Mark 9:1-10 Pre-figuring the Cross March 1, 2015

Transcription

1 Mark 9:1-10 Pre-figuring the Cross March 1, 2015 Second Presbyterian Church, Baltimore Rev. Dr. Tom Blair Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. Then 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. Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him! Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus. 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. 1

2 Today is the second Sunday of Lent; how well are we doing on our journey? In some ways, after having been snowed out last week, and with the threat of more white stuff coming our way, I feel something like the groundhog emerging from his den to see his shadow- or not; to find out what is going to happen next. On the other hand, given the scope of this liturgical season we re now in- with more than a month to go (with some added warmth from the sun!), and how it is that the Gospel writer Mark presents this story of Jesus to us; we can be assured that what we encounter along our way will help us become more familiar with and assured about the coming steps of our Lenten journeys. I think our tendency, whenever we begin a new season of the church year, is to feign innocence to say we ve never heard these stories before and that we have to listen to and learn the stories all over again. I understand that, because not everyone is intimately familiar with all the Bible stories we share and every generation needs to hear it anew. Still, many of us have heard this story before; we re familiar with the storylineup the mountain they go, Jesus, Peter, James and John; the wondrous joining up of Jesus with Moses and Elijah, Peter s desire to make something permanent out of this, the heavenly affirmation of God s blessing on Jesus, and the mysterious message of what all this will someday mean after the rising from the dead; (whatever that is to mean...)... This morning I invite you to revisit the story a little differently; like a story out of season, which this is- with a different meaning than we usually come up with in the telling. Mark presents the account of the Transfiguration at a different time in Jesus life than other gospels. Rather than happening at the very beginning of Jesus ministry, after the Temptation in the wilderness, as a confirmation of God s blessing on him, this story takes place more than midway through the Gospel, at chapter 9 of 16. Jesus has already been at work, teaching and healing, drawing crowds, provoking the authorities, questioning the Pharisees, engaging in what we know to be the core of his ministry. Mark has us look at the story of the 2

3 Transfiguration in a new way, pre-figuring -if you will, Jesus identity as Lord and Savior, in a different way than you might expect. Scholars often talk about Mark s gospel as a passion narrative with a long introduction. What that means is that we get signs of the end of the story at the beginning, images of foreshadowing, repetition of the main theme, repeated variations of the central message of the gospel again and again; somewhat like a symphony; because we need repetition to truly understand this message, for it is really not so much in our human nature to do so. Mark asks us to consider the cross in many varied ways, presenting the cross in ways we might not expect, or even realize that we re seeing it. We are more like the disciples in Mark s gospel than we know, who never ever seem to get it - who don t understand what it means when Jesus says that he will be handed over, or crucified, or will rise from the dead. Mark s point is that we are just as resistant to the truth as the disciples, so he has to keep showing it in different ways in order for us to start to see it for what it is... So you can begin to look at this morning s story like this: on the bulletin cover we have a picture of a classic icon of the Transfiguration, by Theophanes the Greek, from a stylized representation of the scene described by Mark. With Jesus flanked by Elijah and Moses and James, Peter and John below, it might not take too much of a leap in your imagination to re-frame this in your mind s eye- and to see Jesus on a cross, flanked by two criminals, (bandits, Mark calls them) with two Marys and Salome kneeling at the foot of the cross. 3

4 This image-transfer, if you will, and what we do with it in our mind s eye can begin to make a difference in how we understand where and how Christ is present in our world and in our lives. Christ is not just present in glory, in the high points of life, in mountain-top experiences, but is just as present in times and places of suffering and self-sacrifice, and everywhere in-between, too. And the means of communication of this is perhaps just as important as the news itself. Maybe it s just been the news of the past couple of weeks that has struck me so; with the striking contrast of images we receive though newspapers, TV and the Internet. We go from high to low to quirky distractions pretty randomly, without a gauge of what is important and what is not. Maybe you resonate to this. Wars, famines, fashion, trivia all get thrown into the media blender- and all appear to be of equal validity and value. Here s a sampling of the images that have been stuck in my mind s eye over the past week or so: Was that a blue dress, or was it a gold one? Llamas loose on some Arizona street. Twenty one young Egyptian Coptic Christians in orange jump suits, with ISIS thugs standing behind them, knives at the ready. Political gridlock and posturing in the House of Representatives, 50 miles to our south. Homeless men standing at the intersection of University & St. Paul, 50 yards to our south. Another shooting Baltimore, another one in rural Missouri. An American Methodist missionary taken captive in Nigeria. 220 Christians taken hostage in Syria. A politically motivated shooting in Moscow. Leonard Nimoy passes on to the Final Frontier. I could do this any given week; highlighting public images and events; the memes of modernity; the icons of our times. But the point might not be made as sharply as today, with the transfiguration story as backdrop, the solid ground of Lent under our feet and another living 4

5 symbol waiting for us to share. The fact that Jesus was joined in glory with others from eternity, Elijah and Moses, watched on by the three disciples, was when you think about it, much less remarkable than Christ s presence hanging on a cross, between two common thieves, with only a few very faithful followers, all of them women, still brave enough to stick around to witness it. The contrast of those scenes is striking, and it can either puzzle us, making us scratch our heads at what s going on, or it can leave us very, very grateful that in such dramatic and unmistakable ways, God gets the message through to us- that there is no length that God will not go to show unending love for us. In glory and in suffering, from the highest highs to the lowest lows, God is with us in Jesus Christ, to support, encourage and guide us, to remind us to keep our eyes and hearts open, and our hands at the ready to do what Christ would do, the best we can. And to do that, Jesus invites us to join together at this table; to be fed with his body and to drink from his cup- nourished by his presence and with his very substance. We are invited into the holy story of life, living by faith while trusting the One who will never let us go. Amen. 5