Sermon: A Glimpse of the Kingdom

Uh, before we read God's word, let's ask for his blessing upon the reading and preaching of that word. Oh Lord God loving, heavenly Father, you are a God who not only dwells in pure light, but is pure light. And we are those whose minds are both small and finite and also darkened. And so, Lord, as we come to your word this morning, we pray that you who are light would shine into our hearts that we might be able to see and indeed grasp by faith more clearly

the person and work of your son, the Lord Jesus Christ. For we ask these things in His name of you, God, our Father, by the power of your Holy Spirit. Amen. I'm gonna take the morning's reading from the gospel of Mark, uh, chapter nine. I wanna read from verse one to verse eight. Uh, the passage begins somewhat abruptly. The the immediate background, which is not insignificant to what Jesus says here. The immediate background is he has just spoken to the crowd and to his disciples

about his death and resurrection. It's on page 844 of the Pew Bibles. And Jesus 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. 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 talk, and they were talking with Jesus. And Peter said to Jesus, rabbi, it is good that we are here. Let us make three-tenths, one for you and one for Moses, and one for Elijah, for he didn't know what to say for they were terrified. And the cloud overshadowed them. And a voice came out of the cloud. This is my beloved son, listened to him, and suddenly looking around,

they no longer saw anyone with them. But Jesus only praise God for his holy word. Uh, many of you probably like myself, uh, enjoy biographies as a genre of literature. Uh, Jason, on Friday night in the quickfire q and a, ask me, uh, what is your favorite biography? And without taking a breath, I said, Stalin, court of the Red Czar Simon Seaberg, Monte Fiori, own a number of biographies of Stalin. And of course, uh, Stalin,

as with other characters in history, when he's subject to numerous biographies, different biographies take different lines and different angles on him. Some biographers look at him in terms of the history of Marxism and communism. Some biographies might look at him in terms of his relationship to Lenin and the Russian Revolution. Some biographer look at him in terms of the immense and terrifying crimes that were perpetrated in his name. But one thing we know for certain is this,

that each biographer has a vision of the picture of Stalin he wants to present. And therefore, he selects his material very carefully, and he constructs the narrative around that material in order to present the person and the work of Stalin in a particular light. The Gospels function in a very similar way relative to the Lord Jesus Christ. We have four gospels, four different Ss of Jesus. Each of the gospels is unified by the Focal point,

Jesus Christ of Nazareth. And each of them is different because different material, different events are selected and put together in order for the writer to present different facets of the life and the work of Jesus Christ. And I wanna reflect this morning on one particular incident, the incident of the Transfiguration, and how that fits in to the kind of biographies that the gospel writers are constructing. Little bit of background to my, my interest in this passage.

Years ago when I was a pastor just outside Philadelphia, local friend of mine, the Reformed Baptist pastor, would organize these sort of clergy breakfasts. And they were pretty open invitations. It wasn't just for Protestant and evangelical pastors, it was for clergy in the neighborhood. And I attended one of these breakfasts and, uh, happened to find myself sitting next to and drinking coffee with one of the local Orthodox priests. Uh, and I asked him, you know, what,

what would you know as an outsider? What do you see as a weakness of Protestantism? What would be the one thing that you would sort of push me on if you had an opportunity? And he said, I can never understand how little a role, smaller role the Transfiguration plays in Protestantism. And I was struck by that, of course. Uh, immediately I went on the defensive and I sort of pushed back. But in the days after that conversation, I remember thinking, well, I've,

I've heard a few sermons on the transfiguration, but they've always been part of a pastor preaching through the gospels. Whereas I've heard lots of sermons on other events in Jesus's life that are not necessarily part of a series. I've heard sermons on his birth. I've heard sermons on his death and on his resurrection. Isn't it odd? I thought that actually, I think this Orthodox priest may have put his finger on something.

One of the signal events in Jesus's life is kind of neglected in Protestantism. And I did a bit of, uh, rummaging around to see, well, what, what does, uh, it look like in, in Orthodox? And of course, transfiguration, if you know anything about Eastern Orthodox icons, is a big theme in Orthodox iconography. So I dropped, uh, another friend, Orthodox friend a note and said, you know, what should I read? Can you recommend any good sermons on the transfiguration?

And he pointed me to little collection light on the mountain, which gathers together about a dozen sermons from the first four or five centuries of the church looking at the transfiguration. And I read them, and pardon the pardon, but I was sort of transfixed by them. Suddenly realized there were depths of riches in the single event that I'd never seen before. Should also note, of course, the transfiguration only occurs in three of the gospels. It's in Matthew, mark,

and Luke. But it isn't in the Gospel of John. Now, if an event occurs in three gospels, well, if an event occurs in a gospel, it's important. If it occurs in three gospels, it's really, really important. It's a bit of a mystery to me as to, well, why isn't it in the Gospel of John? But they actually discovered that as they explored the transfiguration came to understand the Gospel of John A. Little bit better as well.

And that's what I wanna do this morning. I wanna look at three aspects of the transfiguration that I hope will help us all to understand just why this event is so critically important in the life of Jesus Christ. I wanna look at the context and the language that Mark uses about the transfiguration of showing that Jesus is somebody of significance. I wanna look at the, the light of the transfiguration as revealing who Jesus is in terms of his person.

And I wanna look at the context. I wanna look at the companions of the transfiguration who reveal who Jesus is in terms of his work. So first of all, then the context of the transfiguration as indicating that Jesus is somebody of significance. Gospels, of course, I've said are selective narratives. Some things occur in all four gospels feeding the 5,000 other things occur in one, two, or three of the gospels. I mentioned that this is, uh,

one of those events that occurs in the three so-called synoptic gospels. What's interesting about the synoptic gospels, of course, is one of the things is Mark is very concise. Mark is very short gospel. And although I wouldn't want to say that any gospel writer wastes words, there's a sense in which in the gospel of Mark when he sticks in a detail, it has to be significant because Mark doesn't stick in a lot of details.

He's moving very fast. If you read the gospel of Mark, look for that little word immediately turns up again and again in the gospel of Mark. He's a, it's the speed gospel. He's moving fast. He doesn't give extraneous details unless they're important to what he's saying. Think of, uh, the, the Mark chapter five, the healing of the anonymous woman with the flow of blood and the raising of Jairus's daughter. We don't get the name of the woman,

but we do get the name of Jairus. Why? Well, I suspect it's because Jairus is a big shot. And Mark knows that in subsequent years when people read this story, they'll remember, oh yeah, Jairus, he was the big shot, the local synagogue. I remember that happening. Wow. It was that guy who did it. That's significant. On the other hand, I suspect that the woman with the flow of blood is, you know, she's obviously a woman made in the image of God,

but socially she's a nobody. Nobody would remember her even if Mark stuck the name in. So he doesn't put the name in here. As he talks about the transfiguration, he gives us a number of details. First of all, he gives us detail of timing. He says after six days, that's interesting. He could have just said later, sometime after this, but he actually says, after six days, why? Well, six days is a portentous period of time, isn't it?

Creation in Genesis is described as taking place in six days. After six days, God rests. There is a completion after six days. As soon as you read the gospel of mark and six days pops up, your antennae should be tingling. He's given us that number, not necessarily to draw a direct parallel with creation, but to alert us to the fact that what's about to happen. It's ju not just a run of the mill event. It's something of great significance. We might say.

It's not just one miracle among many. It's a miracle that brings with it special meaning, special significance. Secondly, we're given the location Upper Mountain. You know, if you have time this afternoon, look up mountains in the Old Testament. A lot of amazing stuff happens at the top of mountains. Abraham and Isaac go up Mount Mariah, where Abraham is told he is gotta go and sacrifice his son, his only son, the son whom he loves. Think of Moses.

Moses goes up Sinai eye to receive, to receive the law on behalf of the people. Moses, of course, will feature in this story, I actually think Abraham has alluded to in this story as well. And then of course, Elijah features in this story. And Elijah's greatest, most famous moment, K's fairly near the beginning of his ministry, but is his great victory on Mount Carmel against the prophets of Baal. Big stuff happens on top of mountains.

When Mark says he took his disciples up a mountain, something special is happening. Why a mountain special? We don't know. The text doesn't say, there's certainly a remoteness to them that perhaps, you know, sends a, a thrill of excitement down the spy. When you think of being remote in that way, there's a vulnerability. Some years ago I was up a mountain in, in Britain, British mountains are not that high of course, but they seem very high when a thunderstorm rolls across the top as it did,

as I was at the top there, hiding in a crack in the rock, hoping not to be hit by lightning. You feel very vulnerable on the top of a mountain, nowhere to hide. You're very exposed. There's an intimacy. However, you've been on a, a hill walk with a friend or climbed up a mountain with a friend. It can be a peculiar intimacy when you reach the top. Not only have you gone through the journey together, but just kind of isolated at the top and brought together in a peculiarly,

intimate way. Who knows? Could be all of those things playing into this. One thing we do know though, is going up a mountain is special. Then we have the, the language used we're told that Jesus was transfigured before them. And that's a word that does not occur very often in the New Testament. It's used by the other, uh, gospel writers to refer to this incident. And it's used by Paul. Paul uses it in Romans 12 and Ro and uh,

two Corinthians chapter three, when he is talking about the dramatic radical moral transformation of the person who comes to Christ transform in Christ, it's powerful language. It isn't just that Jesus's expression changes, it's almost as if his whole being is transformed before them. At this particular point, the gospel writers use powerful language, language that is only ever used to express very potent things in the New Testament,

he undergoes a radical change of appearance before them. All of this, the location and the language should alert us to what is happening here is of great significance. And this person is of great significance, which then raises the question of course, what significance. And I think that's where we come to. The second thing that this passage, uh, opens our eyes to the light of the transfiguration reveals who Jesus is in terms of his person.

First of all, there's the color white. It's unusual in Palestine. If you've ever been to North Africa, the near East, the Middle East, you generally don't see many people wandering around doing ordinary business, dressed in white, uh, always regarded. You know, even even over here, you know, white pants strike me as very impractical. I would never wear a pair myself. Very impractical. Why? Because they get dirty very quickly.

So it's odd that Jesus would suddenly be dressed in white. That's jarring. One would say that's jarring. So what does it signify? Well, first of all, I think the light and the cloud point us back to the Old Testament, the Shekinah glory of God, which is all mixed up with notions of light and cloud. So there's something here going on that connects us to the glory of God in the Old Testament. And the Shekinah glory, of course,

speaks of the authoritative and active presence of God with his people. That's kind of being brought to mind by this. Think about whiteness as well as purity. Here. The light, the white light speaks of purity. Like many ministers, I have the pleasure on occasion of marrying a couple. And in all the weddings I've ever done, I think I can honestly say that the bride has always entered the church dressed in white. And that's not coincidental because white is supposed to

symbolize purity that the woman comes to her wedding day pure. And that is symbolized by the whiteness of the dress she wears. That too, I think is being pointed to here. The purity of Jesus is being underscored. If I was doing a Bible study on the sinlessness of Christ, I wouldn't hang the sinless sin, uh, the sinful of the sinlessness of Christ purely on this text. But it would certainly be one of the texts I would want to talk about and

reflect upon if I was asked to speak upon it.

And then think about light. The little book that, uh, uh, my priest friend recommended to, to me, the title was Light on the Mountain. It's a great little book. The early church fathers were preoccupied with light. You look at some of the hymns that the early church fathers wrote, often light is being used as a way of talking about God. The great Gregory of Nat z Anus, fourth century father, fascinated by light. Why? Well, God is described as light, of course,

in scripture. And light is a wonderfully appropriate way of talking about God because we often talk about God as invisible. Well light's kind of invisible, isn't it? I'm standing here now and I see you. I don't see light. I see you. You are illuminated by the light. I know the lights there because if I couldn't see you, if it was just blackness in front of me, I'd know that the lights were off and that the sun was behind an eclipse or

something. Light. We know its presence because of the way it illuminates other things. And the pure the light, the more intense the light, you might say, the harder it is to see. Think of the sun at noon day you'd be a fool to stare at the sun at noon day would hurt your eyes. Hurt your eyes. That's why we wear sunglasses. Having grown up in, uh, Western Europe, I often wear sunglasses almost year round because America strikes me as a very

bright country in terms of the light compared to that which my own eyes grew up with in the north. I'd say when I was working in Aberdeen, uh, if the clouds didn't clear in mid-December in Aberdeen, then at noon the streetlights would still be on. It's much darker. The brighter the light, the harder it is to look at it.

Both point to the fact that God is invisible. He cannot be seen. He's too glorious to be seen. And yet here he is seen

in Christ. We're told God is made visible through the human flesh, first letter of John, that which we have seen here. The light can be seen because it radiates through the flesh.

Think of, uh, maybe a young person here today, or maybe you are not so old that you've forgotten what it was like to be a young person. But you remember, you know, mom and dad send you to bed earlier and you're pretty gypped by that. So you wanna read a book or you wanna play or something. So you hide under the sheets and you put your, uh, flashlight on. I was about to say torch. The English river torches tend to set things on fire that would bring all kinds

of inappropriate connotations into your mind. You put the flashlight on and yet somehow mom and dad rumble that that's what you're up to because they can see the sheet glowing. They don't see the light, they see the glow of the sheet. Maybe you've done that thing in the dark where you know you stick the, uh, flashlight. This is where it's important not to say torch. You can stick a flashlight in your mouth and you switch it on and your cheeks

glow red. You know the light's there because the cheeks glow red. Well, think of what has happening here. The transfiguration is revealing Jesus's God. One of the reasons why Jesus becomes flesh is this. We cannot gaze on the light of God directly. It is too infinite, too intense. But God accommodates himself, we might put it this way, to glow through the flesh of the Lord Jesus Christ in a way that we are able to see it. And here,

here, the curtain is lifted just for a moment or two, for a small handful of disciples so that they can see what's really going on. Notice that immediately before this, Jesus says, some of you here today will not die before you see the kingdom of God coming in glory. I think that's referring to the transfiguration. We get a glimpse here of the glorified flesh of the Lord Jesus Christ, glowing with his divinity. We get a glimpse here of what will be true and visible at the end of time.

The curtain is lifted just momentarily for this inner circle of the inner circle before it's dropped to gain. The transfiguration reveals Jesus' God as the light shines through his flesh. And this is why John does not include the transfiguration. He doesn't need to. The gospel of John is all about the transfiguration. He doesn't need the specific events because from the very beginning of the gospel of John, it's about God as light shining through the flesh of the Lord Jesus Christ,

into the darkened world. He doesn't need the transfiguration because his Christ, if you like, is the Christ of the transfiguration.

Brings us then finally to the companions of the transfiguration as revealing who Jesus is in terms of his work. We know something huge is happening here 'cause it's upper mountain. Then we find out, well wow, it's about the revelation of God. Well, big deal, God's revealed himself. But then we get hints as to why God is manifesting himself in the flesh. First of all, the first, uh, companions on the mountain to note, I think Moses and Elijah,

the law and the prophets, we might say the Old Testament personified, the two greatest prophets of the Old Testament. There they are talking to Jesus, the giver of the law, and the man who introduced the war against Baal within the people of God, the great reformer of Israel, Elijah Jesus is talking to them. Jesus' significance has to be understood in the context of the law and the prophets of the Old Testament. Interestingly enough, of course,

both men were associated with mountains. I mentioned that before. Mount Sinai, Mount Carmel, both were also transfigured. Moses comes down the mountain and he's kind of glowing because he'd been in the presence of God. Elijah is whipped up to heaven on top of a mountain. Mountains feature heavily in their narratives too very appropriate that they would be Jesus's companions on the top of this very significant mountain,

on this very significant day as well. Here Jesus Christ is presented, I think appears as the fulfillment of perfection of that to which Moses and Elijah point. So the first companions, Moses and Elijah. Second we have the disciples. One of the fascinating things I I discovered as I read the uh, uh, light on the Mountain book. You know, it's always interesting when you read sermons from other cultures or from other times because you realize that the questions you bring to the text are

not necessarily the questions everybody else brings to the text. And it struck me, one of the things that the early church fathers did is they were wrestling with the transfiguration. One of the problems they identified and that they struggled with was this, why are there only these three disciples with Jesus? You never crossed my mind you why, why not all of them? And the answer they came up with was, this is too glorious a moment to allow Judas Chariot to witness

it. But if Jesus had just invited 11 of the 12 to join him, Judas would've known that his cover was blown and the whole thing would've sort of, you know, the whole purpose of Judas would've been thwarted. Fascinating text doesn't tell us that that's the case, but it just struck me as that's interesting. Sounds very plausible to me. Not gonna present it as an item of sort of gospel truth, but intriguing, isn't it a reminder that different people, different cultures,

different times ask different interesting questions about the text. Whatever the reason for bringing the subset of disciples in the inner circle of the inner circle, so to speak, we can say that they're terrified. Verse six tells us they're terrified and that terror is manifested in Peter's own rather bumbling and inept response uses the term rabbi, which is kind of a little bit casual possibly as a way of referring to Jesus at

this point. And he makes this inept suggestion about, can we put up some tents for you? Probably connected to the Feast of Booths, ancient Israelite festival that celebrated the wilderness. Wanderings would seem that if you know they did that Peter would've missed something important. He'd have missed the fact that you know, Jesus, Moses and Elijah, they're not on the same level. Something's happening here that is fulfilling what those other two guys pointed

to. And it's not gonna be fulfilled in quite the same way as it was in the Old Testament. We might also add that the scheme would've deflected Jesus from the cross.

Peter fails to grasp, it seems that the glory he's witnessing on that mountain that day is just a foretaste of what can only be delivered by Jesus going to the cross in Jerusalem. So the disciples then I think point to the fact that something's being fulfilled here, but it is not the fulfillment. There is more to come. And that brings us to the third figure, the third companion on the mountain that day. The Father, the Father speaks,

this is my beloved son. Listen to him reminiscent of course of the baptism. The Father says a very similar thing at the baptism. And if I was preaching on Mark chapter one today, I would go to the same Old Testament text that I'm about to go to now. I think this is language used by the Father that is consciously reminiscent of language used by God. In Genesis 22, I mentioned that Abraham, he appears in this narrative. He's hinted on this. Here is where it is.

Genesis 22, God says to Abraham several times, refers to Abraham's beloved son, take your son, your only son, the son whom you love, to a place where I will show you and their sacrifice Him to me. God, the Father here draws the language of Genesis 22. If you were Jewish that day, if you are Peter, James or John, you wouldn't miss that connection. You would immediately understand something of what's going on.

Jesus' baptism is being reaffirmed and his ministry is being set in the context of the mystery of Genesis 22. Must be probably 15 years ago now, uh, my wife and I, uh, went to the Bar mitzvah of the son of some very good Jewish friends we had in Philadelphia. Uh, and the, the text that day for the bar mitzvah was Genesis 22. It was kind of eerie hearing it read in Hebrew. And then the Rabbi got up and preached on it. And it's one of my favorite texts because it's one of the, you know,

it's one of the most impossible to understand in many ways in in the Old Testament. All that's going on there. And I was thinking to myself, this is fascinating. I wonder where the rabbi's gonna go with this. I wonder how he will conclude. Well, he concluded with a question. And the question was this, what kind of a God asks a man to sacrifice his son, his only son, the son whom he loves? And I'm a relatively polite Englishman, so I didn't stand up and finish,

you know, respond to the answer or give the answer to his question. But of course, in my mind I was thinking the kind of God who ultimately doesn't demand that of Abraham, but demands it of himself. That I think is what's being pointed to here. This text is speaking of the coming sacrifice. Peter, James, and John are being reminded. There's a sacrifice to come. You need to think of Genesis 22 at this point. And notice too God the Father says, listen to him.

That's the kind of thing God says about the prophets in the Old Testament. Jesus here is being granted a prophetic authority by the Father. He is the supreme prophet. So we see then this passage. First of all, we're alerted to something very, very important happening here. All the miracles are important, but this isn't just another healing or another exorcism. I would put the transfiguration alongside the conception, the nativity of Jesus, the baptism of Jesus,

the death and the resurrection of Jesus as one of those major markers that kind of carry the story forward in a rather dramatic way. I had to fill in and teach a course on the doctrine of Christ, uh, at Grove a couple of years ago. And I did it framing it around the big things in Jesus' life, of which the Transfiguration was one or hook on which one could place a whole lot of doctrine about Christ points us to his person.

His light manifest his God manifest in the flesh. The purpose of Jesus becoming flesh wasn't just so that he could die on the cross. It was so that the flesh could become the medium through which God might reveal himself to us as light. And then there's the work definitely pointing here, both to the fulfillment of the Old Testament in the sacrifice. That's all in this passage. So what are the applications we might draw from this briefly as we conclude?

First of all, there's a doctrinal lesson. You wanna evidence that Jesus is God. This is the passage to go to if you want to talk about the necessity of Christ's suffering. This is one of the passages to go to. If you wanna talk about the authority of Jesus' teaching as the great fulfillment of the prophets. Well, you go to Hebrews one, of course, but you go to this passage as well. All that doctrine is contained herein. Secondly, I think you should be,

if you're, at least if you're a Christian here, immensely encouraged by this passage, what is Jesus doing? What is God doing in this passage? He's lifting the veil to allow the disciples to know that what they see as outward reality is not true reality in its full depth. They see this humble, Jewish, poor Jewish peasant son of a carpenter. That's what they see. But in this moment, they see who he really is just for a brief moment of time.

We live in an age, don't we, where you know the outward things often raise serious questions in our experience as to whether God is sovereign. You can look at world events and wonder, you know, is God still in control? Everything seems so chaotic, but you don't need to look at world events for that. You can look at your own lives. All of us at some point, maybe some of you here today, I don't know many of you, maybe some of you here today are facing chaos in your own lives.

An illness that has struck a loved one of which you have no control, or somebody has done something to you. You don't know why, but you have no control over it. Maybe you've lost your job, you don't know why, and you're worried about the future. But these are hard things to face. What this passage does, it gives us no easy answers for the next 24 48 hours, week, month, year, whatever. But what this passage does is remind us that outward reality

prior to the return of Christ is not an accurate guide to Real deep reality. Christ here may present as a humble son of a carpenter, but he's God manifest in the flesh. That is a reminder to the disciples, that with all of the terror and trauma that is about to enter their lives, they should not judge by outward appearances, but by what and who Christ is in himself. It's Paul's lesson in many ways, in first and second Corinthians.

It's also a warning in our Christian, of course, yeah, Christianity may look weak. Christ may look weak here and now, but there will come a time when Christ will not only be glorious as he always has been, but he will be unequivocally seen to be glorious as well. That is good news for those who trust him by faith and bad news for those who defy him. And then finally, I think we get a glimpse here into heaven itself. What is heaven like now, if you look at pop culture,

heaven looks something like, you know, being dressed in white, sitting on a cloud and playing a harp. Very unlikely that that is the case. That would be a very tedious eternity, I would imagine. What does heaven look like? Well, have you ever read Dante's Divine Comedy? The last book, the last book, the Paradi The Paradise. When Dante's reflecting on the nature of heaven, culminates in the last cantos in him trying to put into words

this glorious vision that he thinks heaven will be trying to put into words what he would call the beatific vision, the blessed vision, the vision of the Blessed. But what is the vision of the blessed? I think we're given a strong hint as to what it is here in the passage. It'll be gazing on the resurrected humanity of Christ through which the light of God's glory shines. When we are resurrected, when we enter heaven, we do not cease to be finite.

A sin will finally be put away. We will be perfected, but we will not cease to be finite creatures. And that means it will not cease to be the case that we need God to accommodate himself to our capacity as finite creatures. We will never know God as he's in himself, because we will always be finite, but we will know God as glorious as God has accommodated that glory to our capacity of what does that look like? It looks like the transfiguration.

It looks like the glorious light of the invisible God shining through the flesh of Christ and making God manifestly visible in that flesh. Praise God for the trans figuration, for it is indeed I think one of the most important events recounted in the gospels. Let us pray. Oh Lord God loving Heavenly Father, we thank you that though you are a God who dwells in an approachable light, yet you have indeed condescended in your grace and mercy,

not only to deal with our sin, but to reveal yourself in a gentle, gracious, and pure form, through the fragile fre flesh of your son, the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray, oh Lord, that as we gaze upon that flesh now by faith, so you might keep us safer that day when we will one day gaze upon it by sight. For we pray this in His name. Amen.