Listen to Him! (Feb. 11, 2024) Mk 9.2-9

It is common for folks who come back from Montreat or another retreat center to be a bit…different for a while. They may seem a bit more preoccupied with the eternal than the temporal. They may speak in terms that were not ones that they used before, more mystical than practical. All too often after some time goes by, they return to “normal” and go about their daily lives. But sometimes, sometimes there is a permanent change in someone. They don’t really know how to explain what happened. All that they know is that they were somehow changed by their experience.

There is a term for the place where such things happen. It is a “thin place”, where the boundaries between the visible world and the invisible become soft and porous, when the veil lifts just a bit, a place where heaven and earth almost meet. A place where the heavenly glory shines down in the world. It is said that Montreat is that kind of place. And at Montreat there is a spot where one understands this more fully. It is called Lookout Mountain, and it is about 623 feet high. From the top one can see all the surrounding area and marvel at creation. There one can fully understand that there is a “thin place”, and that heaven is very near.

Our scripture today tells of a “thin place”. Prior to the reading for today, Jesus was teaching his disciples and asked who they believed him to be. Peter answers with the now well-known declaration that he is the Messiah. But there is a further teaching. That Jesus must suffer and die. This is a hard teaching and Peter feels the need to remind Jesus that this should never happen to him, that the Messiah is one who will not suffer, but will conquer. Jesus tells Peter that he is thinking as human beings think, not as God thinks, rebuking him for his concern that Jesus might be mistaken. Jesus then goes on to state that anyone who wishes to follow him must take up their cross and die to themselves. What a strange and powerful teaching this is.

A few days after this, six days to be precise, Jesus takes Peter, James, and John to the top of a mountain. Now imagine hiking up Pilot Mountain, to the knob. As you climb, you realize that you are traveling on a crude path cut out of the woods that leads to the top. When you get to the top, imagine that you are tired, thirsty and in need of a breather. This is what the disciples would have experienced when they reached the mountain top to which they were walking.

While they are resting, something happens that would take the breath they are trying to get out of them. Jesus is standing there, on the top of the mountain, but something is happening to him. He is shining. His clothes are putting off a brightness that could never be achieved by bleach, no matter how much Clorox was used.

And with him are the two greatest prophets in the Jewish faith, Elijah and Moses. Now how the disciples knew who these men were is a mystery. I personally like to think of Jesus making introductions all around (Elijah, Moses; Peter, James, and John. Boys, Elijah and Moses). But know them they do. And it is curious that Elijah comes before Moses in the text. To the Jews, Moses was considered the greatest prophet. Elijah would come after him in consideration and in time. So, why is Elijah mentioned first? It could be that Elijah was thought to be the one to come before the Messiah, that he would bring the good news that the Messiah was arriving. Jesus equated John the Baptizer with Elijah, the one who proclaimed that the one who came after him was the one for whom the people were waiting. Moses predicted that there would be one who was greater than him who would come. Therefore, he is off to the side of Jesus as if to say the one who I predicted would come is here, in this very place.

We are not told what the three were discussing but they were talking with one another. Now Peter, always Peter, makes a statement: “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”[1]Peter clearly does not know what to say, so he says the first thing that pops into his head. He is terrified by what he sees along with the other two. His statement would be that they could commemorate what happened here and they could make a pilgrimage site here, somewhere where people could come and visit where this transfiguration, or transformation, took place. Perhaps people would even stay here as a retreat center or something akin to that. Would not that be the best thing to do? Here are the greatest of the faith along with one who is clearly greater. Surely having somewhere to remember this place is appropriate.

But just then something happens to take the very thought of this out of Peter’s head. A cloud overshadows them. Think of Pilot Knob shrouded in clouds and you get a very good picture of what is happening. Out of this cloud comes a voice saying, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!”[2]The first words that are heard, that this is the Son, the Beloved were the same words that were spoken at the baptism of Jesus, where the heavens were ripped open. Now heaven has again come near. But it is the second part of the announcement to which the disciples needed to pay attention. They are told to listen to the Son, to Jesus. It was an imperative to listen to what Jesus was to say to them, whether it be a teaching or telling them that he is to be crucified at the end of the journey to Jerusalem that is just now beginning. Jesus before this moment told them of what must happen to him, that he must be rejected by those in power, that he must be killed by the powers that were in charge over such matters (the Romans) and that after three days he would rise again. These are the words for which Peter rebuked Jesus. And here the voice that is speaking from the cloud tells them to listen to what is being told to them by Jesus.

Now if the disciples were not frightened before, they surely would have been at this point. Here was a cloud covering them and a voice speaking to them. They probably fell to the ground and covered their faces. They knew what happened to those who met God or tried to see God: those persons would die because they could not behold the glory of God. But I am positive that a hand touched them, and a familiar voice said to them, “Do not be afraid. Get up. We need to head back down the mountain.” When they looked, the cloud was gone and only Jesus was there. Elijah and Moses were also gone.

As they traveled down the mountain, they are told the first thing that they need to which they need to listen: they are told to tell no one what happened on the mountain “…until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.”[3]They traveled down from their mountaintop experience pondering what they had just seen and heard. Little did they know that this experience was the beginning of the road to Jerusalem, the road that led to the cross. Jesus would no more minister in Galilee but would move his ministry to Judea and the areas in and around Jerusalem. This experience marks for Mark a halfway point: the first part of the Gospel leads to the mountaintop where they can see where they have been and where they are to go. The second part of the Gospel relates what will happen as they travel to and in Jerusalem.

It is interesting that the disciples were not too astute to what happened on the mountain. One would think that they would now understand the listen closely to what Jesus was teaching. But they do not. They continue to the bumbling group of men who are struggling to discover just what this man Jesus is saying. They do not seem to remember what he said before the mountaintop and they do not understand the words and actions that come after this experience. They do not seem to be listening very well, do they?

We are like the disciples in more ways than one. We like to have a mountaintop experience where we experience a thin place, the place where the border between heaven and earth becomes fuzzy and we know what it means to have an epiphany. We want to “build shelters”, to commemorate the event and we want to stay where we are. But we are called to listen to Jesus, to go down from the mountain where the real work is waiting for us. And we are called to listen to Jesus’ words about taking up our cross and following him, a notion we do not like. We are called to listen.

G. K. Chesterton said that “One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak.” If you go to the top of Pilot Mountain, you can see a lot of area. But things are quite small. It is when you come down from the top that you realize that some of the tiny things are rather large and great. And that is what it is like when we are on the mission that God has set us on. We could stay on the mountain, come to church and be comfortable. But God has called us to go into the valley after seeing the glory of the transformed Jesus. We are called to take our place in the work of God and in the story of Jesus. Unlike the three disciples, we know who Jesus is and we know what we are called to do. We are called to be in the valley. While it may seem that we know what we are to do, we are exposed by what we do and do not do. Those who experience the thin places at Montreat know that they cannot stay there. If they did, the work of the kingdom would never get done.

But there is good news here. God is not done with us yet and even when we do not listen to Jesus, God can work through us. Lynn Japinga says this: “The power of God to bring about new life could not be permanently limited by human fear, sin, or uncertainty. God uses fallible humans to do much of God’s work, but when they fail, God has a plan B.”[4]When we listen, we hear the voice saying this is my Son, the Beloved and we want to go and do what we were told. We will come from our mountaintop experience to the valley and get to work. When we listen, we will know that Jesus and God work through us and in us. When we listen, we will experience the contemplation of our sin and our lives in the season of Lent. When we listen, we will know that sorrow will come, but that new life is coming because Jesus conquered death when he was raised to life. When we listen to the still, small voice like Elijah did, we will know that God is near. God told us to listen to Jesus. Let us open our hearts, our minds, and our ears. Amen.

[1] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989. Print. [2] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989. Print. [3] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989. Print. [4] Japinga, Lynn. From Daughters to Disciples: Women's Stories from the New Testament (p. 87). Presbyterian Publishing Corporation. Kindle Edition.