Please turn with me to Mark, chapter 9.
Ever since I was little I have loved stories. Science fiction and fantasy most specifically. I grew up reading The Lord of the Rings and watching Star Wars. I’m a fan of the Marvel cinematic universe, basically any book series or movie franchise that creates a big, imaginary universe that can be explored is my thing. In college I studied psychology, philosophy, mythology and world religions in school, and also for fun. I love the world of the imagination.
But for all my immersion in those mythologies and fantasies, I can tell you that what we’re looking at in the Bible is of an entirely different category. We are reading an eye witness account of historical events most likely told by Peter originally and written down by Mark.
But if there is a passage in the Bible that starts to feel like it blurs the lines between history and imagination, it might be this one.Don’t worry, I believe that what we have here today is a factual account of an actual historical event that happened to actual historic people in an actual place, but the event described here is so… weird… compared to everything else we’ve seen so far. Including miraculous healings and demons being exorcised. It seems like it's a little easier to get our head around those things as being real events than what we’re looking at today.
Let’s read.
Mark 9:2–13 (CSB)
2 After six days Jesus took Peter, James, and John and led them up a high mountain by themselves to be alone. He was transfigured in front of them, 3 and his clothes became dazzling—extremely white as no launderer on earth could whiten them. 4 Elijah appeared to them with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus. 5 Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it’s good for us to be here. Let’s set up three shelters: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah”—6 because he did not know what to say, since they were terrified. 7 A cloud appeared, overshadowing them, and a voice came from the cloud: “This is my beloved Son; listen to him!” 8 Suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone with them except Jesus. 9 As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. 10 They kept this word to themselves, questioning what “rising from the dead” meant. 11 Then they asked him, “Why do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?” 12 “Elijah does come first and restores all things,” he replied. “Why then is it written that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be treated with contempt? 13 But I tell you that Elijah has come, and they did whatever they pleased to him, just as it is written about him.”
The Word of the Lord.
Jesus takes his three closest disciples, his inner circle, with him up on a mountain, and is “transfigured” (literally “metamorphosed… transformed”) into his brilliant heavenly glory. Something supernatural is going on, like a portal has opened into heaven, and Jesus steps through it, and interacts with perhaps the two most iconic figures in the Old Testament, Moses and Elijah. God’s voice booms from heaven. There is a lot going on here, and not much explanation given!
But this incredible story has one clear central point that we’re going to discuss today: “Listen to Jesus.”
So let’s take a look at what is going on here.
Up the mountain
Jesus transfigured - vv. 2-3
“After six days” - Mark doesn’t usually connect events through time like this. Usually he just says “immediately” or “after this”. Mark is telling us that this happens directly after last week’s passage, Peter confessing Jesus as the Christ, Jesus telling them about his arrest, death, burial, and resurrection, and after his call to take up their cross and follow him.
Jesus takes his inner circle with him. His first three followers. And we get to take a peek with them “behind the curtain”, the veil that Jesus took on of humanity is lifted for just a moment and we get to see him in his heavenly glory.
Elijah and Moses - v. 4
Jesus is there with Moses and Elijah, one is the giver of the Law, the other one of the chief prophets. “The Law and the Prophets” is a phrase used in the New Testament to refer to the Old Testament scriptures.
That these two men, fathers of the faith, used by God for centuries, are meeting with Jesus, and NOT arguing with him or stopping him, but rather showing their support is a way of saying to Israel, “Jesus is the one you’ve all been waiting for.”
We aren’t told the content of their conversation. The significant detail is that they vanish, but Jesus doesn’t. The law and the prophets have fulfilled their purpose, and Jesus now stands in their place.The law and the prophets, Moses and Elijah, always pointed to Jesus.Jesus tells us so himself.
Luke 24:27 (CSB)
Then beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted for them the things concerning himself in all the Scriptures.
John 5:39–40 (CSB)
39 You pore over the Scriptures because you think you have eternal life in them, and yet they testify about me. 40 But you are not willing to come to me so that you may have life.
Peter’s Response vv. 5-6
Peter’s reply is fun here. He just can’t keep quiet. What is up with his comment about the tents - well, we don’t know. It doesn’t tell us. But what it does say is that they were terrified out, and weren’t sure what to do.And in that moment, they are told what to do:
God’s Announcement - vv. 7-8
The voice of God himself, tells them: “Listen to him.” And here we have our central point of all of this. Jesus is revealed in all his heavenly glory. Elijah and Moses themselves acknowledge him. We should listen to this Jesus. That is the message of the transfiguration. Jesus is Lord.
Down the mountain
Jesus’s charge
On the way down the mountain, Jesus charges them to say nothing about this event until after he has risen from the dead, and the disciples give another glimpse that they were not listening to Jesus. Verse 10 says they were questioning what Jesus meant by that he must rise from the dead… “What is he talking about, rise from the dead? that can’t be right. That would mean he has to die, but he’s the Messiah, the Messiah is here to set up the kingdom… He’s not going to die… what does he mean?”They clearly weren’t listening when Jesus explained to them very clearly, just six days prior in chapter 8 verse 31 about his death and resurrection.
The Disciples’ question
But they don’t want to look dumb, so they ask a question about Elijah. “Why do the Scribes say that Elijah must come first?” — This is showing the disciples lack of knowledge because the quick answer is because the Bible says he will in the last words of the OT.
Malachi 4:5–6 (CSB)
5 Look, I am going to send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. 6 And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers. Otherwise, I will come and strike the land with a curse.
Jesus About Elijah
Jesus quickly replies that Elijah did come. We know from the other gospel accounts that he was referring to John the baptist. John preached “in the spirit of Elijah” to help prepare Israel for the arrival of Jesus.
But then Jesus turns the question on them: “why then is it written that the son of man must suffer many things and be treated with contempt?” He is referencing Old Testament prophecies such as Isaiah 53 that for some reason or another the disciples were leaving out of their theology. They had an incomplete picture of the bible’s teaching and that led them to some pretty serious error.
After the Resurrection
We do see though, that after Jesus did rise from the dead, all the dominoes fell into place in their minds. They finally understood. The resurrection of Jesus corrected all their bad theology. The resurrection of Jesus is the key to the Christian religion.
Peter’s Letter
In Peter’s second letter to the churches, toward the end of his life, he reflects back on this transfiguration event, and in so doing, gives us our application for this morning.
2 Peter 1:16b–19 (CSB)
16 …we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. 17 For he received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased!” 18 We ourselves heard this voice when it came from heaven while we were with him on the holy mountain. 19 We also have the prophetic word strongly confirmed, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.
In our passage today, the central theme is the disciples not getting it, and God himself speaking from heaven and saying “Listen to him!” In his second letter, Peter says that because the scriptures were so clearly confirmed by Jesus’s life and work, we should pay attention to them. We should listen to Jesus!
Listen to Him
As a preacher whose job it is to help explain the scriptures clearly and compellingly, “listen to Jesus” may seem like a rather lame application point. “Of course we should listen to Jesus, Matt. Tell me something new.” - Well, sorry, I didn’t write the book, and that is clearly what it says here.
But before your eyes glaze over too quickly, let me propose something: the disciples probably would have told you they were listening to Jesus. “Of course we are, what else would we be doing?”— Why then didn’t they understand what Jesus meant about rising from the dead? Jesus told them about it pretty clearly just six days prior. And yet they missed it.
We are just like the disciples, missing things that Jesus clearly says. We are hard of hearing.
There are obstacles we face in listening to Jesus, and this is true whether you have been following him for 40 minutes of 40 years, and especially true if you don’t follow him.
I’d like to end with four obstacles I see Mark having highlighted so far in the Gospel, that are common to mankind. There may be more, but here’s the four I see.
1. Lack of understanding
This problem is about not knowing what the Bible teaches. A lack of information. I think you see this among the crowds. They show up to see the miracle working pop star that everyone is talking about, but they don’t have a context for understanding who Jesus is. We can face this same problem if we don’t know our Bibles. We don’t know who God is or what to expect of Him.
So when Jesus speaks, we don’t have a context for understanding what he is talking about! How do we solve this problem?
Solution: study in community. Together in the church, with our friends and peers, and with those who have been living this life and studying God’s word for a long time, we can learn about God, His character and nature, His work and His will for us. Through good books, and solid biblical preaching, we can grow in our understanding, and therefore our ability to hear and listen to and obey Jesus.
2. Preconceived notions
The main problem I think you see the disciples and the religious leaders showing is their preconceived notions and expectations about who the Messiah is supposed to be. Their picture is incorrect because of incomplete or incorrect theology. So, when Jesus clearly explains how this is all going to go down, his betrayal and arrest and crucifixion and resurrection, they don’t get it, they don’t have a category for it, and so they don’t understand. Their commitment to their preconceived notions about who God is, and who they think Jesus should be is getting in their way of understanding who he actually is. And we can share this exact same problem. The disciples were taught bad theology from the religious leaders of the day, and that can be the case for us as well. And just like when Jesus spoke the plain truth to them, they had a hard time hearing, so can be with us reading the plain words of the Bible, we read into it our preconceived ideas.
Solution: Pay careful attention to God’s revealed word. Read it in context, according to correct rules of interpretation. It may require you unlearning the way you grew up reading the Bible, and retraining. A couple good books I recommend for this is Getting the Message by Dan Doriani and Asking the right questions by Matthew Harmon. (We have this one in our book store in the cafe, we got some copies of it during a clearance sale and are selling it back at cost.)
3. Other Agendas
The pharisees often show a lack of faith in Jesus’s words because he doesn’t fit their agendas. Their way of doing things, their goals. I think we see that in the past couple chapters with the disciples as well. Both groups in different ways are after political and religious prominence either in the current religious system, or the new one they expect the Messiah to show up. So when Jesus comes along with an agenda different from theirs, they don’t understand what he is up to, or worse, they reject what he is up to.
And we can be in the same boat when we are trying to use religion, or faith in Jesus as a means to an end, rather than as an end in itself. Maybe we see religion as a path to self improvement, or moral superiority, or personal prosperity in material terms, health and wealth. Maybe our primary agenda isn’t actually following Christ at all, but we are more serious about a political agenda, even a religiously fueled one.
Solution: Want whatever it is that Jesus has for your life most. Pray that God’s will be done. Trust his sovereign control. Listen to Jesus and understand that whatever he has for you is better than any agenda you could make up for yourself.
4. Hardness of Heart
The final problem is the most severe. A hard heart. Unbelief. Many if not most of the religious leaders, and most of the crowds in Jesus’s day simply did not believe his words. They heard him, but they did not listen. They did not believe. Why? Because their hearts were hard. This is a phrase used in Ezekiel and Zechariah, and by Jesus to describe the natural condition of every human heart: hardened in rebellion against God’s word. We see Jesus use this phrase in Mark 3, and he’ll use it again in chapter 10 and again in 16. Some of you here this morning share this problem. God’s word bounces off of you because you don’t want it. In spite of all the evidence Jesus provided through miracles and teaching, and even in today’s passage showing the disciples visibly the he is indeed God, You don’t believe it. And so you refuse to listen to Jesus and obey him. You hear the words and believe they are just fantasy, mythology, maybe good advice, suggestions for a way to live a successful life, but the revelation of God almighty, to whom you owe your allegiance? No.
Solution: There is only one cure for hardness of heart. God’s grace. God must perform a miracle and cause you to be born again. And so it is for that that we pray. And if this is you, unbelieving but wanting to believe, next week’s passage, just a few short verses after ours today gives you a prayer: “Lord I do believe, help me in my unbelief. He will answer this prayer.
This Advent season, I hope you are able to take the opportunity here and there amongst all the end-of-year craziness: finals, coordinating family get-togethers, sending Christmas cards, buying gifts, and pause and reflect on our need for the Savior, and to do what it takes to make room in your soul to “listen to him.”
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