“Listen to Him!”
Mark 9:2-9
Allen Huff
Jonesborough Presbyterian Church
2/15/15
Jesus takes three disciples, “up a high mountain.” In the
Bible, that means Hang on! Unforgettable
things happen on mountains –epiphanies happen, overwhelming encounters with God.
Think of Abraham and Isaac on Mt. Moriah. Think of Moses on Mt. Sinai, and
Elijah on Mt. Carmel. If it helps, think of Indiana Jones in “Raiders of the
Lost Ark” tied to a stake on a rocky mountain top. In the gospel according to
Spielberg, when the ark of the covenant is opened by those who don't respect it,
God shows up!
Actually,
as I recall, God shows up and melts their faces off, so I take that back. I
hope that doesn't help at all.
On that mountain, Jesus and the three disciples stand “apart
by themselves.” Epiphanies happen in solitude, as well. Mark deliberately puts
us up on that mountain with Peter, James and John who, if not entirely alone,
are still separated from the wider circle of witnesses whose extra eyes would
be immeasurably helpful in verifying the claim of something like Transfiguration
– something not only mind-bending, but entirely subjective. Transfiguring
moments are like that, though. As subjective events, their substance has less
to do with any outward appearances we may try to describe than with the
spiritual readiness created by our inward strengths, and vulnerabilities, and hungers.
That readiness is like an ember in our souls. And upon seeing it, God blows gently
on it.
Jesus seems to recognize readiness in Peter, James and John,
but the moment still leaves them in speechless awe. According to Mark, when the
disciples reach the top of the mountain with Jesus, they see him glowing as
with his own uncreated light. Moses and Elijah, two old hands at mountain top
epiphanies, stand with him.
“Then,” says Mark, “a cloud overshadowed them…”
Do you hear the different stories rattling around in here? Where
else do we come across “overshadowed” as a description of transfiguring
epiphany?
“The Holy Spirit will come upon you,” says Gabriel, “and the
power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will
be called holy.”
And from even more ancient words: “While a wind from God
swept over the face of the waters . . . God
said, 'Let there be light.'”
When
Transfiguration happens, the creation shifts. A new day dawns, and this new day
is more than the day that follows yesterday. Transfiguration gathers the light
of past, present, and future and sheds its brilliance on that completely new
reality we call the kingdom of God.
Transfiguration rises above any one moment or place. It is yet
another synonym for God's ongoing work of creation, redemption, and renewal. Like
the first day of creation, like the announcement of the coming of the Christ,
and Easter morning itself, Transfiguration speaks of God’s overshadowing creativity
and innovation. And perhaps more often than not, Transfiguration “moments” are
not moments at all. They are more like the Exodus, a forty-year ordeal. Such an
event becomes a “moment” only when remembered within community, and even in the
remembering one is never certain when the old ways ended and the new ways
began.
However transfiguring experiences happen, thanks to our
all-too-human blinders and blunders, we often overlook them. Occasionally we
even ignore God’s new thing, choosing instead the comfortable familiarity of
old relationships and arrangements. And there are, I suppose, times we do that
simply to rest. We return to old ways and means because trying to live in the
renewing order of God while also living in a broken world is a tall order. The
relentless tension between the already and the not yet of the kingdom, the
constant overlay of holy and profane, and the unyielding paradox of being both children
of Abraham and children of God – these things can weary us to the point of
blindness and deafness.
Squinting into the brilliant vision before him, Peter,
impulsive as ever, says, ‘Rabbi, can we just stay here? Me and the boys, we’ll
build a shelter for each of you, and we'll just stay on this mountain until,
well, forever!’
While Jesus heaves a Bless
your heart sigh toward Peter, from the overshadowing cloud a voice speaks: “This
is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!”
Listen to him. These
words come crashing down onto the disciples – especially Peter. Remember, six
days earlier, Peter boldly confesses Jesus as the Christ. When Jesus rewards
Peter’s faith with the prediction of Jesus’ own death, Peter turns and with a
kind of childish vengeance scolds God’s Messiah for blasphemy. Peter now offers
the utterly self-serving suggestion that, instead of doing anything at all for
the well-being of creation, the few of them who stand on that mountain should
just stay there and keep the presence of God to themselves.
“Listen to him!” says
the voice.
Something within us embraces the holy Christ-ness of Jesus.
That’s why we are here. Still, like Peter, when we experience the presence of
God, something else within us wants to crawl up inside it and just stay there. And
God always sends us back into the midst of the tension and the suffering so
that we might share God’s transfiguring kingdom of grace.
This Wednesday is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. The
standard Lenten greeting has become: “What did you give up for Lent?” But the
discipline of Lent is to “Listen to him,” to put ourselves on mountains and in
places of solitude where we might hear and see things that draw us closer to
and deepen our awareness of and our love for God’s presence. It seems to me,
then, that giving up something as indulgent as chocolate or ice cream and
calling it a Lenten sacrifice is not only to miss the point, it is to avoid the
point.
If I decide that not eating chocolate or ice cream really
prepares me for Easter, I reinforce a sense of entitlement, a sense that luxury
and excess are not only basic human rights, they are God’s manifest destiny for
humankind. Economic wealth becomes my spiritual reality. At that point Jesus
turns to me and says, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not
on divine things but on human things.” (Mark 8:33b)
If we want to observe Lent by giving something up, first listen
to the Christ. What is Jesus really asking us to give up? Isn’t he daring
us to give up fearfulness, to give up jealousy, violence, envy, and greed?
Whatever it is that allows us or even compels us to live over against one another
rather than with and for one another – that
is what Jesus calls us to abandon, because such things disfigure us rather than transfigure
us.
Jesus calls us to start listening for, seeing, and sharing
kingdom things, things of wonder and promise, things of reconciliation and
peace.
So, Listen to him!
Then hang on.
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