Mark 9: 2-9, page 714
After 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. His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them. And there appeared before them Elijah and Moses, who were talking with Jesus.
Peter 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.” He did not know what to say, they were so frightened.
Then a cloud appeared and enveloped them, and a voice came from the cloud: “This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!”
Suddenly, when they looked around, they no longer saw anyone with them except Jesus.
As 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.
Sermon
This wasn’t the first time Peter noticed Jesus wasn’t just a normal teacher. He had seen Jesus cast out daemons, heal his own mother in law as well as many others, and even calm a storm. Mark includes two miraculous feedings, in chapter 6 Jesus feeds five thousand, and in case Peter didn’t get the message, that Jesus can fill crowds of hungry people, he feeds four thousand in chapter eight. Jesus shows Peter who he is and Peter is convinced that he did the right thing in leaving home to follow this man, and is able to confess the reality of Jesus’ divinity before we even get to chapter 9. Jesus asks, “Who do people say I am?” They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; still others, one of the prophets.” “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”
Peter answered, “You are the Christ.”
Peter speaks this truth to Jesus, Peter gets it, but after seeing Jesus in those clothes whiter than anyone could ever bleach them and standing there with Moses and Elijah he is so afraid he doesn’t know what to do, and like so many of us when we are afraid or worried, he wants nothing more than something to occupy his hands, to anchor his emotions which are flying around out of control, and so he says, “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.”
Peter knows, and has known for a long time, that Jesus is special. His relationship to him has already so changed his reality, but it is one thing to know Jesus and it is quite another to know Jesus.
That difference seems something like the relationship I have with the new person who will be changing my life completely due to be born this April. I know that she is coming, I have felt her kick and I have seen her fuzzy little picture on the ultra-sound monitor, but it is one thing to know that she is coming and it is another thing to put together her crib in the living room, to touch that place where she will sleep… and then to bump up against the door way, trying to get that assembled crib out of the living room and into the nursery.
Sometimes the awesome takes a while to really sink in. For me it was seeing that crib, touching that place where she’ll sleep, and for Peter it was seeing Jesus standing there with Moses and Elijah in clothes of dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them.
Here in Mark chapter 9 the full reality of Jesus sinks in for Peter, and for the one who seemed to know him the best this full realization is terrifying.
Jesus for Peter has already been hard to categorize. He has had glimpses of Jesus throughout the gospel, and each time Peter thought he had Jesus figured out, Jesus breaks the box that Peter had tried to put him in, defied his expectations.
Peter got to know Jesus the healer, and he was amazed by those healings, but when Jesus walked off to pray in a solitary place Peter frustratedly went looking for Jesus saying “everyone is looking for you!” There are people for you to heal Jesus, that’s what you are supposed to do, Peter thought. So Peter had to learn that Jesus didn’t come to earth to heal everyone who needed it, as Jesus pushed on to the next town.
Peter has also seen Jesus cast out daemons, and so knows that Jesus has power over them, an authority that not even the religious authorities have. But Peter has also seen Jesus silence them, demanding that they don’t betray his identity.
Peter knows Jesus, in a way he has him figured out more than anyone else, but when Jesus predicts his own death Peter tries to talk him out of it, and Jesus turns to him saying, “Get behind me Satan! You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.”
It is one thing for Peter to know who Jesus is, to say, “You are the Christ,” but it is another thing altogether to know and to see him there with Moses and Elijah, because Moses and Elijah are dead.
The truth – the complete picture of Jesus – the fullness of what it means sinks in: following Jesus the Christ means going to the cross.
Peter isn’t alone in his discomfort with Jesus the Christ – like all those who are more interested in Jesus the healer or Jesus the feeder of thousands, Peter is inclined to emphasize a part of Jesus he’s more comfortable with, saying, “teacher, it is good for us to be here.”
You can teach us whatever you want right here.
But to stay awhile would have been like never letting a little baby be born, to never let a child grow into an adult, to never grow beyond what is right now into the possibility of what might be.
Holding tight to what we have, not knowing what we stand to gain, like Peter we want to stay up on that mountaintop, because we are afraid.
Why do we have to go now?
A good question, and a question to which Dr. Martin Luther King responded in his I Have A Dream Speech:
“We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.”
King was prepared to embark on a radical change, and it was one that scared a lot of people. It would have been easier for them if King had just stayed up on that mountaintop a little bit longer, delayed change for just a little while – because the change he was proposing meant the death of one thing in the name of the birth of another.
Peter fears where Jesus leads; he fears the loss of all that he has, and he doesn’t see yet what he stands to gain. All he sees is death, assuming the end of what he has known is truly the end, and not understanding that on the other side of death is new life.
That on the other side of segregation – is a whole new world of equality.
That on the other side of racism – is a whole world of possibility.
That on the other side of divorce – could be love and independence.
That on the other side of alcoholism – is freedom.
That on the other side of financial meltdown could be a culture where people have enough and not way more than they need.
That on the other side of death – that cruel, unavoidable mystery – is new life.
This is the place we always stand – change is always kicking like an unborn child in a mother’s womb.
And to get to know this new person I have to go down the mountain to a place I haven’t been before. We stand on the brink of possibility, and only fear can stop us now. Follow Christ, not occupying your mind with what you stand to loose, but with all you stand to gain.
-Amen.
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