Glory By Way of the Cross

The raw Irishman was told by the farmer for whom he worked that the pumpkins in the corn patch were mule's eggs, which only needed someone to sit on them to hatch. Pat was ambitious to own a mule, and, selecting a large pumpkin, he sat on it industriously every moment he could steal from his work. Came a day when he grew impatient, and determined to hasten the hatching. He stamped on the pumpkin. As it broke open, a startled rabbit broke from its cover in an adjacent corn shock and scurried across the field. Pat chased it, shouting:

"Hi, thar! Stop! don't yez know your own father?"

Mistaken identities happen to us quite a bit in our lives. Like seeing someone in the store that you think is an old friend and turns out to be someone completely different. But it doesn’t necessarily need to be a person. Sometimes we can buy into something that on the surface looks like one thing, but actually turns out to be quite something different.

Our text this morning from Mark’s Gospel Jesus calls to Himself three of the disciples to show them something they had never seen before. Jesus is going to reveal His glory to Peter, James and John, but it was going to be a surprise.

As the narrative in the text goes, it is exactly six days from the time that Jesus took His disciples to Cassarea Philippi, a pagan town known for the ominous cave that was legendary as the Greek god, Pan’s, abiding place. It was also known in Jesus’ day by God fearing believers as “The Gates of Hell”. There Jesus asked His disciples who the ‘people’ said that Jesus was, and then asked His disciples who ‘they’ thought Jesus was. This is when Peter makes the great confession that “[Jesus is] the Christ”, (8:29) the Son of God.

Right after that confession of Peter, Jesus begins to teach them what He must suffer being rejected by the Jewish leadership in Jerusalem and be killed and after three days rise again. And Peter immediately sticks his foot in his mouth, to which Jesus rebukes him, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not seeing your mind on the things of God but on the things of man.” (8:33b). Calling a crowd to Him, Jesus then taught about judgment for those who want to cling so tight to this life that they forfeit his soul. “For what can a man give in return for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.” (8:37-38)

Mistaken realities about Jesus and His Word and work have plagued people throughout history. Even Peter and the rest of the disciples believed Jesus to be the Messiah, the Christ, but their mistaken understanding of the Kingdom of God led them to believe, like most people in that era, that Jesus was going to establish and earthly kingdom and be an earthly redeemer, one who would bring back Israel’s former days of glory.

You see, Jesus knows in advance what will happen on that mountain. The disciples had confessed the deity of Jesus through their spokesman Peter. And now, these three are going to see Jesus in the glory of Son of God. In addition to all the evidence of His deity which they had already received, the healings, the miracles, the casting out of demons, Jesus will now show Himself to them transformed in actual heavenly glory.

So Jesus takes His three closest disciples up on a high mountain and allows these three men to see a tiny glimpse of His glory. His clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them.” (v 3).

For the disciples they were mistaken about Jesus’ glory. Their focus was on the temporal, the here and now, glory. Their expectations were different of the Christ and His glory. Even Peter, here in the text, refers to Jesus as “Rabbi” instead of the Christ. He sees Elijah and Moses and is so overcome with sensationalism and excitement, and even fear, that he doesn’t even know what to say but, “Rabbi, it is good that we are here. Let us make three tents, one of You and one for Moses and one for Elijah.” (v. 5)

People can make some interesting mistakes about Jesus and His glory. Often times it looks an awful lot like Jesus’ day. Many believe that Jesus will return to establish a temporal, physical earthly kingdom after Islam is out of Jerusalem and the temple rebuilt and Old Testament Jewish sacrificial worship is reestablished. And no where in Scripture is that spoken about. Others look to Jesus as more of a genie in a bottle who will give them everything they ask for, as that is how they view a “loving god”. Others look at Him as just a good teacher who brought morality back. And others think He is just a myth, or was really a real person who was married and had a family.

This heavenly glory in which Jesus shows His disciples comes only through one means, by way of the cross. Sure, the three disciples got a glimpse of Jesus’ glory, but it quickly faded after the cloud overshadowed them and the voice of the Father rings out again, “This is my beloved Son; listen to Him.” (v. 7b).

They hadn’t listened before. Even though Peter confesses Jesus as the Christ, he denies Jesus’ glory of the cross right after Jesus tries to teach them about the way of the cross. It was necessary for Jesus to suffer innocently for the sake of the price of redemption. As Isaiah prophesied hundreds of years before, “Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.” (53:4). This is the way of the cross. It is not an earthly glory. The cross is about suffering and shame, torture and death. From an worldly standpoint, the cross is about weakness and death. But in the kingdom of God, the cross is about triumph and victory. It is the glory of God made manifest for the world to see. A bloody, crucified Jesus is the glory of God. As Paul states, “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Cor. 1:18).

The glory of the cross is just that. It is the redemption of all of mankind, the salvation of all of creation. For “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of His will, according to His purpose, which He set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth” (Eph. 1:7-10).

And it is only through the cross of Christ that gives eternal glory. As some people have some crazy ideas about the glory of Jesus, such as Peter, James and John, the other disciples, even us today, one thing that scripture teaches us is that the blood of Christ shed on the cross cleanses us from all sin. That is the glory of Jesus. In Him we have redemption, in Him we have been reconciled to the Father. The price has been paid, and all who look on Him and His work on the cross will be saved.

But what about any glory now? Jesus still grants His disciples today a glimpse of His glory, although it is hidden. We behold His glory every time we gather together around Word and Sacrament. In Baptism you get to see a glimpse of His eternal glory as He makes another child, another teenager, another adult His own. He washes them in the blood and water winch flows from His pierced side that floods every baptismal font cleansing sin and granting the Holy Spirit and faith. We get a glimpse of it in the Word read and preached every week that assures us of our own forgiveness purchased by the blood of Jesus. And every time we eat and drink of His true body and blood given and shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins.

These things are but a foretaste or a shadow of the things to come. There will come a day, when all who were faithful in their calling as His children unto death will receive the crown of life and behold the glory of crucified and risen Lord for all eternity. For when Christ comes again in glory, He will raise all the faithful and give us eternal bodies that will never see sin, nor death nor the devil ever again. We will be perfect, not having sin ever infect us again. and therefore, no more quarreling, no more fighting, no more anger, envy, strife, and division. No more Covid-19, no more sickness, no more cancer, no more debilitating disease, no more mental illness. As our Lord promises, that God Himself will wipe every last tear from all faces as we enter into His glory for all eternity.

In the name of Jesus and for His eternal glory. Amen.