“A Light For Listening” Mark
9:2-9
Intro.: Have you ever noticed how difficult it is
not to turn toward a flash of light? A
lightening strike in the distance or a flashing sign just seem to capture our
attention. I remember when the outdoor
video advertisement first started over on the avenue by Mars TV repair. It just jumped out at me as if to say, you
may not normally expect to see anything of importance here, but look now and
I’ll really show you something.
On the Mount of Transfiguration our
Heavenly Father used light in a similar way.
The light of Jesus’ transfiguration draws our attention to Him, so that
we see Him for who He truly is, and seeing Him in His unveiled glory we listen
to Him.
I.
It Was A Light To Help The Disciples To Listen.
A. By this time in Jesus ministry the disciples
understood that Jesus was something special.
He taught with authority, healed diseases and cast out demons. The most unlikely people were drawn to Him,
and the religious community despised Him.
Only a week before the mountaintop event recorded in our Gospel lesson,
Peter had been led by the Holy Spirit to confess, “You are the Christ!” But it became obvious that the apostle did
not fully understand what this meant, as in the very next paragraph Mark tells
how Peter rejected Jesus’ announcement that as the Christ he would be rejected,
condemned, crucified and rise again to accomplish His saving work.
Peter, and the
rest of the disciples knew that Jesus was special, but until that flash of
light drew their attention to Him as someone new and unique they did not grasp
His true identity. In out lesson Jesus
took Peter, James and John up a mountain.
I’m sure they thought they were ascending there for a quiet time of
prayer, since Jesus was in the habit of doing this. This trip began as something ordinary, and
they had no great expectations. Then the
extraordinary happened. There, on the
mountaintop, they watched as Jesus’ clothes became impossibly white, and His
face shone with the brightness of uncreated light. And standing with Him were Moses and Elijah,
who in their person represented the totality of the Law and Prophets which had
pointed forward to the Christ. And then
they heard the voice of God the Father from Heaven announce
to them: “This is my Son, whom I
love. Listen to Him!” The light of Christ’s transfiguration was a
light to reveal Jesus’ true identity to His disciples.
B. And it was also a light to help them focus
only on Jesus. I want you to notice that
even after seeing the light of Christ, a sight so great that it terrified them,
they still did not get it. In their
suggestion that they should erect three shelters or shrines, one for Moses, one
for Elijah and one for Jesus, they demonstrated their ignorance. They still thought Jesus was special, maybe
even something more than Moses and Elijah, but they still placed Him in the
same category. But Jesus was so much
more! Moses and Elijah were not there to
stand beside Jesus, but to stand under and behind Him. All that they and others had written under
the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament pointed to and was
fulfilled in Christ. They spoke to Him
of the glorious thing He was about to accomplish in
C. This incredible vision and voice let them know
that Jesus was far more than they had imagined.
It was a light to direct them to put aside their fears, and their plans
to dwell in the glory of the mountaintop, and to listen to Jesus. No longer were they to reject His Words of
the cross that both He would bear for them, and that they would bear in His
name. They were to listen to His promise
of suffering, death and resurrection and embrace them as the sweetest words
that could ever be spoken to them. These
were the words of God’s love, and the certainty of salvation which would drive
away their fears, and enable them to look forward to the day when they would
again see Jesus descending from heaven in all His glory to raise them up and
give to them, and all believers, eternal life.
This light of Christ transfiguration is
also…
II. It Is A Light To Lead Us To Listen.
A. Through the words of the evangelists we are
given to share in that glorious hour with Peter, James and John and with the
eyes of faith to see the glory of the Son of God unveiled. As with the disciples we also need this event
to remind us of Jesus’ true identity. It
is a flashing light event to draw our attention away from ourselves, away from
the things out and down there in the valleys, and turn us to Jesus. And when we look – even if we have looked
here before – Jesus, briefly robed in brilliant light, calls us to consider
again, and more fully, who he really is, and what He does for us.
The danger even for those of who put our
faith in Christ, is that we become so accustomed to hearing about Jesus and
hearing his Word that it all becomes routine.
We recognize that Jesus is special, but after so many trips up this
mountain to pray, it has become routine.
We, like the disciples, may come to this place without any great
expectations. We allow our familiarity
to breed if not contempt, perhaps indifference to His Word and disobedience to
His revealed will for us. The attention
of many of our members has certainly been drawn elsewhere, since they no longer
even bother to ascend the mountain any longer.
But what about our attention span in daily life, are we drawn to Jesus
or are we distracted by desires, passions or priorities which lead us away from
Him? What about here this morning, is the light through the stained glass windows more
interesting than the light of His Word?
When faith in Jesus becomes routine, when
we think of Him as special but not as our everything,
we will certainly miss the transformation that God intends to work in our
lives. So again today through our Gospel
we are blessed to see Jesus transfigured; to see the eternal Son of God in the
brightness of His glory. A brilliance and holiness that goes beyond our imagination. For us today, Jesus’ transfiguration serves
as a light to reveal Christ’s true identity, and remind us of the identity He
has given us through His gracious calling to be children of God and lights to
the world.
B. We are here today so that the Holy Spirit
working through the transfiguration Gospel will direct our hearts and minds,
yes all our lives, only to Jesus; the One who loves
us, laid down His life to redeem us from our sins, and rose again to give us
the certainty of a resurrection to eternal life. In our worship together here in Word and
Sacrament the Father continues to say to us, “Behold, My Son, whom I love! Listen to Him!” This is the place where God turns us away
from all the shrines we would build in our lives. He turns our attention away from all the things
we have placed along-side of Christ and helps us to see only Jesus; only Jesus
standing alone before the Sanhedrin and before Pilate to be condemned in our
place; only Jesus hanging upon the cross to receive the punishment we deserve
as He cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me!”; only Jesus who in
His dying breath announces, “It is finished!” and then drops his head in death
for us; and only Jesus who rose again to show his disciples and us his risen
body, the most glorious features of which are the scars which are the trophies
of our salvation. Yes, what a light we
have been given here in God’s Word, to see Only Jesus and His Love.
C. It is a light to remind us always to listen
to what Jesus says to us. Still today
the Father bids us to listen to His Son, so that we may have life and
peace. Like those disciples who first
listened to Jesus, we need to hear that in Jesus, and only in Jesus, can we
have real, abundant, eternal lives. We
need to hear from him that our sin has been taken away, and that we now have an
advocate with the Father. We need to
hear that we now have a righteousness from God which
does not depend upon our woefully inadequate keeping of the law, but solely on
the grace given us when through faith we embrace the gift of Christ’s atoning
sacrifice for us.
That is why we are here; to listen to
Jesus. We are blessed in hearing Him say
to us that through the waters of baptism our sins are washed away. We are blessed in hearing Him say to us
through His servants that we have been reconciled to the Father. We are blessed in hearing Him say to us,
“take and eat, take and drink, this is my body and blood given and shed for you
for the forgiveness of sins.”
The light of Christ has shined upon
us. We have heard and believe that He is
the beloved son of God who takes away the sins of the world. Come let us listen to Him and be blessed with
the light which brings life to all people.
Amen.