Six Days Later (Mark 9:2 - 9 )

     Context, if not everything, is certainly a lot. We talk about discrete passages, like this one describing the Transfiguration, and sometimes take them out of that context, and I venture to say that it’s always a mistake. The meaning of an certain passage is always affected by what comes before it and after it. After all, you wouldn’t read a chapter in a novel without context, without knowing what has come before it, would you? And when you read what comes after it you keep it in mind, because without it, it wouldn’t make any sense. It’s the same with scripture, especially when its embedded in narrative, in a story like this one. And this one has a big, fat hint right at the beginning: “Six days later,” it says, and so it would be really good idea to ask the question: “Six days later than what?”

     Well . . . Jesus is running around Palestine with his students, doing his ministry, doing his thing: teaching and preaching and doing signs and wonders, like the one we talked about a couple of weeks ago, where he kicked some demons out of a man they’d possessed. Or healed him of his psychological problems—take your pick. And just before our episode, Jesus asks his disciples “Who do people say I am?" And they reply: “John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” He asks them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answers him, “You are the Messiah.”

     Then comes that whole scene where Jesus predicts his death and resurrection, and Peter—who’d just called him Messiah, you understand—rebukes him for saying that, and Jesus rebukes him for rebuking him, issuing the famous words “Get thee behind me, Satan!.” Then Jesus tells them that to be his followers, they must take up their crosses and deny themselves, for those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for his sake and that of the gospel will save it. Finally, right before our passage opens, he tells them, the disciples and a crowd that has gathered, “Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the kingdom of God has come with power.”

     So it’s six days after all that that Jesus takes Peter and James and John up on a high mountain, apart—away—from everyone else. And the first thing is that it’s six days later, and the thing to notice about it is that it’s not seven . Seven is the complete number, the number that signifies perfection, fulfillment. The best known example is the first creation story—yes, there are two—where God creates the world in six days, but it’s not complete until the seventh, when God rests. And so our episode happens six days later, six days after Jesus predicts the kingdom of God coming with power, and it’s only six days later, not seven, things aren’t perfect yet, the kingdom hasn’t come, it’s not yet fulfilled.

     And there’s more symbolism packed into this first sentence: Jesus takes them up on a mountain, apart, and Jesus spends a lot of time on mountains, he often goes up there to pray—apart from the disciples, alone—and he even preaches a major sermon on one, the Sermon on the Mount. Further, both Elijah and Moses—who are about to show up, remember—had major adventures on mountains, not to mention Abraham almost sacrificing his own son on one. So a lot of stuff happens on mountains, but perhaps the salient thing about a mountain is that it’s high, and who in the ancient worldview dwells high up in the sky? That’s right—God. And where does God dwell? Heaven. And the Kingdom of God, which he just predicted, is heaven on Earth. Thy kingdom come . . . on Earth as it is in heaven.

     But not yet . . . it’s only six days later, not seven, and suddenly, Jesus is transfigued, transformed. His clothing is dazzling white, it’s shining with it’s own light, and I can imagine that sheepherders and other desert wanderers see the glow around the peak and wonder about it, is it a storm up there, is it lightning? Is God warring against the forces of darkness up on that mountaintop? But Peter and James and John know what it is, and they barely have time to shade their eyes when there are two more figures there with him, bathed in Jesus’ brilliant glow, and they’re hob-nobbing with him, just as casual as you please, as if they’d been doing it all their lives.

     And it’s not an accident that Moses and Elijah are up on that mountain, Elijah, the greatest of prophets, and Moses, savior of the Hebrew people, they represent perhaps the two major roles Jesus takes on: prophet and savior. And besides: hadn’t Jesus just asked him who people think he is? Well, he certainly isn’t Elijah or Moses, because there they are, right beside him . . . and the disciples are amazed, they’re dazzled, and Peter, for one, is almost struck dumb, and maybe it would have been better if he had been, because what he says isn’t all that bright: “Rabbi,” he sputters, “it’s good for us to be here; let’s make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”

     Peter doesn’t have time to consider what an idiotic thing he’d just said before the voice of God booms out of a dark cloud saying “This is my beloved son” and they know that that’s the first thing God said at Jesus’ baptism, followed by “in whom I am well pleased,” but here it’s “This is my beloved Son . . . listen to him,” which the disciples—especially Peter—hear as a rebuke, because that’s patently what they hadn’t been doing. He’d told them (a) he’s gonna be murdered and resurrected, (b) if they want to follow him they have to give up their lives and (c) the fulfillment of the kingdom of God hasn’t yet arrived, so they can’t very well stay up there close to God, ‘cause it isn’t yet time.

     And suddenly they look around and there’s no more Elijah and no more Moses, there’s only Jesus, and they get the message, they finally listen to him: he is sufficient unto himself, he is Moses and Elijah—savior and prophet—all rolled up into one package. And as they trudge back down the mountain, back to then plains below, he warns them to not tell anyone about it, and Peter thinks “that’s good, because no-one would believe us anyway.”

On one level, we can think about the transfiguration as a tableau, like a pageant where the disciples are the only audience. Every detail has meaning: up on a mountain, close to God. Dazzling white clothing, sign of purity . . . Jesus glows, he is so pure. The three of them, standing together, of a piece: prophet, Lord and savior. Moses and Elijah disappearing, leaving Jesus alone, it’s almost as if he absorbs the other two, and he is now the only one left, the only one needed: prophet, Lord and savior.

     But though the tableau was for Jesus’ people—Peter, James and John—Mark’s account of it, written some 40 years after the fact, was for his people, his congregation, if you will. And of course, unbeknownst to Mark at the time, it’s for we who read it 2,000 years later. And for us, Peter’s clueless remark—this is a good place to be—alerts us to the fact that it’s only six days later, not seven, the time has not yet been fulfilled, the race has not yet been run.

     It’s like on a retreat, where you go to get your batteries recharged, we often feel closer to god, whether it’s up on a mountain or not, just being apart , just being away from the grind can do it, separated from the hurly-burly day to day. But we we know we have to descend, we have to come down from our mountaintop experience. There’s work to do.

Of course, we have a mini-mountaintop, every week: it’s called worship, and that’s what it’s for: refreshing us so we can re-charge our batteries, re-enter our lives. And I know, sometimes it does a better job than others of doing so. But the “mountaintop” is not just so we can go out and be better bankers or engineers or retirees. Peter and James and John didn’t go back down the mountain and return to being fishermen. They returned to accompany Jesus, sharing in his ministry of compassion and hope.

     Sisters and brothers: every week, before the benediction, I give a charge. Traditionally, it’s something like “go out into the world . . .” but I prefer “go out of those doors . . .” but however you say it, it’s to remind us that we’re not just going out to live our lives, we’re going to be Jesus’ hands and feet and eyes and ears. In other words, there’s work to do. Amen.