Sermon Tone Analysis

If you have your Bibles let me invite you to open with me to the book of Mark chapter 9.

Last week’s sermon was hard.

It was hard because Jesus’ words are hard in Mark chapter 8.

Jesus shocked his followers in Mark 8:31.

Look with me at Mark 8:31

Peter objected to this plan strongly,

he took Jesus aside and even rebuked him.

to which Jesus responded,

Mark 8:33 (ESV)

...“Get behind me, Satan!

For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”

Peter was letting all of his preconceptions about Jesus determine what he thought Jesus should do.

He was listening to his own ideas about Jesus more than the very words of Jesus right in front of him.

Then Jesus turned to not only correct their perception of what Jesus would do, but he began to correct their assumption of what following Jesus would be like.

He warns them that following him will mean denying self.

It will mean taking up a cross.

It could even cost them their own physical lives.

It will be costly,

and it will be worth it.

The disciples are stunned.

maybe confused, even worried,

how can the messiah be a man of suffering?

how can following him involve denying self and picking up a cross?

how can all this be truly worth it?

With those questions swirling in their heads, Jesus then makes an odd promise.

Look with me at Mark 9:1

Verse 1 of Mark 9 is strange.

It is a peculiar promise.

What does it mean that before death some of the disciples are going to get to see the kingdom in power ?

Six days later Jesus takes three disciples, and he gives them a sneak peak of the coming kingdom.

He unveils for them exactly who they will be pickup up their cross to follow.

I think that the story that follows in Mark chapter 9 is intricately connected to the questions that were left swirling in our heads last week about following Jesus.

I think that in order to pick up your cross and follow Jesus… you need to catch a vision for the Jesus that is revealed in the passage we now turn our attention to…

So lets read, and pray that God would open our eyes to this Jesus.

Lets Pray

We are going to work our way through this Transfiguration story, and a long the way, we are going to see three ways what we see in the transfiguration motivates us to follow Jesus in the sacrificial way that we walked through last week.

so look with me again at verse 2.

Mark 9:2–3 (ESV)

And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain by themselves.

Jesus chooses Peter, James, and John to go on a little trip.

These three out of the twelve are going to be the most influential leaders of the Christian church.

All three were going to suffer greatly for the mission of Christ.

All three in the years to follow would need an all consuming, soul gripping, life changing, confidence in the worthiness of Jesus and his mission.

So, Jesus leads them up a mountain.

Much like the great men of God throughout the Old Testament… they make their way up a high mountain to meet with God.

Just like Moses who poured out his life to lead the people of God,

and just like the prophet Elijah fleeing from persecution for proclaiming the truth of God, these disciples are now led by the Lord up the mountain to catch a vision of the one true God.

But instead of seeing God descend upon the mountain in a flame of fire or in a small still voice…

The disciples get to the top of the mountain and Jesus himself begins to change into something they could barely put into words.

Jesus himself “transfigures”

He transforms.

The Greek text says he, “μεταμορφόομαι”, from which we get our word metamorphosis.

I think it was likely hard for Peter to describe exactly what happened that day, but what we have here in Mark is his eye-witness account of a real historical moment, where Jesus pulled back his human curtain to expose is divine person.

The first thing that is described is Jesus’ clothing.

It’s described as radiant, and intensely white beyond what any earthly bleach would be capable of.

Jesus is all of a sudden dressed in some sort of glorious, heavenly wardrobe beyond earthly comparison.

The disciples would have recognized this outfit only from their own imaginations from reading Old Testament prophecies about the coming Savior.

Consider the prophetic vision of Daniel 7 from which Jesus drew his title the Son of Man.

What could possibly motivate us to deny ourselves, pick up our crosses and follow Jesus?

Why Follow Jesus?

#1 A Greater Glory

Surely Jesus is revealing himself here to be the one who came like a Son of Man.

The one to whom dominion is given.

The one to whom belongs glory and a kingdom

The one that all peoples, nations, and languages will serve.

The one who will establish an eternal kingdom of which there is no end.

King of Kings

Lord of Lords

He is Yahweh, the one true God, who reveals himself at the top of the high mountain.

In the transfiguration we see Jesus in all his glory just as he is seen in the prophets and in the book of Revelation.

Right now Jesus, has taken on the form of a servant.

He has come to be a sacrifice for sinners.

But one day, we will see him in his fullness, as the triumphant Son of God that he is.

So much of what motivates us in this life is a thirst for glory.

We want to be known.

We want to be known to be good, valuable, attractive, smart, capable.

We want to validate our own worth by our performance and our own ability to accomplish particular things.

So much of what humanity lives for is their own glory.

This is at least one of the reasons why the concept of a cross would have been so off putting to the disciples.

Roman culture especially saw the purpose of life to be one’s honor.

All of life was seen as a quest to securing for oneself and one’s family the highest honor…

yet Jesus has just asked them to give up that pursuit… and to embrace a device of humiliation.

He has asked them to become a people who deny self, rather than promote self..... because there is a greater glory to live for.

We were made to point others, not to ourselves, but to a greater glory.

The glory of our God.

The glory seen most clearly in the person and finished work of Jesus.

The old testament imagery is clear in this dazzling white picture of Jesus, but Jesus’ connection to the past is made even clearer in what follows.

look again with me starting with verse 3.

As the disciples behold the shining transfigured person of Jesus… he is suddenly no longer alone.

Elijah and Moses are there talking with Jesus.

Elijah was one of the mightiest prophets in the Old Testament and in a climactic moment in his life he ascended a mountain to talk with a glorious God.

Moses was the great deliverer of the people of God from Egypt and the mediator of the Old Covenant and in the climactic moment in his life he ascended a mountain to talk with a glorious God.

But now in this moment… at the top of a mountain… the souls of Elijah and Moses are there directing their attention to Jesus the Christ.

Moses and Elijah’s presence in this revelatory moment was a sign to Jesus’ followers.

Everything that has come to pass over the history of the world was leading to what Jesus would soon accomplish.

Everything from the beginning of time was culminating in the person and work of Jesus.

Jesus’ plan to die on a cross and rise again was not a cosmic mistake.

It was not a divergence from the plan.

Jesus’ coming, living, dying, and rising again for the sins of the world has been God’s intention since the foundation of the world.

A thousand years earlier, Moses was looking forward to the day when Jesus would come.