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.

Our mild winter has allowed a number of people to continue hiking at least down on the flats. Before long the snows will begin melting and people will be pushing higher and higher up the mountains. Today’s Gospel lesson has Jesus pushing up a high mountain.

For today’s lesson I encourage you to open the pew Bible to Mark chapter nine beginning at verse two. It says that Jesus took Peter and James and John, He led them up a high mountain where they were alone. To better understand this trip up the mountain and what it is they were about to see we have to backup a few verses - back in chapter eight beginning at verse twenty-seven. There we hear Jesus ask the disciples, Who do the people say I am?

Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others say one of the prophets.

Here comes the important question: But what about you? Who do you say I am?

Peter answered for the group, You are the Christ!

By the working of the Holy Spirit they had been brought to confess that He is the Christ, remember no one, not you not me, can say Jesus is Lord apart from the Holy Spirit. (1st Cor 12.3) Although they didn’t understand it all yet, let us not be too hard on them because we often don’t always “get it” either. Jesus would continue teaching them that they and all who would follow after them would know what it means to be the Christ.

Jesus began to explain to them that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law and that He must be killed and on the third day rise again to life. (Matt 16. 21)

Upon hearing this Peter takes Jesus aside and began to rebuke Him. If you looked into Matthew’s Gospel (16.22, 23) he adds This shall never happen to you. No, Jesus your plan doesn’t make sense. We don’t want a dead Christ, what good is a dead Christ, and all this talk of rising from the dead makes no sense. Jesus said to Peter, and the Peter in all of us, get behind me, Satan, you do not have in mind the things of God but the things of man.

Keep in mind they believed Jesus to be the Christ but still they questioned God’s plan. Peter spoke what was on their minds. Oh, how much is that like us? We confess Jesus to be the Christ and in the next breath we are challenging God, perplexed at what He allows to go on in this world. “Why don’t you do this or that?” At times we even rebuke Him for the struggles or hard times in our lives. At other times we wonder why He has seemingly abandoned us. As for the cross, it isn’t the way we’d do it. If left to our devices, we would make salvation a reward for good deeds and good intentions for good people like us. To the Peter in all of us Jesus says, Get behind me Satan.

Now back to today’s text, (Mark 9.2) Jesus leads Peter, James, and John up a high mountain. Come up here – something that needs to be shown to you and those who will come after you, and there He was transfigured before them. His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them. He was transfigured, changed, that which was within was made known, the unseen was seen. They had seen the man Jesus, confessed Him to be the Messiah and now they were privileged to see, if even just for a moment, the God Jesus. Peter would later write of this day, We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses to His majesty. (2nd Pet 1.18)

Eight years ago I had a friend, Bev. She had cancer. We had been through the loss of her husband Gene to cancer, and she was battling a reoccurrence for the umpteenth time. When Bev and I began working together, I would go timidly to her house on Sunday’s to tell her about God’s love for her. In the beginning she would make sure she had her wig on to cover all the hair chemo had taken from her. As time went on she gave up that hot wig, and put on scarves or bandannas. Well, one day we’d been together long enough that she was willing to show what lived beneath the bandanna. She took it off and there was her bald head. What had been unseen was seen. In a small way, she was transfigured. With a long sigh she said, “This is who I am.” Together we got deeper into God’s plan to rescue her from her sins and her cancer.

Her transfiguration brought us closer together. Before long I only saw my sister in Christ. She was beautiful hair or no hair. She was beautiful because she reflected the glory of the one she called her Christ.

Jesus was transfigured for Peter, James, and John. He was transfigured for us. They had come to believe Him to be the Christ, confess Him to be the Christ and now for their benefit to remove any doubt He was transfigured, changed, Matthew tells that His face shown like the sun. (17.2) But He was not reflecting the glory of God as Moses did in our lesson from Corinthians. (2 Cor 3.13) Jesus is the glory of the God. It is that glory we are called to reflect. I fear that sometimes we are often poor reflectors.

Jesus’ transfiguration wasn’t for His benefit. It was for ours. That we would know that He is God in flesh appearing. He is one to whom we ought to pay attention.

We hear in verse four that Jesus is talking with Moses and Elijah. In Luke 9.31 they were speaking of His departure. In Greek the word is His “exodus.” When we hear the word “exodus” we often think of the second Book of the Bible which tells the Old Testament story of God delivering the children of Israel from bondage.

I hope this calls to mind: the burning bush, Moses and Pharaoh, the ten plagues, and the parting of the Red Sea. In our lesson today we have Jesus, Moses, and Elijah discussing the ultimate exodus – our deliverance from sin, death and Satan. What they are discussing is the cross. Jesus must die, exchange his life for ours, to pay for our sins. Whether we like it or not each of our sins carries a heavy price. He who was without sin must become sin for us and then the sin bearer must die. Like it or not that is the price demanded for the forgiveness of our sins, great and small. It is the price Jesus willingly came to pay in our stead.

The plan also calls for His resurrection from the dead, His rising to life on the third day, but Peter and the others, as we hear later, didn’t understand what this meant. Even today many don’t understand that because Jesus lives we will live also. (John 14.19)

If transfiguration and the presence of Moses and Elijah were not enough we have the Father adding His stamp of approval. A cloud appears, it doesn’t come over the horizon and work its way over to the mountain. No, it appears and a voice declares: This is My Son, whom I love. Listen to Him. And it is not just listen to Him now and then. A more accurate translation for the words “listen to Him” would be “listening to Him constantly.”

How much better might our lives go if we were listening to God via His Word regularly? How much better might our lives go if we were spending time with and heeding the One who is without beginning and end, the One who is all-knowing, all-powerful, and ever-present, the One who as Job and Matthew declare laid the earth’s foundation …the One who marked off the universes dimensions… the One who said to the waves you come this far and no farther …the one who knows at any given moment the number of hairs on our heads and birds in sky. (Job 38 and Matt 10) It is that Word that has the power to change us, to transform us: from the worst of sinners into the most grateful of saints, from unbelievers to believers, and from those of weak faith to bold proclaimers of God’s promises of grace and peace.

For a number of reasons: fear, confusion, maybe awe, Peter wanted to prolong this mountaintop experience. Unwittingly, he was once again getting in the way of God’s plan of salvation- rather than the cross let’s stay up here on this mountaintop. I will build three shelters- one for You, one for Moses, and one for Elijah. Let us stay up here. It is safe. But Jesus didn’t come to be safe. He came to save sinners and He has commissioned us to be out in the world. Go and make disciples, baptizing them and teaching them. (Matthew 28.19) Tell them of God’s plan of salvation, tell them of the cross and resurrection. Jesus so loved each of us that He would not stay but started down the mountain on a road that would lead to the cross.

Mark notes that as they were going down the mountain Jesus gave them strict orders not to tell anyone what they had seen until the Son of man had risen from the dead. Unfortunately, many of us act as though the first half of that sentence was still in effect- “do not tell anyone.” I’m here to remind you that Jesus has risen from the dead. There are people all around us that need to here about what happened on that mountaintop. They need to hear about our Jesus who lived, died, and rose again for us and them, a Jesus who came to be the Lord of their lives that they might have life and have it in abundance.

Amen