Glimpse of Glory (Afternoon)
Download MP3Good evening, everyone. My name is Joseph Rhea. If I haven't met you before, I'm the director of discipleship here at Redeemer. So work with a few different areas including home groups, Sunday classes, and a couple other things. We're so glad that you're here with us today And this evening, we're going to continue our study in the gospel of Mark, which is one of the 4 biographies of Jesus that are called the gospels.
Joseph Rhea:And we're going to be looking at, some from Mark 9. And so, you can turn there in your bibles if you've got one or the text is in your worship guide as well if you have that. And as you do, the story that we're looking at tonight is a it's a weird story. It's called, in English, the transfiguration, which, you can tell Harry Potter fans by how they perk up at that. Like, what now?
Joseph Rhea:So the transfiguration, it's this odd event that it's we're going to see. It happens and then it ends, and it seems like nothing changes, that nothing occurs. 3 of Jesus' disciples see this thing happen and then they kind of go back into the rhythms of their normal life. But what you find is that, for these disciples, this had an impact that kind of burned into their minds long after they witnessed it. So Peter was one of the ones who saw it.
Joseph Rhea:And in his letter that we call second Peter, he's writing about the certainty of Jesus' resurrection and his glory and the hope they have. And when he does that, he doesn't reference Jesus' resurrection as the sign of how true and certain these things are. He references this event, the transfiguration. And the apostle John, who writes another one of the biographies of Jesus called the book of John, he says at the beginning that one of the things that Jesus was was Jesus was the light of God coming into the world. He didn't just pick that because it was a nice metaphor.
Joseph Rhea:He picked that as we'll see because of what he saw here on this mountain. So 2 of the guys who saw this were drawing on this event as they were trying to say, hey, this is how important Jesus is and this is how much he has meant to my life. And so that's what we're going to hear and we're going to look at today. So we're in Mark 9, I'm gonna read verses 1 through 8 for us. 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.
Joseph Rhea:And after 6 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 talking with Jesus. And Peter said to Jesus, rabbi, it's good that we are here. Let us make 3 tents, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah. For he did not know what to say for they were terrified and a cloud overshadowed them and a voice came out of the cloud this is my beloved son listen to him And suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone with them but Jesus only.
Joseph Rhea:This is the word of the Lord. Thank you, God. Let's pray. Dear Jesus, I pray that as we consider this event that was so significant for Peter and James and John. That you would help us see what it means.
Joseph Rhea:You would help us see what it reveals to us and how it speaks to us today about who you are and what that means for our relationship with you. We pray these things in your strong name. Amen. So I don't know if you've ever seen the TV show Undercover Boss. I've only ever seen like clips of it here and there.
Joseph Rhea:I'm not a super fan of the show. But the premise of it is that they take the CEO or the founder of a company, someone who's way high up at the top, and they kind of maybe put them in disguise, but they put them into situations among, like, the ground level employees in their company. And so it's usually in a situation where they've heard there's some, like, some kind of mismanagement or some kind of problem going on, or some employee who's having some huge struggle. And so they sort of enter covertly, sort of, you know, this place that they own often, and they kind of come in as an employee. And sort of what the ground level employees experience is this man or woman comes in to the job, they're new to it, and then they especially if it's a place that's mismanaged, they start asking these uncomfortable questions.
Joseph Rhea:Like, why do we do things this way? I thought we're supposed to do them that way. Or why do we do this? I'm pretty sure this isn't correct. And, often, especially in the the bad, scenarios, it leads to this kind of rising tension until finally, you know, especially if there's an employee who's been running something into the ground, they'll be like, who are you to tell me what to do?
Joseph Rhea:And the CEO or founder will be like, well, let me tell you who I am to tell you what to do. Then they'll sort of reveal their identity and then, you know, it's this huge thing. So they reveal not only their true identity in that moment, that they are the CEO or founder or whatever of this company, But also with that, that also reveals their true authority, that they have the authority to make much bigger decisions for the sake of this company than, you know, maybe this person who's been running things into the ground for their own devices. 2 weeks ago, we saw Peter correctly identify Jesus as the Christ. Now the Christ isn't Jesus' last name like Joel said.
Joseph Rhea:It's a term that means God's anointed king. So it's a special role and Peter correctly says, Jesus, you are God's Christ. But immediately, Jesus starts redefining the definition. He starts telling them something different about what Christ means than what they had, kind of, inherited from their cultural tradition. See, what they thought was they thought that Christ was this human king who was going to come back and he was going to rescue Israel from political oppression and restore them to power and glory as a nation.
Joseph Rhea:And this Christ's sort of his people, his inner circle, we're going to be sort of pulled along with him into kind of increasing glory. So he wins glory for us and we get to kind of ride along with that. That was the narrative that his disciples had had about Jesus, who he was, and themselves. So what was going to happen to them along the way as part of following him. And in the last two sermons we saw Jesus take a sledgehammer to that narrative.
Joseph Rhea:So he said, yes I am the Christ but I'm gonna be crucified before anything glorious happens to me. Then he says, if you're gonna follow me, then you've got to come after me, take up your cross, which is sort of like take up your death sentence as a warrant and then come after me to die as well. He says, we're headed not for glory first, we're headed for humility and suffering. And when he does this, he's upending everything these disciples have been imagining about the narrative of their lives. Sort of who he is, who they are and how their story is going to go.
Joseph Rhea:Maybe you've had a similar experience of Jesus or maybe you're going through one right now. See, if you grew up in a Bible Belt culture here on the south, you might have grown up with Jesus as sort of the guide to middle class respectability, where he, kind of helps you clean up your life, gain enough self control to not get swamped by alcohol or drugs, and sort of hop on a life of growing wealth and comfort. And then you're hearing them in these passages, these parables, these stories say, you have to put your entire life on the table to follow me. Not just a little bit, your career, your money, your nights and weekends, they belong to me if you're with me. Or maybe you grew up in a secular culture and you heard Jesus was this like good guy who did and said some nice things.
Joseph Rhea:Maybe he had some teachings that you've thought about integrating into your life because it seems like it might, you know, give some good tweaks, move things in a good direction. And then you're seeing him in these, passages do miracles and forgive sins and claim the authority to define right and wrong. He's saying, you don't take advice from me, you follow me. And when we get confronted, yes, you wrestle with it. When we get confronted with a challenge, to our status quo, to let the stories of our lives get rewritten like this, we push back, right?
Joseph Rhea:We ask, who are you to tell me what to do? Who are you to get to rewrite my story for me? That's what it seems like these disciples are asking about Jesus. That he has confronted them with such a serious change that needs to be made in who they are that they're asking who is this person? Who is he to tell us who we're supposed to be and what we're supposed to do?
Joseph Rhea:And so in this story today, he takes 3 of them up a mountain and he shows them who he is. He gives them a glimpse of his true identity and his true authority of what gives him the right to make these claims he's been making. So this event, like we said already, is called the transfiguration. Harry Potter fans will have a jump on understanding what that means. The Greek word under this is the same word for metamorphosis.
Joseph Rhea:So it's the process of a caterpillar turning into a butterfly. One thing is transformed into another. And so Jesus takes these disciples up a mountain and they see him transformed in front of them. And that change tells them and by extension us, some things about Jesus' true identity and his true authority and what it means for us. And so the first thing that it does is the transfiguration unveils Jesus's divinity.
Joseph Rhea:It unveils Jesus's divinity. Let's look at verses 2 and 3 again. And after 6 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. So Jesus takes 3 of his disciples, Peter and James and John up a mountain and he's transformed in front of them. He keeps his human shape but, like Mark says, his clothes become blinding white.
Joseph Rhea:And Matthew, who writes another account of this, said that his face shines like the sun. So he becomes this human figure made of light in this moment. So each account of this event in the gospels emphasizes a different detail of how Jesus was transformed. But as you can see in our our version in verse 3, Mark emphasizes his clothes. He says, they're radiant.
Joseph Rhea:They're intensely white like no one on earth could bleach them. So what that means is in Hebrew literature, you repeat something to emphasize it. And saying it three times is like putting it in all caps with a hand clap emoji after each word. It's like his clothes were white. That's what he wants us to get.
Joseph Rhea:Why does he emphasize that detail? See in the whole old testament, which would have been Mark's Bible, there's only one instance of someone who's dressed in blinding white like this. There's a man named Daniel and he has a vision of God whom he calls the Ancient of Days, seated on a throne. And in his vision, 1 like a son of man, so this human figure comes to the Ancient of Days and is given a kingdom and a dominion that are worldwide. He's given a worldwide kingship.
Joseph Rhea:So it's a prophecy of the Christ. But guess who's the one wearing white in the story? Dana writes this, the ancient of days took his seat, his clothing was white as snow and the hair of his head like pure wool. God himself is dressed like this. The only other recorded instance of this moment up to the point that Mark writes.
Joseph Rhea:So Mark is telling us that in this moment, these disciples are shown that the human Jesus whom Peter correctly identified as the Christ, the son of man is also something more. That he isn't just human, even an incredible human who could do miracles. He is of the same nature as God himself. But we keep reading we get more of the picture. Let's look at verses 4 through 7.
Joseph Rhea:It says there appeared to them Elijah with Moses. They were talking with Jesus. And Peter said to Jesus, rabbi it's good that we are here. Let us make 3 tents One for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah. For you didn't know what to say for they were terrified and a cloud overshadowed them and a voice came out of the cloud.
Joseph Rhea:This is my beloved son. Listen to him. See when Jesus is transfigured, Moses and Elijah appear and they talk with him. Now these are 2 heavy hitters in Jewish culture. If you were to have, like, an all star lineup of old testament figures, these guys would be on the roster.
Joseph Rhea:And Peter's response shows that he wants to honor these 3 men. He says, this is amazing. We have Moses who led God's people out of Egypt in the Exodus and gave us the law, the Torah. We have Elijah who as we're going to see is one of the chief prophets, you know, the most significant figures that God used to speak His word to people. And now, we have Jesus too, God's chosen king.
Joseph Rhea:And so let's make 3 tents to give them each a place to rest. But what does God call Jesus? He says, this is my beloved son. See Moses and Elijah, as incredible as they were, were only ever described as servants of God. Moses was a servant.
Joseph Rhea:Elijah was a servant. Jesus is his son. The Nicene Creed, which is a summary of the Christian faith that all Christians everywhere agreed to says this, says I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God. Begotten of the Father before all ages. God from God, light from light, true God from true God.
Joseph Rhea:That summary is an attempt to capture what the disciples see here. The blinding white clothes that are the same as God's. The voice from heaven saying not, this is my servant but this is my son. There are ways of saying that Jesus isn't just a great human teacher. He's not even just like the greatest human king.
Joseph Rhea:He is those things but he's much more than that as well. He is also at the same time, the divine eternal son of God the father. God from God, light from light. See the apostles needed to see this because they were prepared for a story that included a human Christ, a human king but not a human king who was also God. Their understanding of Jesus was too small.
Joseph Rhea:The Galilean rabbi that they had eaten with, walked with, peppered with questions, misunderstood, seen to all these things is at the same time the all powerful, eternal, glorious God who created the universe. He was there when God said, let there be light at the beginning of the story. He's been in heaven up to this point before he became born as this divine and human being and one day he's going to be worshiped by every living creature in the entire creation. Their Christ was too small. We need to see this too.
Joseph Rhea:So if you're here and you're not a Christian, we are so glad that you're here. Maybe you're interested in Jesus. You know, he seems wise or good hearted. The historian Tom Holland, who's not the actor Tom Holland, they're different guys. I don't think either one is a Christian.
Joseph Rhea:So the the historian is not. But he said that the golden rule is the greatest moral invention in human history, and it came from Jesus. It's like, yeah, he's got something to say. So you might think he fits in among the stoics or the other moral philosophers. But this vision is intended to show that he doesn't.
Joseph Rhea:He's not someone you listen to and kind of sift his advice for what does and doesn't work for your life. He's the divine author and Lord of the universe. And one day, you're going to see him like this and you're going to fall on your face before him like these apostles do in worship. And if you're here today and you're a Christian, you need to be reminded of this too. I've heard a pastor say that our hearts leak especially when it comes to remembering the glory of God.
Joseph Rhea:It becomes easy to just sort of fall asleep and forget it. But God has this awe inspiring, even terrifying glory that when we see it, like these apostles do, we fall on our faces. And one of the accounts says that Peter's basically his mouth comes unhinged from his brain, that he's just kind of babbling words. And so people read into the stuff he says and it's really he's just kind of word vomiting because he's so overwhelmed, and God has to shut him up. He has to interrupt him to say, like, listen.
Joseph Rhea:Hold up, buddy. So that's the natural kind of response that people have in the bible when they see God's glory unveiled like this. They fall on their faces like they're dead. And some of them go silent. That's probably what I would do.
Joseph Rhea:I'm an introvert. And some just start babbling because they have no idea what to do. They're so overwhelmed. But that's what we're gonna see in Jesus one day of God's divine light burning through this human figure and we're only going to be able to worship in that moment. That's what the transfiguration unveils.
Joseph Rhea:It unveils Jesus's divinity. And the next thing it does is it that flows from that, is it affirms Jesus's authority. It affirms Jesus's authority. We're going to spend less time here. But Moses and Elijah were incredible individuals in old testament history, but they weren't just kind of like personal heroes.
Joseph Rhea:So Moses was a human author of the Jewish law. So the first five books of the bible that, we call the Torah sometimes. You may have heard it that called that. And Elijah, even though he didn't write any books, he represented the prophets because he was the only prophet who regularly did miracles. We couldn't get into verses 9 through 13 today.
Joseph Rhea:I have, like, a 90 minute director's cut version of this sermon that has all these biblical and theological nerd references and I'm happy to babble it to you later on if you want, but, you're welcome that that's not what we're doing today. But verses 9 through 13, these, like, kind of questions the disciples ask concern a prophecy that Elijah was going to come back to earth before the Christ came because he was that important a prophet. So he was sort of the ultimate one. So the disciples say, the law and the prophets are here. They represent basically the entire old testament.
Joseph Rhea:And so with that in mind, let's read verses 5 through 8 again. Peter said to Jesus, rabbi it's good that we're here. Let us make 3 tents. 1 for you, 1 for Moses and 1 for Elijah. For he didn't know what to say for they were terrified and a cloud overshadowed them and a voice came out of the cloud.
Joseph Rhea:This is my beloved son. Listen to him. Suddenly looking around, they no longer saw anyone with them, but Jesus only. So like we saw, Peter wants to honor these 3 heroes. He's like, we've got the law.
Joseph Rhea:We've got the prophets. We've got the Christ now. A line of heroes. But God kind of obscures their vision with a cloud and he says, this is my beloved son. Listen to him.
Joseph Rhea:And when the cloud goes away, Moses and Elijah are gone. That's Jesus only. So God is saying, Peter, Jesus isn't one in the line of people who speak for me. He is the one who speaks for me. His is the voice that defines the story.
Joseph Rhea:Moses and Elijah, they point to him. Listen to him. See they needed that because like we saw at the beginning, they'd been brought up in a cultural story that misread the law and the prophets. They thought it was going to be the story of earthly glory for them and for Jesus and they had to hear that, you know, that's not how the story is going to go. There's things that happen before that.
Joseph Rhea:There's this divine Christ who's going to be crucified. And so God is telling them that Jesus shows the right way to read the old testament story. You're probably not coming to this from the same background as these disciples, but we need the same command. See we have so many voices clamoring for our attention. People who claim the authority to say, this is what the good life is and this is what you should do because of it.
Joseph Rhea:We have pundits, podcasters, and influencers all saying, listen to me. And then there's kind of the cultural voice too in the sort of latter day Disney age that says, listen to yourself, follow your heart because it's the the infallible guide to the way that you're supposed to live. Listen to yourself. The transfiguration shows us that if Jesus is the divine son of God, if he created the entire universe, including your body and soul and he's the rightful owner of it, then he's the true authority over every life including ours. He defines true and false, right and wrong, wisdom and foolishness.
Joseph Rhea:And so this calls us to ask ourselves, who am I listening to? What authorities am I allowing to creep into my life and shift my perspective on things? There's a professor named Alan Jacobs who said no one thinks independently. The best thing that we can do is we can choose who we think with because the people we think with are going to be the ones who shape us and shape how we think. I've experienced this on both sides of sort of the political and cultural spectrum.
Joseph Rhea:I became a Christian in college and at the time I was steeped in postmodern literature and philosophy. So it's, you know, all truth claims are just human constructs. Every society makes up their own ideas of right and wrong. There's nothing kind of grounded or eternal underneath that. And some folks were saying at that time, we have to re understand Christianity in light of those things.
Joseph Rhea:That we have to let it rewrite this historic faith. And so I had to get some of those voices out of my head for a while because they were leading me away from what Jesus said and taught. And then a few years back, I realized that there was this one pastor I'd been meeting that I had to stop because he had such this, like a narrow politicized view of Christianity that his voice in my head was making me want to pick arguments with people that I knew were perfectly fine Christians. But I was getting caught up in this, small stuff. And so listening to these voices was leading me in not great directions and I had to cut them out so Jesus's voice could be louder to me.
Joseph Rhea:And so who are you listening to? Who's on your TV? On your phone? In your ears through your podcast? Are they leading you in the same direction that Jesus is?
Joseph Rhea:Because only he is the divine beloved son of God. Only he has the authority to define these things for us. To go back to our opening illustration, he's the founder and CEO And so, how might his voice need to be louder in your mind than it is? So the transfiguration unveils Jesus's divinity. It affirms his authority.
Joseph Rhea:What we're going to finish, here is after we get this peek behind the curtain, so to speak, of his true greatness, that it does something more than that. It previews our future as well. See, like we've seen, the transfiguration comes after Jesus has hammered the fact that the Christ is going to suffer and die. And his disciples, if they're coming with him, are gonna suffer and die as well. That the Christian life is going to take them and maybe us lower than they thought it was going to do.
Joseph Rhea:And when we get you know, when the this vision ends, the disciples, they go down the mountain and into a situation where once again, like we've seen before over and over, Jesus's disciples are failing at the job that they're supposed to do. They're totally missing it and he has to come in and clean up this huge mess that they have made. It's just business as usual. You know, Peter wanted to build tents to prolong the experience but it ends. It's over and they go back to their normal life.
Joseph Rhea:If you grew up in christian youth groups, maybe you remember the term mountaintop experience. So at a camp or a worship service, you have this incredible sense for a moment of closeness to God and just everything is glorious and beautiful and then it ends and you go right back to your normal life and everything's the same as it was before. And you kind of have this vague good memory of like, oh that was great but it's over and now we're back to our life. Is that what this is? Is this just the ultimate mountaintop experience?
Joseph Rhea:See, I'm gonna read a passage from the book of Revelation. This is a vision given to the Apostle John, who's one of the guys who's on the mountain here of what's happening in heaven right now and what's gonna happen one day when God comes back to stop and recreate the world. So it's from Revelation chapter 7. Let's see hear what he sees. John says behold a great multitude that no one could number from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages standing before the throne and before the lamb, clothed in white robes and crying out with a loud voice, salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the lamb.
Joseph Rhea:And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the 4 living creatures and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God saying, amen. Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever. Amen. So John sees this multitude of people that no one could number standing before Jesus who's now called the lamb and they're clothed in white robes and they with the entire host of heaven are worshiping Jesus in his glory. And someone goes on to tell John who these people are.
Joseph Rhea:He says, they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb. Therefore, they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence. See, Jesus took on a life in which the grave came before the glory. He took on God God's holy wrath against our sin, becoming sin for us so that we could wash our robes white in his life. And when his life washes ours, when we trust in him by faith and he becomes our Lord and savior, we become holy like he is holy.
Joseph Rhea:That we inherit his glory. And when he calls us to take up our cross and follow him, maybe lower than we thought our life was going to take us, this is where we're going to. We're going to the grave with him like we talked about in the last couple of weeks. But if he writes more humility into our story than we might have expected, the glimpse we get in the transfiguration is that he's writing in more glory than we could imagine as well. That the end of your story, if you followed him in this life and trusted him by faith, is that one day you'll see his glory like these disciples did, not in a glimpse but forever.
Joseph Rhea:And you'll live on the mountain, the true mountain of his temple in his new creation, not for a single mountaintop experience before eternity. You'll be recreated without sin or suffering in glory like he is now. That's the preview, the glimpse we have here in this transfiguration. Let's pray. Jesus, I pray that we could see You in your true divine glory.
Joseph Rhea:This is something that we have to trust by faith And so I pray that you would help us look to you by faith and know that this is who you are. You're not just a human teacher, but you are the divine son of God. I pray that we would listen to you, that your voice would be louder to us than any other voice including our own desires and wants. And I pray that you would help us have hope that as this shows one day we are going to stand before you, seeing your face, wearing glory like you are and worshiping you forever. We pray these things in your name.
Joseph Rhea:Amen.
