Mark 9:2-13

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The reading is from St. Mark, chapter 9, verses 2 to 13. The transfiguration. After six days, Jesus took Peter, James and John with him, led them up a high mountain where they were all alone. There he was transfigured before them.

His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them. And there appeared before them Elijah and Moses, who were talking with Jesus. Peter said to Jesus, rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah. He did not know what to say, they were so frightened.

Then a cloud appeared and covered them. And a voice came from the cloud, this is my son, whom I love. Listen to him.

Suddenly when they looked around, they no longer saw anyone with them except Jesus. And they were coming down the mountain. Jesus gave them orders not to tell anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. They kept the matter to themselves, discussing what rising from the dead meant. And they asked him, why do the teachers of the law say that Elijah must come first?

Jesus replied, to be sure Elijah does come first and restores all things. Why then is it written that the Son of Man must suffer much and be rejected? But I tell you, Elijah has come, and they have done to him everything they wished, just as it is written about him. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

And thank you, Celia, for reading that. Do make sure you've got sight of one of those Bibles. There should be one around you. Page 1012 is the place to be. That's God's word, and that's what we want to hear.

And I'm just going to pray and ask God to help us. As we look at His Word this morning. Father God, I pray that we might see Jesus, and that as we see Jesus in the scriptures, we might listen to him. And that would equip us to walk his path to glory. Amen.

One of the things that I don't do as often as I ought to, but I used to do more is running. And when I go running, running, I've got a thing called Nike Run Club. It's a little app on your phone, and as you're running along, it tells you about how you should be getting on and what you should be doing. And on one of the longer runs, it does a really mean trick about three quarters of the way through, when my legs are like jelly and I look a bit like a radish and I'm just sort of not being able to carry on anymore, it says, imagine the last 200 metres of this run. Imagine how you would like your technique to look.

Imagine what you would like your face to look, your pace to look like. And without meaning to, as you think about that, you find yourself sort of jogging with a bit better technique, a little bit faster. And of course it's a mean trick because you've still got a quarter of the way to go and you're speeding up and it's hard. We're in the Book of Mark. We're in a section of the Book of Mark that we started back last week and it's a section just after Peter.

One of Jesus disciples has identified rightly that Jesus is the Christ, the Promised One from the Old Testament, who's going to come and set his people free. And last week we saw that Peter had an idea of his designer Messiah, the one that he wanted Jesus to be and that Jesus is going to have to teach him now, what does it mean for Jesus to be the Messiah? What does it mean to be the Messiah? And that was quite hard last week, wasn't it? Just chatting with people this week about last week's sermon.

A number of things that have come up difficult, tough, challenging. And if that's like that for us this side of the cross and with the Holy Spirit, imagine what it was like for Jesus disciples to be told to follow me means denying yourself, taking up your torture device and following after me. That would have been shocking, it would have been hard. And so here is Peter and a couple of others and Jesus takes them away, they're going for a walk. Sometimes getting out of things and having a bit of space is a really good thing to do, especially when life is tough and the Christian walk for them is tough at the moment.

And so after six days, verse two, Jesus took Peter, James and John with him and led them up a high mountain where they were all alone. You see, Jesus isn't just getting away, he's taking them somewhere life changing.

You see, if you were reading the Bible from Genesis 1:1, right the way through to this point, you'd be thinking, wait a second, going up a mountain, that's something that rings all sorts of bells. Remember back at the start, towards the start of the Bible, you've got Noah and there's the big flood and the flood waters go down and where does the ark land? Mount Ararat. And there he builds this altar to the Lord and worships him. Or a few chapters later you've got Abraham and Isaac.

You know that story, don't you? They go up the mountain. And at the top of the mountain, what does God do? He substitutes the sacrifice of Isaac for a sacrifice of a lamb. Abraham meets with God in this intense way at the top of the mountain.

Moses, we looked at him a few weeks ago, a few months ago, didn't we? There he went up Mount Sinai, sometimes known as Mount Horeb, and there he meets with God and gets the Ten Commandments, and the people are there in wonder. Or Elijah. He gets a double whammy. I love Elijah.

He goes up the mountain, doesn't he? And there he meets God. When there's that kind of face off, like X factor, which one is God? Between the Baals and God. And God turns up and lights the sacrifice.

And then he gets a second experience only a few weeks later when he runs and hides on a mountain and we hear that God meets with him in the still, small voice. You see, there's precedent for going up a mountain and meeting with God, but there's not really precedent for God walking with you up the mountain. What do I mean? Well, look at little number three with me. His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone could bleach them.

This is this word transfiguration or metamorphose. He changes in front of them. As Jesus walks up the mountain, his clothes become like whiter than you can possibly imagine. Daz Doorstep challenge has nothing on Jesus right at the moment. In fact, we're told that.

We're told that they are whiter than any garment expert in the world could make them. Wash it on 0, wash it on 60, add in vanish, add in bleach, wash it on 100 if you like. Throw in phosphorescence for, for good measure and it's still brighter. This is not a natural brightness. This is a supernatural shininess.

And again, there's previous of this in the Bible, right? Like when people meet with God again and again we see descriptions where light and shininess is there. Think of Moses with the burning bush. It's burning, it's bright, it attracts attention, it's giving out light. Think of the pillars of fire, fire that give light by night.

Or perhaps think of some of those more explicit statements. Ezekiel's got a great one. Let me read it to you. This is Ezekiel as he sees God. It's in Ezekiel, chapter one.

Don't worry about turning there, but verse 27, if you're taking notes. And it says this, I saw that from what appeared to be his waist up, he looked like glowing metal, as if full of fire. And that from there down, he looked like fire. Brilliant light surrounded him like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day. So was the radiance around him.

This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of Yahweh. And when I saw it, I fell face down. Ezekiel sees God, and it's bright and shiny. In fact, Daniel does a similar thing. We saw that.

We looked at Daniel a couple of years ago. Let's. Let's just see what he says. He says that where are we? Here we are.

Daniel, chapter 10, verse 5. I looked up, and there before me was a man dressed in linen, with a belt of fine gold, with upas around his waist. His body was like topaz and a nice stone, and his face like lightning. His eyes were flaming torches, and his arms gleamed like burnished bronze. And his voice was like the sound of a multitude.

You see, what does it look like for Jesus to be the Messiah? It means for him to be the shiny one who we have met before. And as if to push home that truth, we see that he's surrounded by a couple of people, verse 4. And there appeared before him Elijah and Moses, who were talking with Jesus. Now, these are folks from the Old Testament, but they're a slightly odd pairing.

You see, if you were wanting kind of your Old Testament top trumps, you might go with Moses. I mean, he's a big wig. You might go with Abraham or David. So you might kind of pair him up with some of those other key players from the Old Testament. They might be people that you pair him together with.

Or maybe if you wanted a prophet, you go with Isaiah. Like he's the one who's quoted loads in the New Testament, isn't he? But it's Elijah. But then if you were thinking of pairing Elijah up with somebody, you'd probably pair him up with the only other person in the Old Testament who didn't die. So you pop him with Enoch, probably.

Why Moses and Elijah? I think there are a few reasons, but one of them is that there are two people who have gone up the mountain and they've had intense personal conversations with God there. We're told that Moses spoke with God like a man speaks with his friend, face to face. We're told that Elijah is there and he hears God not in the whirlwind, but in the still, small voice.

And this is a goosebumps moment, because Jesus here is standing on the mountain speaking with Elijah and Moses. In other words, Jesus is the fulfilment. He's doing what he's done before. He is there speaking with these people as he is a fulfilment of every mountaintop experience that has ever happened. In fact, every intimate conversation between anybody and God has always been mediated by this person.

The person who we are seeing in the scriptures today is none other than the Lord God Almighty there stood shining in his resplendent glory.

We heard last week Jesus is not just Mahatma Gandhi on spiritual steroids. He's not just a good teacher. He is of course a good teacher and a great man, but he is God Almighty. When you read the scriptures and you read Jesus words, do you realise that these are the very words that spoke creation into existence? This is huge.

But it's not too huge for Peter to go and put his foot in it. I love Peter. Do you remember last week Jesus was like, I'm the Christ. That means I'm going to suffer and I'm going to die. And Peter's like, that's not my Messiah.

I've got different ideas for you, Jesus. Well, here there is Jesus. He's seeing Moses and Elijah speaking with him. And what does Peter do? He comes out with a value judgement.

Teacher, it's good for us to be here. Well done. Yeah, that's good. Thanks, Jesus. Let me put up three shelters.

One for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah. Now what is it that Peter is doing? Thankfully, the very next verse tells me that he doesn't even really know what he's doing. But it may be that he's kind of got the hint. He sees Moses at the top of the mountain.

He sees shininess and he thinks, what happened last time we built the tabernacle? We lived in tents. Maybe we're going back to that. Maybe I should build some shelters like that. Or maybe, maybe he hasn't learned last week's lesson.

Maybe he's looking at the glory and he's like, hey, do you know what? Let's set up some shelters. Let's live in this. This is the kind of Messiah that I want. Yeah, I'm well up for this either which way?

What is he doing again? He's taking control. Let me do this.

Let me control how this is going to be. Let me set the parameters here.

Peter's there once more looking and saying, okay, let me control this. And then God does something actually he's done before. Let me tell you this back in the book of Job, right? Job's this great book in the Old Testament where Job, poor man, goes through all sorts of suffering. And then there's this like naff answer after naf answer that comes from his friends.

And then there's a young man who, who stands up and is like, let me tell you, God's never going to come. He's way up above. He's not going to come and answer your queries, Job. And then as he's speaking, this big thunderstorm comes along and God is like, okay, now I'm speaking to Job. And it's this ultimate sort of, just be quiet, stop your yappering.

God does it again. There's Peter. Okay, great for us to be here. Jesus done a good job bringing us. Let me sort out some shelters.

And God turns up in this glory cloud that was the same one that turned up at Sinai and other places. And he speaks and it's like, shh, shh, shh, shh. Stop your yapping, stop your yapping, Peter, let me say some words. And he says words that he said actually back in Mark chapter one, when Jesus is baptised, God turns up again and speaks. The Father speaks to his son and says, this is my son.

Sorry, you are my son, with whom I'm well pleased here. He speaks to Peter and he says, this is my son, verse seven, whom I love. Listen to him. Have you ever been in one of those meetings where people are just yapping, yap, yap, yap, yap, yapping away? I've got this idea, I've got that idea.

It wasn't me. I didn't do it this way. And eventually someone with authority to says, listen. And there's quiet for a moment. God the Father says, this is my son.

Listen to him, Peter. Stop with your ideas, stop with your. This is what the Messiah should be like. Let's do glory without suffering. Stop with that.

Listen to him, Peter.

I wonder, are we listening? Do we listen to Jesus or do we so easily slip into the Peter mentality? Jesus, let me tell you how it's going to be. I'm going to pray and I'm going to set you out this strict agenda to which I want you to adhere. Are we too busy telling Jesus who he should be to actually listen to him speak to us?

This week on the prayer chain, there have been some devotions that have gone out. Have you listened to Jesus? Have you done that? Have you done any of those? Now, of course, there are lots of ways in which we might do that.

Let me ask you, when was the last time you had your Bible open? Was it this time last week?

The infinite Son of God enters this world, speaks in this text. Are you listening to Him? Or are you too busy telling him how he should be?

As if to drive home the point, God speaks, listen. And verse eight. Suddenly there's no one except Jesus. Only him. No distractions, just him.

As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus gave the orders not to tell anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. Why is, why is that? Why does Jesus say, okay, now kind of store this, don't go sharing it until after I've risen from the dead. What's that all about? I think actually that the whole Elijah and Moses thing might give us a bit more of a clue as to what's going on here.

You see, I said that they were an unusual combo, but they're not completely unique. Combo. You see, the Old Testament ends with a promise. Ben and Hannah will know this book very well. In the book of Malachi, chapter 4, God gives this incredible promise.

Listen to this. He says, this is verse two. But you who revere my name, the Son of righteousness will rise with healing in its rays. And you will go out and frolic like well fed calves. And then you'll trample, and you'll trample on the wicked, and there'll be ashes under the soles of your feet.

On the day when I act, says Yahweh Almighty, it says this. Remember the law of my servant Moses. Hello, Moses. The decrees and laws that I gave him at Horeb or Mount Sinai for all Israel. Hello.

See, I will send the prophet Elijah. Before that great and dreadful day of Yahweh comes, I will turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the hearts of the children to their parents. Or else I will come and strike the land with destruction. This is a promise that God will set a day, the day of Yahweh when he will come. And on that day, all that opposes him, all that is evil and wrong and unjust and broken in this world will be no more, will be trampled down.

Whether it's Putin or people traffickers, whether it's paedophiles or people who reject Jesus. For all who reject God's right kingliness, there will be a day when that is trampled down.

But on that day, he will lift up his people. On that day, those who know him and love him will frolic like well fed calves. I love that image. Like little, little animals, young animals that are full of joy will be there with their Saviour in glory. We will stand face to face with our bright and shiny Jesus, and we will delight in him.

And we will enjoy him. That's actually why when you read the book of Revelation, that's the picture of Jesus that you get, a shiny one. See, it makes a promise that one day this glory that is foreseen here will be the very glory in which we will live. If you like. Jesus says, look at this transfiguration thing.

It's like those cards that you used to get near your birthday from your auntie, you know, the ones that you used to get. And on the back it would say, don't open until the 20th of November. It's like Jesus says, look, this is a little snapshot of what it will be like, a little glimpse of glory.

So what's Jesus doing? Well, he is showing his post resurrection glory to his people. People often say, why does the Book of Mark not have the risen Lord Jesus at the end like some of the other gospels? And it's a great question. We can go into it at great depth.

But one of the reasons is that we've already met him here in the transfiguration we see Jesus post resurrection glory and you see, I think the Son of Man, Jesus shows us this because as his people are going through hard times, he gives them this glimpse. A bit like my Nike running club person got me to look towards the end of the run. He's saying, look up, let me show you the glory that is coming.

Then there's this question of Elijah coming first. And it's quite tricky. Jesus shows that John the Baptist is that figure in the other gospels. But in here he says to be sure Elijah does come first and will restore all things. Why then is it written that the Son of Man must suffer much and be rejected?

But I tell you, Elijah has come and they've done to him everything that they wished and everything that was written about him. What's he saying? He's saying, look, John the Baptist came. We've seen a few chapters ago that John the Baptist was murdered for his faith. He has gone through the suffering.

He says in the same way the Messiah, what does it look like for me to be Messiah? It looks like me being God incarnate, but it also looks like me going through the road of suffering. He says, what does it look like for the Messiah? It looks like glory after suffering. And if it looks like that for the Messiah, then it looks like that for his followers too.

The Christian life is hard, isn't it? Taking up our cross, denying ourselves is hard. And yet it has a goal. I wonder, have you heard of Florence Chadwick? Anyone heard of Florence Chadwick?

Not many of us. It's surprising because she was an incredible woman. She was the first woman to swim the British Channel. Not just one way, but both ways. Incredible lady.

She got the world record, the women's world record for crossing the British Channel by swimming. And on the 4th of July in 1952, she set out to do something that hadn't been done before, and that was the Catalina Channel over in California. And it was a foggy morning and she got into the water and the thought was that the fog was going to lift. So off she went and she Swam. And nearly 16 hours later, she climbed into the rescue support boat that was with her.

Still surrounded by thick fog. You can imagine how gutting it was for her to find out that she was less than half a mile from the shore. She spoke to reporters afterwards. She said, I'm not making any excuses, but when you can't see where you're going, it's so hard. Two months later, she got up again and it was foggy and she climbed into the water and the fog didn't lift.

If anything, the fog was thicker than it was the first time. But do you know? 13 hours and 47 minutes left later, she climbed onto the other bank, smashing the world record for both men and women. As she crossed that channel and chatting to the reporters, she said, I kept an image of the shoreline in front of me. I kept an image of the shoreline in front of me.

Following Jesus is difficult, but being a Christian in a world that rejects him is hard. Taking up our cross is literally painful.

So keep the picture of the shoreline in your mind. Listen to Jesus. Let him show you who he is. Listen to Jesus when he speaks to you about who he is, about who you are. Listen to Jesus when he speaks of your infinite worth is created in God's image.

Listen to Jesus when he challenges you on ways in which your heart rejects him. Listen to Jesus when he tells you who he is. Listen to Jesus when he promises that one day he will take his finger and he will wipe every tear from your eye. Listen to Jesus when he speaks of the glory that will be ours. How might we do that?

Great way to do that. Why not come on the Alpha course or the life of Jesus course? Why not spend some time this week? I'll try and put out some of those. Some more devotions this week on the prayer chain.

Make sure that you open your Bible this week. They're great Bible reading notes. Talk to somebody over coffee. How do you read your Bible? How are you going to listen to Jesus this week.

How are you going to lift your eyes to the glory that you've got when life is difficult, when it feels like church is taking from you and that Jesus is demanding from you and that sin is pressing and that you feel like you're at the end of your tether? Listen to Jesus. Put the image of the shoreline in your mind.

This is my son, the Lord says, whom I love. Listen to him. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we know that the road to glory for your son looked like going through the cross.

We're sorry when we are like Peter and we want to define you, frankly, we're too busy telling you how you should be to listen to who you say you are.

Heavenly Father, we're sorry that though we have your scriptures, we don't read them.

That though we know your son, we don't listen to him.

That we struggle to take up our cross or deny ourself or follow you because frankly, we don't listen to you. Help us to be a church that listens to your son, that holds in front of us the very glory of your son, and therefore lives boldly to hold out the good news of Christ to this world. For I ask it in Jesus name. Amen. Amen.