Daily Devotion – February 9, 2021 – Dr. Pat Taylor Ellison
Mark 9:2-9
9:2 Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them,
9:3 and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them.
9:4 And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus.
9:5 Then Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”
9:6 He did not know what to say, for they were terrified.
9:7 Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!”
9:8 Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.
9:9 As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.
Transfiguration. What must that have been like? For Jesus? For Peter, James, and John? For Elijah and Moses, too? They all suddenly found themselves in one another’s company on a mountaintop, away from everyone else.
My image of this event is shaped by all the Sunday School pamphlet art of my childhood. On the cover was most likely the James Tissot painting of Christ and the 2 old testament saints radiating rays of light, and the 3 disciples on their knees but paying close attention to the spectacle. This moment seems to have been unique to Peter, James, and John – it would have given them some kind of status in the group of 12 disciples, but they were never to speak of it. They possessed secret knowledge, a shared secret experience.
Was this the pivotal experience that later brought Peter to confess, “You are the Messiah, the Son of God!” when Jesus asked the 12 who they thought Jesus was? Was this the experience that made John cling to Jesus’s mother Mary and, at the foot of the cross, become her son and protector?
The disciples witnessed Jesus’s many miracles, things that he did, but here was a thing done to him – a transfiguration, a connection to the law and the prophets, in the flesh, a mountaintop vision. Of course Peter, our favorite, the man of action, offers to build the three men booths or shelters, but this task is not needed, and no sooner has he offered than the vision vanishes. God is visible as God for a brief moment in time. It is meant to be experienced, noted, savored, and then moved on from, a passing greeting from the King of the Universe to the human beings who were accompanying God’s son on his earthly mission and ministry.
From the sublime to the ridiculous: One of my favorite movies from the 1980s is John Hughes’s Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. In the most oft-quoted line from that film, Ferris looks into the camera and says: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” Jesus’s life and work were well underway, and God pulled Jesus’s favorite three companions aside with Jesus and makes sure that they “stop and look around” so that they don’t miss the central truth: here is Moses (the Law), and here is Elijah (the prophets), and here is Jesus, the fulfillment of these pillars of Israel’s relationship with their God. This is a big sign, and Peter, James, and John did not miss the sign.
Lord God, Thank you for loving us. Thank you for sending us signs of your great love and care for us. Help us to look around once in awhile, so we don’t miss them! Amen.
