Transfiguration: "how things really are"...

Mark 9: 2-9

I know from conversations I’ve had over the last few weeks that many of us are feeling the same thing about the state of the world, and the bad news which just keeps coming. Sometimes the news feels unbearable – please bear with me while I very quickly summarise a few things:

2023 was the hottest year on record, bringing floods, droughts, wildfires and heatwaves and taking our planet’s temperature closer to the point when we will not be able to reduce increasing global warming no matter what we do. We are fast approaching a crisis point which could leave a lot of the earth uninhabitable for animals, plants or humans.

The shocking case of the murder of Brianna Ghy by two teenagers who planned together to kill her has made people worry about how we keep children safe from the terrible influence of violent games and films, as well as how we equip young people to cope in a world which can be frighteningly dangerous.

 

The destruction of war just keeps rolling on despite efforts for peace – in Gaza, Syria, Iraq, Ukraine.. and so many other places.

So – unusually at the start of a sermon - I just want to give us a moment to silently bring to God all our concerns for the world that are whirling around in our heads.

 

(Silence)…Lord in your mercy – hear our prayer.

 

As we face the world in which we live does the strange story of the transfiguration of Jesus help us in any way? I think so!

For me the key comes this sonnet by Malcolm Guite (in his book ‘Sounding the Seasons”), written from the point of view of a disciples looking back on Good Friday at the events we call the transfiguration:

For that one moment, ‘in and out of time’,
On that one mountain where all moments meet,
The daily veil that covers the sublime
In darkling glass fell dazzled at his feet.
There were no angels full of eyes and wings
Just living glory full of truth and grace.
The Love that dances at the heart of things
Shone out upon us from a human face
And to that light the light in us leaped up,
We felt it quicken somewhere deep within,
A sudden blaze of long-extinguished hope
Trembled and tingled through the tender skin.
Nor can this blackened sky, this darkened scar
Eclipse that glimpse of how things really are.

 

That last phrase ‘that glimpse of how things really are’ is a fabulous one.

The transfiguration of Jesus shows his disciples who climb the mountain with him that day  - Peter James & John – how things really are – who Jesus really is.

They have been used to spending time with Jesus the teacher and healer – they know they are following someone very special, but just for a short time they see Jesus as he really is – the one who shines with all the glory of heaven – the one who reveals to them the glory of the kingdom of God.

For those of you who remember “Superman” – either as a comic or as later films – you will know that ‘mild-mannered Clark Kent’ was really ‘Superman’. When he needed to leap into action he took his glasses off and changed into his Superman costume – but in his every day work as a newspaper reporter, Clark Kent was really Superman. He didn’t choose to reveal his true identity, but it was there all along, just below the surface.

In the same way, the disciples are shown who Jesus really is.

We are hearing this story at the end of our season of Epiphany – a time when we have been looking at Bible stories that show us God at work in the world, and allow us to glimpse who Jesus really is.

The story of the transfiguration is an Epiphany that changes how disciples see Jesus Christ. 

It is part of a section which is precede and succeeded - ‘bookended’, if you like  - by two accounts of Jesus healing a blind man & enabling each man to see (Mark 8:22-26; 10:46-52).

 

Jesus is trying to help the disciples to see. He wants them to see who he really is, before his trial and execution happen, and he wants them to see the world for what it really is – a place where even pain and death can be shot through ( at our Zoom Bible Study on Tuesday we used the term ‘overlaid’) with the glory of the kingdom of God.

 

And Mark 9:1, the verse before this event, could be seen as an introduction of what is about to happen.

Peter has just proclaimed Jesus as ‘Messiah’ at Caearea Philippi; then Jesus calls the people to him & says ‘anyone who wants to be a disciple of mine must take up the cross’; then Jesus says this, in Mark 9 v 1:

“He said to them ‘Truly I tell you, there are some of those standing here who will not taste death before they have seen the kingdom of God come with power’ ”.

 

Then Jesus takes Peter, James & John up the mountain & shows them who he really is and what the kingdom is really like.  As they ‘catch a glimpse’ of glory and power of the kingdom of God, this changes how they see Jesus and how they see the world.

 

But there is a strange ‘delayed reaction’ to what they have seen that day. 

God has spoken to the disciples and said ‘Listen to him’ and then Jesus, as he takes them back down the mountain, tells them not to say anything to anyone about what they have seen “until after the Son of Man has risen from the dead”.

 

As the disciples face going to Jerusalem with their Lord and rabbi, Jesus – only to see him betrayed, arrested, beaten, crucified – they need something which will help them make sense of Jesus’ sacrifice. They don’t need a cheery ‘it will all be OK’ – because first the will have to go through terrible events that will seem very much not OK. 

 

But 3 days after the events of good Friday, they will hear the women who have been to the tomb tell them that Jesus’ body is not there, and that a young man in a white robe has told them ‘Jesus of Nazareth..has been raised’. They will then realise that ‘who Jesus really is’, is the Son of God who has defeated death. 

 

And as time goes on and they meet the risen Jesus and are later filled with the Holy Spirit, they will come to realise that it is God who rules the world, and not the evil people do. Despite the attempt to eradicate Jesus, the love of God has triumphed and the kingdom of God has been revealed just a little more.

 

This strange story may be just what we need in a world that might feel further from being God’s kingdom than ever. 

It can remind us that at the heart of what we see, we might yet glimpse the glory and wonder of God at work. Transforming pain, offering hope, defeating evil. 

 

As we enter Lent and prepare for Easter we will see God’s love at work in ways we might least expect – in sacrifice, in suffering, in death on cross.

 

And today as we share bread and wine in remembrance of Jesus, we celebrate because Jesus’ body broken and his blood poured out shows us the magnitude of God’s love for the whole world. And strange though it may seem, that is the heart of our hope for the world.

 

Amen.