Rightly Responding to Christ’s Glory (Mark 9:2-8) | 9/15/19
Mark 9:2-8 9/15/19 | Will DuVal
We are continuing our sermon series through the Gospel of Mark together, and this morning we’re in Mark ch.9, vv2-8. Mark 9:2-8, if you would turn there in your Bibles. We’re studying Jesus’ Transfiguration, and there are some pretty significant details of the story that Mark OMITS from HIS gospel account. Remember: 4 Gospel authors - Matthew, Mark, Luke, & John. They each have different perspectives and emphases. Mark tends to be the most bare-bones... I’m gonna give you just the facts... not a lot of excessive detail or flowery theological language. But this story, the Transfiguration, is in and of itself SO supernaturally detailed, SO theologically jam-packed, that I’m going to CHEAT and give you what is sometimes called a “harmonized” version of the story. I’m going to ADD those extra details that Matthew and Luke included INTO Mark’s account, and do a gospel “mash-up” version this morning, read the FULL story. Okay?
Would you stand me, as you are able, for the reading of God’s word:
from MARK 9:2-8, with additions from MATTHEW 17:1-8, and LUKE 9:28-36
And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain by themselves [to pray. And as he was praying, (Lk. 9:28-29)] he was transfigured before them, 3 [and his face shone like the sun, (Mt. 17:2)] and his clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one[a] on earth could bleach them. 4 And [behold! (Mt. 17:3)] there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus. [They appeared in glory and spoke of his departure,[b] which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. 32 Now Peter and those who were with him were heavy with sleep, but when they became fully awake they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. 33 And as the men were parting from him, (Lk. 9:31-33)] Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi,[b] it is good that we are here. Let us make three tents, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.” 6 For he did not know what to say, for they were terrified. 7 And a cloud overshadowed them [and they were afraid as they entered the cloud (Lk.9:34)], and a voice came out of the cloud, “This is my beloved Son [, my Chosen One (Lk. 9:35)] [, with whom I am well pleased (Mt. 17:5)]; listen to him.” [When the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces and were terrified. 7 But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Rise, and have no fear.” (Mt. 17:6-7)] 8 And suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone with them but Jesus only.” This is the word of the Lord...
You may notice from my title for this sermon – “Rightly Responding to Christ’s Glory” – that I am a classic DOER. That’s my personality, that’s how I approach life, how I approach problems. Don’t just TELL me the problem; I wanna know what we’re gonna DO about it. That’s how I approach PREACHING. Don’t just tell me what the text says – explanation – tell me what to DO with it – APPLICATION. And so I’ll be honest, a passage like this one, the Transfiguration, can be really difficult for a DOER like me to preach. As PROFOUND and PARAMOUNT as this event is, many scholars consider this the climax, the HIGH point of ALL of Jesus’ earthly ministry... all of his supernatural miracles, all his other-worldly teachings, all his other hints at his true divine identity, they have ALL been BUILDING to this moment, where Peter finally confesses Jesus for who He REALLY is – the Christ, the Son of the living God – last week at the end of ch.8, and then immediately Jesus predicts his suffering and death, because he wants them to know exactly what KIND of Savior he is, the suffering servant of Isaiah 53, the “lamb who was slain to take away the sins of the world”, but then immediately at the beginning of ch.9 here, Jesus takes them up a mountain and reveals to them the glory of God in way that is simply unparalleled, not only in the rest of the Gospels, but perhaps in all of human HISTORY. I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say that the Transfiguration might be the most OTHER-worldly event that has EVER taken place on planet earth. Jesus’ Resurrection is up there. His Ascension back into Heaven would have to be high on the list. And His Second-Coming is sure to give ALL those a run for their money.
But consider what we see happen here in Mark 9, friends. We have Jesus, in whom we KNOW, Colossians 2:9 “the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily”, he is ALL the FULLNESS of God, squeezed into this little man-suit, Jesus of Nazareth... Hebrews calls him the “radiance of God’s glory”; whenever GOD appeared to his people VISIBLY in the OT, he always did so as LIGHT; think of Moses, in Exodus 33, asking to see God’s GLORY, and God replies “you cannot see my face and LIVE”, sorry Moses, I’m just too glorious; but here, I will hide you in the cleft of this ROCK, and I’ll cover your EYES, and then I’ll let you get just a glimpse of my BACKSIDE, because that’s all you can see and still SURVIVE, and 40 days later Moses was STILL literally, visibly glowing when he came down off the mountain – God’s glory is THAT powerful; even the glory of his POSTERIOR. You think of the completion of the TABERNACLE in Exodus 40, the dedication of the TEMPLE in 1 Kings 8... whenever God shows up, it is in a BLINDING light.
Now think about JESUS. Here he is, the FULLNESS of God, he is the source of ALL light in the entire UNIVERSE. “All things were made THROUGH Him”, John says. I mean, imagine the light from just our own sun. Just one relatively small star, if you tried to wrap it up, contain it, inside a human body: that’s Jesus. The FULLNESS of God’s glory. And yet, as John MacArthur says, “With the exception of the transfiguration, that glory was veiled during His life and was only revealed in His miraculous signs, not His visible appearance.” (Mark, 648). But here, for just a few fleeting moments, on this obscure mountaintop in Galilee, God decides to take off the blinders. And we get the fullest display of God’s glory that the world has ever known.
This is AMAZING! But it’s hard to PREACH! What do you SAY? What CAN you say? It’s hard enough for me to preach it, can you imagine John Mark trying to WRITE about it, RECORD the events of that day?! Can you imagine Peter trying to NARRATE it to Mark, his ghostwriter; no wonder Mark omits some details! It’s like John says, who by the way, omits the Transfiguration altogether; John just alludes to it, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son[d] from the Father” (Jn 1:14), but John doesn’t even ATTEMPT to put the Transfiguration story itself into words. Because like John says at the very END of his Gospel, “Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” (21:25) I mean, if a TYPICAL picture is worth a thousand words, how many is THIS picture worth?! The fullness of God’s glory, momentarily unveiled in all its glory and beauty and majesty and splendor and AWE and wonder... I can go on and on with the descriptions, but I won’t EVER come CLOSE!
Friends, before we get into our application for the morning, please don’t miss this first point. This is the most important thing to be said about Christ’s Transfiguration: our response, our application, our DOING, is not what is most important here. Your life, your FAITH, Christian, is not ultimately about your response, it’s not ultimately about you at ALL. We exist for God’s glory. He is the author, He is the focal point. It’s ALL about His glory. And the Transfiguration is ALL about God’s glory.
But, with ALL that said, what do we do with this passage? JESUS is changed, literally, meta-mor-PHO-o, from which we get our word “metamorphosis”, but how does God want to use this story to change US? How ought we to respond, to God’s glory? I want to suggest that, as usual, the disciples here serve as a FOIL, for what NOT to do, when you’re confronted with God’s glory. And so we’re going to look at THEIR three-fold reaction here, the WRONG response, and contrast it with a RIGHT response to Christ’s glory.
#1 – We ought to BEHOLD, not SLEEP.
We’re called to BEHOLD! Idou, in the Greek. It’s an aorist imperative, a COMMAND. You want an application point, something to “DO”? BEHOLD! Look! See!
Now, you might be wondering, “Wait a minute, I thought God told Moses in Exodus 33 that he COULDN’T behold, he COULDN’T witness God’s full glory, because a mere mortal couldn’t HANDLE that. We’d have a real “Raiders of the Lost Ark” situation on our hands... Peter and James and John’s FACES melting off. So what’s going on here?”
MY answer, MY interpretation, is that just like God used the cleft of the rock, and covered Moses’ face to protect him from God’s glory, God uses the disciples’ NAP here, to save them. Now, we only HEAR about the nap in Luke’s gospel. But I think it’s really significant. Think of like the solar eclipse from a couple years back now. You gotta be real careful staring straight into the sun, right? Matthew tells us Jesus face shone LIKE the sun, and remember, that’s an understatement, simply because Matthew has no other human words to describe just how BRIGHT this must have been. He’s the source of ALL light. So I’ve got to believe God in his perfect Sovereignty, ORDAINED that Peter and James and John, predictably, the same 3 that will fall asleep on Jesus in his hour of greatest need, in the Garden of Gethsemane just before his arrest and crucifixion, here they are AGAIN – they have a KNACK for finding the most CRUCIAL times, to take a nap. But God in his goodness and Providence, uses their human frailty to literally save their faces, as they sleep through the most significant display of God’s glory in human history.
Friends, let me ask you: how often do YOU sleep on God’s glory? I’ve been thinking more about LySyin’s “Ask the Pastor” question from LAST week: Can our deceased loved ones look down on us from Heaven? And if you listened to the podcast, you heard me reference Hebrews 12:23 “the spirits of the righteous [will be] made perfect””, and I elaborated on John Piper’s really insightful point that “if God grants saints in heaven to see the suffering and misery as well as the good on the earth, we may be sure that they see it not with their old imperfect eyes... They will see and understand and assess all things in a perfectly spiritual way... so, they will not in the least doubt the goodness of God in what they see.” (John Piper, Ask Pastor John, “Can Loved Ones in Heaven Look Down on Me?”, Jan 27, 2017), and I can’t help but wonder: what if WE could BEGIN to see that way now? What if sanctification, being made more perfect in THIS lifetime, being transformed, metamor-PHO-o, Paul uses the exact same word of US, in Romans 12:2 – “be transformed by the renewal of your mind,” if the more we grew in our knowledge and understanding of the Lord, and our walk with Him, would we begin to see God’s glory EVERYWHERE?! I mean, the whole earth IS filled with His glory, Scripture makes that ABUNDANTLY clear, Ps. 72:19, Isaiah 6:3, Numbers 14:21, Jeremiah 23:24, Ephesians 4:10, Habakkuk 2:14. So if all of CREATION testifies to the glory and splendor of God, if that indeed is why there is something rather than nothing in the first place, and why you and I have been given the gift of life: it’s ALL for God’s glory, if His glory is EVERYWHERE, then why don’t we SEE it? Why is it so EASY for us to experience the world as MUNDANE.
My wife. Eh, I’m used to her. Oh my WORD! If I could just pause and tell y’all about GOD’S GLORY as he reveals it to me in my WIFE, for a few hours! I won’t, cuz this is supposed to be about God, and Polly would never show up to church again. And yet I miss God’s glory in her every single day.
What about you? How much of God’s glory all around you, it fills the whole EARTH, how much are YOU missing out on? In your spouse? In your kids? Your mundane job that you hate? Your boring co-workers you can’t stand? Image-bearers of God! Listen, this is not the world’s Hallmark, “see the miracle in every snowflake” pitch. The world tells you to carpe the diem and turn every moment into a miracle because it’s all you’ve GOT! This fleeting life is all you’ve got, and when it’s over, you turn to dirt and get eaten by worms and within a couple generations you’ll be forgotten forever; if that worldview gets you fired up and motivated to go out and live your best life now, then more power to you. It takes me in a very DIFFERENT direction, personally. Nihilism. What’s the point.
No, friends, Christianity says we actually CAN find meaning in the mundane, there actually IS purpose, and beauty and hope to be found, even in the WORST of life that we experience, in our immense pain and suffering, it’s why Paul can say in Romans 5:3, “we REJOICE in our sufferings”! Because one day we will know fully, one day we will see with perfected eyes, and we’ll look back on our lives and see exactly how God was working it all together for good, Romans 8:28, and the AMAZING thing is, we don’t even have to wait til we get to Heaven; we can start even NOW be transformed by the renewing of our minds, and begin to experience God’s GLORY in ways that we’d previously been blind to.
Consider Romans 3:23. “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”. We often interpret that as “God is perfect. We’ve all sinned. Therefore we don’t deserve to be in relationship with Him, to be in Heaven with Him.” And that’s all true. But another way to interpret that is to simply understand that God is GLORIOUS. His glory is EVERYWHERE. And that you and I were, Isaiah 43:7, “created for His glory”, to BRING him glory, and to WORSHIP Him FOR his glory. And yet, we fall short of that. We miss out on that, ALL the time! Brother and sisters: in what areas of your life have you been SLEEPING on God’s glory, BLIND to it, MISSING it... and how might He be calling you this morning to pause, repent, and BEHOLD!
Response #2 to God’s glory: We ought to LISTEN, not SPEAK.
LISTEN more, talk less.
James 1:19 “let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak...”
Proverbs 18:2 “A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion.”
Proverbs 10:19 “When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but whoever restrains his lips is prudent.”
And yet here in Mark 9, in the midst of the most supernatural, awe-inspiring, “words SHOULD escape me” moment in all of human history, what is Peter’s response? You know people like this? who just can’t seem to HELP themselves. Anyone else’s KIDS like that? I can be in the middle of the most beautiful, sacred, I just want to freeze time in this moment kind of experience with my daughter, the other day, she tells me, “Daddy, I want to dance for you,” and she does, and she is pouring her HEART dancing for me, it is SO precious and beautiful, I am experiencing this RARE glimpse of God’s glory in her, and in the beauty of this moment, I’m weeping with joy... and then she comes over to whisper in my ear and I think she’s gonna just SEAL the moment by telling me how much she loves me or something, but instead she whispers, “I need to go poopy.”
There’s something just WRONG about that. Isn’t there? About WRECKING the glory of a moment like that. Now take that and multiply it by infinity and you’ve got what PETER does here. Talk about falling short of the GLORY of God. The fullness of God’s glory on brilliant display. NOTHING NEEDS TO BE SAID. What CAN you say, in THAT moment?
“Hey Jesus – how bout I go make some TENTS for y’all?” [*Hang head in hands*] I can’t wait to get to Heaven and give Peter a hard time about that one. God is so gracious. Other people in the Bible catch on fire or spontaneously drop DEAD for less than this. And Peter deserves it. But instead, God the FATHER Himself comes to Peter in HIS glory in the form of a CLOUD, think again, of the cloud of God’s glory covering the tent of meeting in Exodus 40, and this cloud “overshadows” them and Luke 9 says they actually ENTER the cloud, instead of PUSHING Peter down the mountain, God actually pulls him in closer, like a good Father does, what a beautiful picture, but then, ALSO like a good father, when his child needs reproof, God sets Him straight: “Peter, THIS is my beloved SON, talk less, and listen to HIM more.”
Friends – how often do we do the same? How often is the reason that WE miss out on God’s glory, on God’s voice, on God’s will for our lives, because we’re too busy talking to shut up and listen? What percentage of your prayers do you spend talking? You know prayer is supposed to be a conversation with God, right? A 2-way street... You know people who never shut up? You can’t get a word in edge-wise... are they fun to be around? Some of y’all extreme introverts are like, “That’s literally ALL my friends; we cannot be friends, unless you can fill 100% of the conversation.” Guess what – God’s not like that! He’s got PLENTY to say. 2,333 PAGES worth of small print, in MY Bible, worth of stuff to say. And actually, even MORE than that. Cuz He still wants to speak to you TODAY! He’s not done talking! We just MISS most of it, cuz we’re too busy talking AT Him, to pause and listen.
I’ve told some of y’all this story before: When we knew we were leaving Culver, the boarding school I worked at for 5 years before coming here. I fought it and fought it and fought, and prayed and asked God to open a door for me to stay, I PLEADED with God. For months. And I think it must have been just a few WEEKS before we were going to be basically EVICTED from our campus housing that spring when the term ended, and didn’t know where we were gonna go next or what we were gonna do, and I decided, “I’m just gonna take a whole day, and I’m gonna get away, drive up to the Dunes on Lake Michigan, and fast and pray and just be quiet. Just ask the Lord to speak and tell me what to do, and then listen.” Now keep in mind, this was probably the first time I’d EVER done something like that. This was a Hail Mary, last ditch option, when ALL of my other job searching and negotiating with the school and everything else had fallen through. But I figured, what the Heck, worth a shot. And I’ll tell you, it was SHOCKING how quickly God spoke to me. Once I finally shut up and listened. It was almost like he WANTED to say something all along, but He was patiently waiting to get a word in edge-wise. And y’all know the rest of the story; what I heard him SPEAK, to my heart that day, was “St. Louis”, which was FUNNY, because I promised Polly when we got married that I’d move anywhere in the WORLD for her, BUT St. Louis; she’s from here, and that’s a whole ‘nother story, but as they say, “if you wanna make God laugh, tell him your plans.” And I would just ADD: “if you wanna hear GOD’S plans, be quiet for half a minute.”
Finally, response #3 - DRAW NEAR, don’t FEAR. Look with me especially at Matthew’s version of the last couple verses there...
“When the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces and were terrified. 7 But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Rise, and have no fear.”” (Mt. 17:6-7) What a POWERFUL picture. You wanna talk about fear? Keep in mind: this is only the second time that God the Father has spoken in an audible voice to humans in over 400 years. God spoke with their forefathers all the time: Abraham, Moses, David. But when MOST of them stopped listening, he set apart special PROPHETS to whom to speak. And when people stopped listening to THEM, God just went SILENT for 400 years at the close of the OT. And then the NT opens, and ANGELS starting talking to people again, telling Mary and Joseph they’re gonna have a baby, and THAT was scary enough! The only other time God spoke to this point in the NT was at Jesus’ baptism in Mark 1, when He said, “ “You are my beloved Son;[d] with you I am well pleased.”” (1:11) So apparently He was JUST addressing Jesus there, so the DISCIPLES here, in Mark 9, are the first humans to audibly hear the voice of God in over 400 years, and it’s in response to a really really stupid thing that Peter just did, they are RIGHTFULLY terrified.
But what does Jesus do, friends? Does Jesus punish Him? Belittle him? Put Peter down? Peter deserves it. But Jesus, v7, came NEAR, and TOUCHED him, and said, “Rise, and have no fear.” And suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone with them but Jesus only.”
That’s POWERFUL. I think of that BEAUTIFUL verse we sing, “He shall return in robes of white, the blazing sun shall pierce the night, then I will rise among the saints, my gaze TRANSFIXED on Jesus’ face.” The disciples get a foretaste here of the Glory that is to COME for ALL of us who follow Christ, when He returns for His Bride.
But here’s the thing friends, and here’s how I want to end today, because as much as I am committed to giving you APPLICATION in every sermon, some good take home points for your everyday lives, YES, spend more time this week “Beholding”, YES, spend more time this week LISTENING for God in your prayers. But as much as every sermon needs application, even MORE so, MUCH more so, it needs the GOSPEL. And here’s the good news, friends, that while you were as good as ASLEEP, actually, it’s better than that – while you were actively REBELLING against the glorious God whose splendor fills the entire universe, He was doing something FOR you on a cross that is infinitely WORTHY of your beholding. It ought to stop you in your TRACKS this morning. While you were busy speaking, MOCKING Him, just like the soldiers who strung him up and spat on Him, it was MY sin, YOUR sin, OUR sin, that held Him there, and while we were too busy mocking Him to even notice or care, if we HAD stopped to listen, we would have heard him say “It is FINISHED”, as he paid once and for all the debt that we rightfully owed God but COULD NEVER pay by virtue of our sin. And He made a way for a sinner like you to be adopted back into God’s family again. And because of that, not because of anything YOU’VE done – you have every REASON to fear based on what YOU’VE done – but because of what JESUS has done for you, in his life, death and resurrection, God can say to you today, “Rise, and have no fear.” He says, “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.”
Your good and loving Heavenly Father wants to draw NEAR to you today, and Jesus Christ has made that relationship actually possible again for you, but relationships, like conversations, are a 2-way street. So I ask you this morning: will YOU rise, and look around, and resolve to see know one else, but Jesus alone. Paul said, “I consider everything else in this world as GARBAGE, compared to knowing Jesus”. Will you transfix your eyes on Him this morning?
Let’s pray.