they were transformed by the experience. God said, “Listen to him.” So they listened. For once, they actually did what Jesus said. What a message for us. If Peter could get things right once in a while, then there’s hope for us, too.