Everyone has a plan till they get punched in the mouth.
Those words of wisdom were spoken by the heavyweight boxing
champion Mike Tyson before his famous fight with Evander
Holyfield back in the early 90s. They have since been quoted by
journalists, entrepreneurs, politicians, even a president of
the United States. Tyson later reflected on what he
meant by the famous quip. People were asking me before the
fight, what's going to happen. They were talking about his
style. He's going to give you a lot of
lateral movement. He's going to move, he's going
to dance, he's going to do this, do that.
I said everybody has a plan until they get hit.
Then, like a rat, they stop in fear and freeze.
Sometimes when we encounter suffering, it feels like getting
punched in the mouth. It feels like you had your plan,
you knew what you wanted to be doing.
And then the suffering came and you just freeze.
It scrambled every plan you had. You thought you knew how to
handle it. It turns out you don't.
Suffering often comes as a shock, as a surprise.
So a crucial question really in just living as a human being and
a crucial question for those who follow Jesus.
So what can you do now to prepare to suffer well?
What do you need now in order to suffer well when it comes?
This morning we return to our series in Mark's Gospel.
We're picking up just past the halfway point at Chapter 9,
verses 2 to 13. If you don't have a Bible, you
can put up your hand and someone will bring you one.
If that's because you just forgot a Bible this morning,
that's fine. If you don't have a Bible at
home, we're happy for you to take this one.
Keep it, read it, it's our gift to you.
In the last passage we studied a couple of months ago, the end of
chapter 8 through Chapter 9, verse one, Peter rightly
confessed Jesus to be the Messiah.
He also wrongly rejected Jesus own teaching that his
Messiahship means he is going to the cross to die for sins.
And so Jesus instructed Peter and the other disciples that it
wasn't just Jesus's road that led to the cross, it will be
their Rd. too. As Jesus says in chapter 8 verse
34, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and
take up his cross and follow me. That really becomes a theme
sentence for the whole rest of Mark's gospel, that definition
of what it means to follow Jesus.
Take up your cross and follow me.
That's what Jesus is especially going to be unpacking and his
teaching in the next 3 chapters. That's what he's going to be
exemplifying as he goes to the cross.
In order to find life in Jesus, you have to die first.
In order to receive glory with and from Jesus, you have to
suffer with Him first. The only way into the Kingdom is
through the cross. And that's true both for Jesus
and for everyone who follows him.
At the end of that section, Jesus makes a promise that's a
little hard to understand at first.
Chapter 9, verse one. And He said to them, truly, I
say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste
death until they see the Kingdom of God after it has come with
power. Somehow some of His disciples
will see God's Kingdom come in power and glory within their
lifetimes. That raises a lot of questions.
Who, when, how, why? Please follow along as I read
our passage for this morning. Mark Chapter 9, verses 2 to 13.
And after six days, Jesus took with him Peter and James and
John and LED them up a high mountain by themselves.
And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became
radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them.
And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, and they were
talking with Jesus. And Peter said to Jesus, Rabbi,
it is good that we are here. Let us make 3 tents, one for you
and one for Moses, and 1:00 for Elijah.
For he did not know what to say, for they were terrified, and a
cloud overshadowed them. And a voice came out of the
cloud. This is my beloved son, listen
to him. And suddenly, looking around,
they no longer saw anyone with them, but Jesus only.
And as they were coming down the mountain, he charged them to
tell no one what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen
from the dead. So they kept the matter to
themselves, questioning what this rising from the dead might
mean. And they asked him, Why do the
scribes say that first Elijah must come?
And he said to them, Elijah does come first to restore all
things. And how is it written of the Son
of Man that he should suffer many things and be treated with
contempt? But I tell you that Elijah has
come, and they did to him whatever they pleased, as it is
written of him. Here's the main question our
passage answers. What do we need to see in order
to suffer well? The answer is simple.
We need to see Jesus's glory. What do we need to see in order
to suffer well? We need to see Jesus's glory.
More specifically, here's the point of the sermon.
In one sentence, seeing Jesus's glory prepares us to share in
both Jesus's suffering and his glory.
Seeing Jesus's glory prepares us to share in both Jesus's
suffering and his glory. We'll walk through the passage
in three parts .1 Glory unveiled, glory unveiled.
We see this unveiled glory in verses 2 to 6.
Look again with me at verses 2:00 to 3:00.
And after six days, Jesus took with him Peter and James and
John and LED them up a high mountain by themselves, and he
was transfigured before them, and his clothes became radiant,
intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them.
Six days after what? Well, it's six days after He
gave that promise in verse one that some of the disciples would
see the Kingdom of God coming in glory and power in their
lifetimes. Now, until we arrive at the
final week of Jesus's life, this is the most precise time stamp
in all of Mark's gospel. He's never been so specific
about the timing when something happened.
Why does he highlight that this took place only six days later?
It's to underline that this experience fulfills that
promise. What these three disciples would
see on the mountaintop is the Kingdom of God coming in power
and glory, at least a preview of it.
Now what exactly do they see? Verse 2 tells us that Jesus was
transfigured before them. That word transfigured means his
appearance changed, but changed How?
This one verb transfigured doesn't tell us explicitly, but
it becomes a little clearer from the next detail.
His clothes became radiant. They were shining with light.
They were so bright it was beyond the capacity of anyone
who works with clothes on Earth to get them that white and
bright. His clothes were shining with
light. Light always comes from a
source. What is the source of the light
that is lighting up his clothes? It didn't come from outside, but
from inside. The light was not from the sun
or any external source of brightness.
Jesus himself was the light. Jesus himself was the cause of
his clothes shining like the sun.
The light was coming from him and passing through his own
garments as it radiated outward. So what caused Jesus appearance
to change? We could say that his human
nature began to shine with the glory of his divine nature.
He began to radiate divine brightness and beauty and glory.
One way to think about the incarnation that I think is
biblically fruitful is to understand that when the Son of
God became Incarnate, his human nature became like a cloud that
both concealed and revealed his divine glory.
Think about what a cloud does to the sun.
On the one hand, it blocks it. You can't see the sun directly
when there's a cloud in front of it.
It acts as a veil between the cloud and your eyes.
But on the other hand, a cloud blocking the sun still let some
light through. It could be completely overcast,
but the sun is still getting some light to earth.
And when there is a cloud, just the right kind of cloud, just
the right thickness, sometimes you can even look and see the
outline of the sun, the shape of the sun.
You can see it, you can look at it without your eyes getting
burned out by it. If you looked at the sun without
a cloud in front of it, it would destroy your eyes.
You can't gaze on it without something in between.
So in his Incarnate state, Jesus's humanity normally acts
as a veil for his divinity, like a cloud covering the sun.
But now, for a brief time, to these three disciples up there
on the mountain, Jesus himself lifts the veil.
Jesus himself reveals his divinity more fully and directly
to these three disciples. The rays lighting up his
clothing come from Jesus himself.
When Moses would speak with God face to face on Mount Sinai or
at the Tent of meeting, we learn in Exodus chapter 34 that his
face would shine afterward. He had to put a veil over his
face so he didn't scare the people of Israel.
But Moses glory was borrowed. It was given, it was a
reflection, it was derivative. Jesus glory is his own, it comes
from himself. So the Transfiguration is not
exactly a change in Jesus. More specifically, it's a change
in what Jesus let's his disciples see of the glory he
always has. Now, why did Jesus choose to
reveal his glory to these three disciples?
I think the clearest clue comes from later in Mark's Gospel in
chapter 14, when Jesus chooses these same 3 disciples to
accompany him into the Garden of Gethsemane.
They'll see him fall to his knees in prayer.
They'll see him sweat drops of blood and agony.
They will hear him ask the Father if the cup of wrath can
pass from Him. Jesus handpicked these three
disciples to see an advanced vision of His glory because they
would have the most intimate sight of His agony.
He let them behold His glory now to prepare them for when they
would behold His suffering. But Jesus's glory is not all
they saw. Look at verse 4.
And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, and they were
talking with Jesus. Why are Moses and Elijah here?
A lot of people take them to represent the law and the
prophets as the kind of two major divisions of Old Testament
Scripture. I think that's on to something,
but I don't think it's exactly right.
For one thing, while Elijah was a prophet, he did not write any
prophetic book. There is no book of the Old
Testament bearing the name of Elijah.
For another thing, Moses is also frequently called a prophet in
Scripture. I think there are two main
reasons why Elijah and Moses show up here.
We're going to camp out on this for just a little while.
One is that both Moses and Elijah are somehow associated
with the promised fulfillment of God saving purposes.
In Deuteronomy 18, verses 15 to 18, God promises to someday
raise up another prophet like Moses.
And in verse 15, the Lord says it is to him you shall listen.
And then at the very end of Malachi in chapter 4, verse 5,
the Lord promises to send Elijah before the day of the Lord
comes. And then in verse 6, the very
last verse in the Old Testament, he will turn the hearts of
fathers to their children, and the hearts of children to their
fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter
destruction. So by their presence here, Moses
and Elijah are showing. Now's the time, the things God
promised to his people to do to save them, that's what he's
getting busy fulfilling now. In that sense, even though I
don't think Elijah and Moses represent the law and the
prophets, I think they are witnesses from God's past
revelation. There are witnesses that what
God said he is now doing in Jesus.
They attest that Jesus is the fulfillment of all God's
promises. But I think there's an even
deeper reason why Moses and Elijah are here.
Why those two? When Moses was on Mount Sinai
receiving the Law, the people sinned with the golden calf.
That's Exodus 32. Then in Exodus 33, Moses pleads
with God not only that the Lord would continue to personally
accompany His people to the Promised Land, but even more
specifically Exodus 3318. He asks, Please show me your
glory. And God answered that request.
He hid Moses in a cave in the side of the mountain.
He caused his glory to pass by him, and he proclaimed His
goodness. He proclaimed His name before
Moses. Moses asked for and received a
revelation of God's glory on a mountaintop, specifically Mount
Sinai. Elijah the prophet also received
a revelation of God's glory, also on a mountaintop.
In fact, it was the same mountain.
First Kings 19 tells us that after Elijah confronted Ahab and
was threatened by Jezebel, he fled to Mount Horeb.
Mount Horeb is another name for Mount Sinai.
There God gave Elijah food and rest, and he also gave him a
glimpse of his glory. He gave him a revelation like
Moses first Kings 1911, and he, that is the Lord, said to
Elijah, go out and stand on the mount before the Lord, and
behold, the Lord passed by. Why are Moses and Elijah here
now? Because they both in their
earthly lifetimes received a mountaintop revelation of God's
glory. And now they get another what
they could only previously catch a glimpse of as God passed by.
Now they can look at face to face.
They can see the glory of God in the face of Jesus.
This is yet another mountaintop revelation of God's own glory,
here in the person of His Incarnate Son.
Now how did the disciples respond to both of the glory
itself and the prophets being there?
Peter, as he often does, rushes in and tries to take decisive
action. Verses 5 and 6 and Peter said to
Jesus, Rabbi, it is good that we are here, let us make 3 tents,
one for you and one for Moses, and 1:00 for Elijah.
For he did not know what to say, for they were terrified.
It's a little bit difficult to know exactly what Peter was
hoping to accomplish. We shouldn't go looking for some
grand thought out strategy because the verse tells us he
didn't know what to say. He and the other disciples were
terrified. But whatever Peter's exact plans
or hopes, it does seem clear that he was trying to prolong
the magic. He was trying to take this
moment and keep it going. On the one hand, that's a good
thing. He's there with the Lord and his
glory. It's where he wants to be.
It reflects his love for Jesus. And it does seem that the
Transfiguration is a preview of the end that God has in store
for all believers. Peter knows it's good to be in
the presence of God's glory face to face.
What more could you want? But Peter also should have
known. But he didn't know that this is
only a preview. It can only be a preview.
Why? Because Jesus has already told
him he's going to the cross. Jesus has already told him he's
going to die and rise again. Jesus has given Peter enough
information to know whatever this is, this isn't going to
last. So even if Peter isn't fully
aware of the implications of what he's saying, in effect,
he's asking for a Kingdom without a cross.
He wants the Kingdom to set up shop right here on this mountain
right now. Who knows, maybe extend
operations outward from its base on the Mount of Transfiguration.
Didn't Elijah call down fire from heaven?
Didn't Moses defeat Pharaoh's army?
They can take care of whatever issues need ironing out as the
Kingdom gets established, but that's not how God's Kingdom
would come. Also, Peter's offer to make 3
booths kind of misses the whole point of the Transfiguration.
This is Jesus revealing his own divine glory that is completely
incomparable to anything any human being could possibly
possess. And Peter goes, well, let's make
3 tents, one for you, one for you, one for you.
No, no, no, Peter. These three are not on the same
level. These three are not in the same
class. You might be intending to honor
Jesus by that offer to build a Tabernacle to shelter him.
We're actually demoting him to the level of a mere prophet like
Moses and Elijah. The whole point is He is utterly
unique. Verse 6 tells us they were
terrified that all three disciples were overcome with
fear. That is a proper and fitting
response to seeing the glory of God.
One test of whether you really know God is that you fear Him.
One test of whether you have genuinely encountered the glory
of God is that it scares you. Our God is a consuming fire.
Our God is so holy that when He brought His glory down to touch
Mount Sinai, the mountain trembled and quaked as if it
would come apart under the weight of God's glory.
If you meet the true and living God, if you have a true
revelation of His glory, your soul will tremble and quake
under the weight of it. Your soul will threaten to come
apart because it cannot bear the encounter with His utter purity.
Why? Because of your sin.
To see God's glory is to see yourself in a new and sobering
light. One more question about this
part of the passage. Why did Jesus give these three
disciples this revelation Now? Why does it happen here at this
point in his ministry? It's because He has just begun
His journey to the cross. It's because He's just begun to
teach them that the Kingdom will come through His death and
resurrection. He's just begun to teach them
that His Messiahship will mean his being crucified and their
discipleship will mean they're taking up the cross.
Jesus showed these three disciples His glory to prepare
them for His suffering and their own.
He revealed His infinite divine majesty to remind them that His
death is part of His own divine plan for their salvation.
This will not be a mistake. This will not be an accident.
This will not be Plan B. This is divine Plan A from all
eternity. Jesus is letting them see His
divine glory now so that they won't forget it when they see
Him in the depths of suffering and shame and agony.
There's a 12th century Greek speaking Christian teacher in
Italy named Phil Agathos who put this point beautifully.
A little bit of a long quote, but I think it's worth it.
Indulge me. Why then did the amazing
transfiguration occur? If they should see His face
slapped and spit upon, let them no longer be scandalized, since
they had stored in their memories his brilliance that
outshone the sun. If they were to see him clothed
in purple as mockery, let them affirm him to be the one who on
the mountain was wrapped in light as in a robe.
If they should see him fixed on a scaffold between two
criminals, let them recognize him here as Lord, standing in
majesty between Moses and Elijah.
If they should know him as a corpse hidden away in the earth,
let them remember him overshadowed by a brilliant
cloud. What do we need to see in order
to suffer well, We need to see Jesus's present divine glory.
We need to see by faith that he's seated at the right hand of
the Father. We need to see by faith that he
eternally exists from the Father.
We need to see by faith that He is the Father's beloved, eternal
Son. We need to regard Jesus as more
important, more compelling, and more beautiful than anything in
this world. In 2nd Corinthians 318, Paul
writes, and we all with unveiled face beholding the glory of the
Lord, are being transformed into the same image from 1° of glory
to another. This is how Christian growth
happens. This is how spiritual
transformation happens. This is how the Lord prepares us
to suffer well for His glory. Seeing Christ's glory conforms
you to His glory. That is one of the essential
dynamics of the Christian life. Seeing Christ's glory conforms
you to His glory. Seeing Christ's glory fills you
with that same glory. What can you do this week to see
Christ's glory? You might prefer to be on the
Mount of Transfiguration then Jesus would just show you.
But alas, we're not. Where has God put Christ's
glory? Where has He made it available
and put it on display? How can you access it and behold
it and be changed by it? Point #2 Glory proclaimed.
Glory proclaimed. In verses 7 and eight, another
witness to Christ's divine glory comes onto the scene, verse 7.
And a cloud overshadowed them, and a voice came out of the
cloud. This is my beloved Son.
Listen to him. Throughout Scripture, God
frequently manifests His presence to His people in a
cloud of glory. We see this especially in
Israel's wilderness journey after the Exodus, where the
pillar of cloud and fire dwells in the midst of the camp and
leads them on their way. Isaiah 6311 identifies that
cloud as a manifestation of God's Holy Spirit.
So here a sign of the Spirit shows up, and the voice of the
Father speaks. This is my beloved Son.
Listen to him. This is God the Father Himself
bearing witness to his Son, and every word of this divine seal
of approval has a biblical background.
The fact that Jesus is the Father's beloved son echoes
Genesis 22 two, where God tells Abraham to sacrifice his son,
his only son, his beloved son. What God commanded Abraham to do
is what he Himself, in the fullness of time would do by
giving up his eternal Son, His only Son, to death on the cross.
For us. The declaration, this is my Son
echoes Psalm 27, which Michael read earlier.
In Psalm 2, verse 7, the Messiah is enthroned in power and
victory over the nations. And when we see how that promise
is fulfilled in Jesus career, we understand that this King
Messiah will reign not only over Israel, but over all nations.
Not only over all nations, but over the universe.
This Messianic Son is also the divine Son.
He reigns and rules over all things.
That Jesus is the divine Son is also implied by the word
Beloved. Why does the Father love the
Son? Because the Son eternally
radiates God's glory back to Him.
Because the Son possesses all the fullness of the Father's
eternal beauty and glory. Because this Son is of the same
essence as the Father. Finally, there's a biblical
background to the phrase Listen to him.
We've already heard it from Deuteronomy 1815.
When the Lord promises to raise up a prophet like Moses, he says
listen to him. So by the Father saying listen
to him, he's saying, this is the prophet like Moses, who I
promised to you. Now what specifically do Peter
and the apostles need to hear from Jesus?
Why does the Father give them this declaration here and now?
Listen to him. What are they supposed to listen
to? I think the answer is plain from
the broader context. Again, as we've reviewed, right
at the end of chapter 8, Jesus made his first explicit
reference to the fact that he is going to suffer and die for
their salvation. He is going to the cross to
deliver them. But Peter hasn't gotten it yet.
And so this divine endorsement is also a little bit of a rebuke
to Peter. Hey, Peter, Jesus has already
told you this once. He's going to have to tell you
it again. Listen.
Listen to Jesus proclaim the cross.
Jesus has told you the Kingdom will come through the cross.
Jesus has told you that following him is going to mean
going to and through the cross with him.
So keep listening. Jesus is going to make two more
predictions about his death and resurrection, One in Chapter 9,
one in chapter 10. Listen to Jesus pre proclaim the
cross. Even the Transfiguration itself
pre proclaims the cross. This glory on a mountain
prefigures the darkness of Mount Golgotha.
Consider the parallels and the contrasts between this mountain
and the mountain on which Jesus would be crucified.
Here he takes others with him. There he's taken by others.
Here he ascends a mountain. There he's lifted up on a cross.
Here supernatural light shines out of Jesus body.
There supernatural darkness covers the earth.
Here Jesus clothes show his power and glory.
There his clothes will be stripped from him in an act of
shameful degradation. Here he stands between two
prophets. There he hangs between two
criminals. Here Peter wants to stay.
There Peter denies and flees. Here God declares his delight in
Jesus. They are humans shout their
hatred of him. Here God's voice booms out his
commitment to his beloved Son. There he falls silence.
There Jesus cries out. My God, my God, why have you
forsaken me? If I might be permitted to
introduce an archaic technology? By way of illustration, I am old
enough that in my elementary school days, maybe even into
middle school, teachers would use things called
transparencies. They were clear plastic sheets.
They would write or draw or whatever on them and put them on
a little flat projector that had a light and then it would show
the image. See a clear thing you would
write or draw a picture on. Right?
Two transparencies. The Transfiguration and the
crucifixion are like 2 transparencies that have the
same shape but different details.
When you lay one over the other, the lines disappear.
It's like you're looking at an opposite version of the same
image. Even the glory being revealed
here foreshadows the suffering to come.
And there we have to ask why? Why is all of Mark's gospel this
relentless conveyor belt to the cross?
Why is even the glory portrayed in terms that lead us to the
darkness of crucifixion? The reason is that our sin
deserves and demands that darkness.
Our sin is that big. Our sin is that bad.
Our sin requires that drastic of a remedy.
It's hard when you're not a believer in Jesus, or maybe you
have a sort of vague cultural attachment to Christianity.
It's hard to reckon with how big a deal your sin is.
One of the best ways to start to come to grips with how big a
deal your sin is, is to come to a better understanding of the
glory of God, the holiness of God, the majesty of God, a
glimpse of glory like this. God's our Creator, He's our
ruler. He's our judge.
He gives us everything and we've given him nothing.
We've taken whatever we can from God, turned our backs on him,
said no thanks, see you later. I'd like to live my own way.
I'd like to be my own Lord and master.
That's the essence of what the Bible calls sin.
It's not about a tiny little infraction of an arbitrary rule,
like parking within 15 feet of a mailbox or something.
Sin is against God. It's rebellion against God, it's
rejection of God. And God has every right to
condemn us forever for our sin. That's what he promises to do
for all those who persist in unrepentance.
And yet God is also infinitely rich in mercy.
And he sent Jesus into the world to save us from sin by dying on
the cross and rising again to pay the full penalty for sin, to
extend the offer of forgiveness. Grace eternal life to all who
will turn from sin and trust in Him.
If you're not a believer in Jesus, repent and trust in Him
today. This glory He holds out can be
yours. This Kingdom, this bliss, this
paradise he holds out can be yours if you simply repent and
believe. If you're not a believer in
Jesus, I wonder what you make of the Father's words.
This is my beloved son. Listen to him.
I've talked to a number of people who've become Christians
over the years, and one of the kind of turning points or first
steps for them was there may be a self-conscious atheist or
agnostic, Not a Christian, not a religious person.
But I started to wonder, you know, I guess if I'm going to
reject the whole Christianity thing, maybe I should, like,
figure out what it's about in the 1st place.
Maybe I should give it a fair hearing.
Have I ever read the Bible? Nope.
Have I ever, like, read through one of the Gospels?
Nope. Do I know what Jesus actually
says? Nope.
I've met a number of people for whom that was kind of a first
step. Wait a minute.
Why don't I just at least listen?
Why don't I just at least check it out?
Now you might be thinking, Oh dear, if I do start to check it
out, does that mean I'm going to become a Christian?
Well, I sure hope so. I think it's better than
anything you could expect from him and the downsides are all
more than worth it. But I would just appeal to you
if you're self consciously not a believer.
Have you listened to Jesus? Do you know what he says about
you? Do you know what he says about
himself? If that sparks any interest, if
that sparks any willingness to sit down and listen to Jesus,
you should talk to whoever, whatever church member here you
know best, whatever Christian friend brought you, or if you're
kind of here on your own, don't know anybody, I'd be delighted
to talk with you. Sit down, read through the
Gospels, and listen to Jesus together.
Sometimes people think that listening to Jesus basically
means hearing the moral content of what Jesus teaches and trying
to sort of do that as well as you can.
Jesus says be a good person. So I'll try to live up to
whatever Jesus standard of good person this is, but here in this
context, listen to him means listen to him proclaim what he's
going to do to save you. Listen to him tell you how he is
going to reconcile you to God. It's not listen to him tell you
how to work your way back to God.
You can't do that. And that is not what he's
teaching. It's listen to him say that he's
going to do for you, but you could never do for yourself.
Verse 8 rounds off the narrative by telling us how the vision
ended. And suddenly looking around,
they no longer saw anyone with them but Jesus only.
So this is, it's over. It's over.
It's almost as fast as it began. No more Moses, no more Elijah,
no more Cloud, no more divine voice.
They have Jesus only. The disciples now descend the
mountain with the Father's words ringing in their ears.
What do you need to see now in order to suffer?
Well, you need to see the truth of the Father's testimony to His
beloved, only begotten Son. And when you see the truth of
that testimony, once you embrace it, you're going to have to keep
on trusting it. You're going to have to keep on
seeing it, keep on believing it. Why?
Because the time has not yet come for its full unveiling
point #3 Glory concealed. Glory concealed.
That's what we see in a number of senses in verses 9 to 13.
First verse 9. And as they were coming down the
mountain, he charged them to tell no one what they had seen
until the Son of Man had risen from the dead.
Throughout Mark's gospel, we've often seen that Jesus tells
someone to keep quiet about something he's done or something
they've learned about him. He often told people not to tell
others who he was. This is the last time he does
that, and it's the only time he does that.
That gives us a release date until the Son of Man had risen
from the dead. Why does this command to silence
have an end date? It's because the resurrection
will make sense of the Transfiguration.
Just as the transfiguration points ahead to the
resurrection, the resurrection begins to reveal more openly and
permanently what the Transfiguration gave just a few
a glimpse of. What this means for us today as
Christians is that we should tell others the good news that
Jesus rose from the dead. The whole age we live in is the
time of open proclamation. We should boldly declare what
God has done in raising Jesus from the dead.
Nothing like it has happened in all of history.
No other religion holds out any kind of hope or promise at all
comparable to the resurrection of Jesus.
The resurrection of Christ is the best news, so share it
boldly. The disciples weren't ready to
do that just yet. In fact, they did not understand
what Jesus was talking about verse 10.
So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what
this rising from the dead might mean.
That's important to be clear about exactly what the disciples
didn't understand in Jesus day, very many Jews, likely including
the disciples themselves, believed in a general
resurrection. They believed that at the end of
time, God would raise all of his chosen people from the dead,
maybe even all people all at once.
They believed in resurrection as an all together one time event.
What they did not have a category 4 was that happening to
one person ahead of all the rest.
And that's exactly what Jesus was saying.
What happened to him? The explicit sense of the Greek
phrase is hard to bring over into English.
Jesus isn't talking about the rising of the dead in a general
sense. It's literally more like until
the Son of Man is raised out from among the dead ones.
In other words, everyone else stays dead for now, but Jesus
raised. Nobody else has resurrected,
just him. That doesn't fit with any of
their end times timelines. They have no chart on the wall
that shows them that it doesn't compute.
And I think their confusion over end times timelines helps
explain the question they ask next verse 11.
And they asked him, why do the scribe say that first Elijah
must come based on the promise of Malachi 4-5.
At least some religious authorities at the time taught
that Elijah would come back before the day of the Lord.
And remember, they just saw Elijah.
I assume he's fresh on their minds.
They're thinking something like, OK, well, we don't really know
what this whole resurrection thing means, but are the scribes
right? Is Elijah coming back first?
I mean, we just saw him. Is he like waiting in the wings
to come out and and do what he's going to do?
They're confused. So they bring their confusion to
Jesus, which is always a good move.
Better open confusion than hidden ignorance.
Better a question that drives you to Jesus, then a question
that keeps you from Jesus. And then Jesus replies in verses
12 and 13 with probably a bit more than they were expecting.
And he said to them, Elijah does come first to restore all
things. And how is it written of the Son
of Man that he should suffer many things and be treated with
contempt? But I tell you that Elijah has
come and they did to him whatever they pleased as it is
written of him. So first Jesus says the scribes
are right. Elijah does come.
He's going to say more about that in a minute.
But first he takes a sharp left turn.
He poses a question of his own. And how is it written of the Son
of Man that he should suffer many things and be treated with
contempt? Why does Jesus raise this
question before more fully addressing theirs?
I think it's because he's saying there's something both the
disciples and the scribes have missed in asking this question.
I think Jesus brings together at least three different themes
from scripture. 1 is where he says the Son of Man.
That comes from the vision in Daniel Chapter 7, especially
verses 13 and 14. There one, like a Son of man
that is a human being, is given divine authority and universal
worship. Jesus clearly identifies the Son
of Man as Messiah. He's clearly saying he is this
Son of Man who is the Messiah and Jesus teaching based on
Daniel seven, that the Messiah is not only human but also
divine. But his focus here isn't so much
on the Son of Man himself, but on what he suffers.
And yet nothing in Daniel 7 says anything about the Son of Man
suffering. We have to go to two other
places of Scripture to get that. One is a couple of key psalms of
David, like Psalm 22 and Psalm 69.
And those Psalms, David's talking about himself, but he
says things about himself that go beyond anything he himself
experienced or suffered in his life.
He's talking about himself, but somehow more than himself, he's
teaching about his descendants, the Messiah, what the Messiah is
going to endure. The basic message is this
suffering, then glory, rejection, then vindication,
death, then resurrection, all to redeem God's people.
And a third scriptural source Here I think Jesus is pointing
to the language of Isaiah 53. He says the Son of man will be
treated with contempt, and Isaiah 53 three says that God's
suffering servant will be despised.
So Jesus brings together Daniel's Son of man, David's
suffering Messiah and Isaiah's suffering servant.
Why does he do that same message we've been seeing all along?
To teach his disciples that the cross comes before the Kingdom,
and the Kingdom comes through the cross.
The only way into the Kingdom is through Jesus's crucifixion.
When you're trying to get your end times timetable straight,
here's what you have to put at the center.
The crucifixion of the Messiah. And so not only does Jesus
command his disciples to conceal the glory they've seen on the
mountain, he also tells them that in his first coming, his
glory will be a concealed glory. It will be a hidden glory.
The revelation of God the Son will be a Riddle.
The Kingdom will come through a cross.
Glory will come through suffering.
In Jesus first coming, glory is hidden under shame.
Power is hidden under weakness. Life is held out through death.
If you embrace this from the heart, you are a true disciple
of Jesus. You know the secret of the
Kingdom and you know the shape of the Christian life.
But if this is foreign to you, then I mean, it's very literally
you do not know the first thing about Christianity.
This is the essence, this is the secret, this is the whole thing.
So that's the first main part of Jesus answer.
Yes, Elijah does come, but first you have to understand that this
time around the Son of man's glory is going to be hidden
under suffering. But then Jesus does come back to
Elijah, verse 13. But I tell you that Elijah has
come and they did to him whatever they pleased as it is
written of him. So despite appearances, we're
actually much farther along the End Times timeline than the
disciples thought. They're wondering if it was
right to expect Elijah still to come.
Jesus says, hey guys, he already has.
Who's Jesus talking about? John the Baptist.
Remember from Mark chapter 1, John's clothing strikingly
resembled Elijah. And he came to restore the
people. He came to turn their hearts
back to God and back to each other.
He came to prepare the way of the Lord himself.
And what happened to John? John was imprisoned.
John was beheaded. John too, walked the way of the
cross ahead of Jesus. John, the precursor, previewed
in his own fate, the one he came to proclaim.
John's fate previewed Jesus's, and both John's and Jesus's
fates draw the shape of true discipleship.
To be a Christian is to be willing to die for Jesus and the
Gospel. To be a Christian is to count
Jesus as more valuable than life itself.
That is simple to understand and hard to do.
Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.
When suffering punches you in the face, what will help you is
not any kind of plan you made for your life, for yourself, for
whatever. The thing that will help you
most is loving Jesus more than you love life itself.
That's not something you can turn on and flip with a switch.
That's not something you can just do in like, you know, 3
minutes while your coffee's brewing.
That's part of the secret of how to suffer well.
It's part of the deepest secret of what it means to be a
Christian. How can you come to love Jesus
more than you love life itself? What do you need to see now in
order to suffer? Well, you need to see God's
glory unveiled in the person of Christ.
You need to see, you need to see the truth of the testimony that
God the Father proclaims about God the Son.
And you need to see that in this life both Jesus glory and ours
are hidden. As Martin Luther put it, this
life, therefore, is not righteousness but growth and
righteousness, not health but healing, not being but becoming,
not rest but exercise. We are not yet what we shall be,
but we are growing toward it. The process is not yet finished,
but it is going on. This is not the end, but it is
the road. All does not yet gleam in glory,
but all is being purified. There's one more reason Jesus
gave these disciples this vision of His glory.
It's to show them that what He is, they will become.
They won't just see this glory face to face, they'll be
transformed by it. They'll be made like He is.
Consider Paul's promise in Philippians 320 to 21.
But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await A
Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly
body to be like his glorious body by the power that enables
him even to subject all things to himself.
Jesus is human. Bodily glory is a guarantee of
ours and a preview of ours. In the age to come.
We will perfectly behold His glory and become perfectly
glorious. Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, we pray that we would behold Christ's glory by
faith. We pray that you'd grow us in
love for Him. Pray you'd grow us in devotion
to Him. We pray you'd strengthen our
confidence in the promise that what he is now, we will be.
We pray these things in Jesus name, Amen.