There are scenes in life that words can't adequately describe; that you stretch the language as far as you can, and they still don't capture the moment. People who know me well know that I'm a bit of a museum rat. If I'm in a new city and I have free time, I look for an art museum. And I was in the Cleveland Museum of Art unprepared for what I was about to experience. I walked around the corner, and there in a gallery by itself was one of Monet's "Water Lily" paintings. It was 6 ¬´ feet high; it was 13 feet long, and the minute I saw it, I was transfixed.
Trying to Describe a Painting
It was like the colors were enveloping you - gorgeous brushstrokes, the water, wasn't a color blue; it was an array of shades of blue. Now, I've tried to describe this painting to you, but I can't do it. I could, for the next 15 minutes, try to capture this for you. I could never do it; it's one of those scenes that words just can't describe. We're going to see one of those scenes this evening, where you can feel that the language being stretched to capture the glory of the moment. Now why is that important to recognize?
Because the disciples who viewed this moment had a problem; I think it's a problem that we share. They seriously underestimated, they seriously devalued, the glory of the Christ that was in front of them. They had a glory problem, and that shaped the way they lived. Now remember, I've been saying this to you: that Jesus had called these disciples, and it's very clear in Mark that He was intentionally crafting them for the work of His Kingdom. He would do that by two means: one, exposing them to difficulty that would take them beyond the bounds of their wisdom and strength; and then in those moments, He would reveal, this is the second thing, His glory.
And yet for all the display, it's clear that the disciples underestimated the glory of Christ. And so in moments when they should have been prepared, they were unprepared. In moments when they should have been restful, they were filled with fear. In moments when they should've been full of faith, they lived in doubt. They had a glory problem. They underestimated the glory of Christ, and I wonder if we do the same, if our doubt and our inactivity and our questions and our fear don't depict for us the same glory problem.
Are you blown away, do you live in a practical, functional, life-shaping awe of the glory of the risen Christ? Does that glory move and motivate you to do things, to think things, to desire things, to want things that you would not want or desire or think or do if it weren't for that vision of the glory of Christ that's captured your heart? You could argue that somewhere between when we come to Christ and when we go home to Him, all of our hearts are captured by a glory war. Now, what I want to do is I want to look with you at Mark 9, and I want to take apart the brackets of the passage first before we look at the bulk of the passage.
If you would turn there to page 844 in the church Bibles, I want to look first at Mark 9, verses 11 through 13. I want to read those for you: And they asked him (That's the disciples.), "Why do the scribes say that first Elijah must come?" And he said to them, "Elijah does come first to restore all things. And how is it written of the Son of Man that he should suffer many things and be treated with contempt? But I tell you that Elijah has come, and they did to him whatever they pleased, as it is written of him."
Now, because part of the revelation of the glory of Christ is this appearance of Elijah, the disciples ask Elijah questions. The scribes were teaching that before the Messiah would come, Elijah would come. And they ask about this, and Jesus says, "And how it is written of the Son of Man that he should suffer many things and be treated with contempt?" Jesus takes the opportunity of talking about Elijah to talk immediately after revealing His glory about His suffering; that's very important. It's a little bit mysterious the way these verses are laid out for us in Mark, and so I want to read from Matthew 17:11-13: He answered, "Elijah does come, and he will restore all things.
Elijah Has Already Come
But I tell you that Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but did to him whatever they pleased. So also the Son of Man will certainly suffer at their hands." (and then it says this) Then the disciples understood that he was speaking to them of John the Baptist. He's saying, "Don't you understand, the Elijah that was to come has come? It's John the Baptist, and as John suffered at the hands of the Palestinian Jews, so the Son of Man will also suffer." You see, you need both a Savior of awesome glory and a suffering Savior at the same time.
And I'll say more about that in a moment. Now look at verse 1; it's a verse we didn't read, but we should have. And he 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." "Truly I say to you, that there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power." Now, when you read verse one of chapter 9, it's tempting to think that Jesus is talking about the final Kingdom, His second coming, and it's confusing.
What does he mean that people who are there with them will not die until they see the Kingdom coming in its power? Well, the hint of what Jesus is talking about is in verse 2: "And after six days." Now, if you have listened carefully as we've gone through Mark, I've said to you again and again, the gospels are not always arranged in chronological order. The Gospels are sometimes arranged by emphasis, sometimes arranged thematically, but Mark wants us to know that what happened next happened six days after that statement was made.
He's telling you that there's a direct historical connection between that statement and what happens next. And because Jesus didn't take all of the disciples, but the three, that's why Jesus says, "Some of you are going to see the kingdom coming in power." Jesus is talking about the Transfiguration, because the Kingdom is Christ; the glory of the Kingdom is Christ; the power of the Kingdom is Christ: "You are going to see the Kingdom come." Now why is that bracket important? Because Mark is very want to place next to us, and Jesus is very want to place next to us, these two aspects of the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
This is a glorious Savior; this is the Son of God; this is God Almighty; this is the Lord of Lords and King of Kings. You need a glorious Savior who rules over all things for your sake that no one can stop His hand or say, "What have you done?" Listen, the promises of Christ are only as trustworthy as His rule is trustworthy. This is God Almighty. Now, you need that; you need that vision of His glory, because as I said earlier, it's very tempting for us to minimize the glory of Christ, and to the degree to which we do that, then our hearts are susceptible to be captured by other glories.
Sometimes that's the glory of the respect and appreciation and acceptance of another person; and that person, in ways that you haven't realized it maybe, becomes your own personal messiah, and you ride the roller coaster of that person's acceptance; you live to get it. And if you don't have it, your heart is sad, and you wonder if life is worth it. That's false glory! Or maybe it's the glory of a job, or the glory of possessions, or the glory of money, or the glory of achievement, or the glory of pleasure, or the glory of comfort; we need a vision of the glory of God that's so utterly glorious no other glory can compete with it.
What Glory Competes in Your Heart?
Your heart is rescued by divine glory from all those other competing glories. I would ask you this evening as your pastor, what glory competes in your heart for the glory of God? What a sweet and loving thing that the layers of humanity are peeled back and the glory of Christ is revealed in this moment. But lest, in your awe of the glory of God, you would think that He's unapproachable, you need a suffering Savior who has been tempted in every point like as you are, who understands the harsh realities of life in a fallen world because He willingly submitted to those realities.
But, even more, who in His life, death, and resurrection, provides entrance for you into relationship with this God of glory so that because of the righteousness of Christ, and because of the sacrifice of Christ that satisfied God's anger, I can come to Him in my brokenness, and my weakness, and my failure, and be unafraid even though He's holy and glorious. Praise God! You need a glorious Savior and you need a suffering Savior, and you can't talk about the suffering Savior without saying that every person who has ever lived from birth is hit with a dilemma that they can't solve; it's called sin.
I can do nothing to escape it; no desire, no thought, no action to escape it. And that sin leaves me guilty before God, and it leaves me unable to live as I was designed to live. And my hope is not first a theology; my hope is not first in organized religion; my hope is this: Jesus! There is a Savior who came to suffer so I would know life and I would be delivered from sin. That's the brackets. Now, look with me at verses 2 through 8. 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 and Moses, and they were talking with Jesus. And Peter said to Jesus, "Rabbi, it is good that we are here. Let us make three 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. Jesus, in a scene that's reminiscent of a scene in Exodus 24, when Moses goes up in a mountain, and God reveals His glory to them; He's there with the seventy elders and three that were with Him, takes Peter, James, and John up in a high mountain by themselves. The passage says He was transfigured before them; it's the word there is the word from which we get metamorphosis. It's that radical process of change. That's depicted there.
And notice the words that come next; this is where you see the language stretched: "And his clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them." That last phrase, "As no one on earth could bleach them," it actually says, "As no refiner of cloth could bleach them." The most skilled person who worked with cloth and knew how to bleach cloth white could have never gotten material as white as it appeared in this moment. And this revelation of the divinity of Christ is a classic revelation of God - white, intense, pure light, a picture of God's holiness, a picture, if you would, of His utter unapproachability.
Here is the awesome One, the divine One; this is a revelation of God; unmistakably, this is a revelation of the divinity of Christ. And in this scene, there appears Elijah with Moses, and they're talking with Jesus. Why these two figures? Well, representatives of the law and the prophets; Elijah representing the prophets; Moses representing the law. What's the picture there? That this One is not only the divine Son of God, but He's the ultimate fulfillment of the law, and the ultimate fulfillment of all the visions of all the prophets.
History Marching to This Moment
Every prophecy of the Old Testament, somehow, someway, hungers for the coming of the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And there's a way in which all of human history is marching toward this moment when this One would come. Jesus is the ultimate keeper of the law; and in His sacrifice, the ultimate satisfaction of the requirements of the law. There's a way in which, in this moment, Jesus is being presented, is everything that the revelation of God is about; the revelation of Scripture is about one person, the Lord Jesus Christ; He is preeminent!
In this moment of amazing glory, where Christ is revealing His glory to Peter, James, and John in a way that has never been seen before, Peter speaks. You have to love Peter. Notice what it says in verse 6, "For he did not know what to say for they were terrified." You know, in moments when people are afraid, some of us are quiet, others of us just start talking, and this is Peter in this moment. This moment is one where it's right to be terrified. I'm afraid that some of us lack holy terror. I'm afraid that we lack awe.
Again, that life-altering, heart-resting, awe of God. I'm afraid that often modern Christianity is more skilled at presenting God as a buddy, as the ultimate grandfather, as a compassionate therapist, rather than a powerful, sovereign, holy God that calls you to bend your knee before Him in utter submission; that commands your worship, commands all of your energies, all of your gifts, all of your talent, all of your resources, who calls you to worship Him, not just once a week, but in everything you do all the time.
This is God, and it's right to be terrified. But Peter, on the other hand, gets it wrong because he's basically saying, "Can't we preserve this moment?" And listen, the glory of this incident is not about the moment; it's not about the situation; it's not about the location; those things do not have to be preserved. It's about the person Christ, and Christ would be with these men physically; and after He ascended, He would send His Spirit to be with them forever. You didn't have to preserve this moment because this glorious Jesus is with you.
Now, I'm afraid it's tempting for us to fall into the same kind of externalism. Your rest should not be in your theology first. This will make some of you mad. I love the theology of Scripture; but if the theology of Scripture did not actually have a glorious Christ behind it, it would not be worth anything. We don't worship the pages of this book because this book is a tool to present to us an actual Person who is our hope. I love the worship that we corporately are involved in every Sunday; the music this morning was just glorious, but I shouldn't come just because of the music, because that music is meant to be a vehicle that draws me to the Christ that should be the center of that worship.
I shouldn't come here because there are nice people; I'm thankful that there are, but that fellowship of the body of Christ must drive me to Christ. There is a way, very suddenly, that Christ gets replaced by the things of Christianity! Listen, there is such a thing as Christ-less Christianity, and often that's depicted by what I've called "ecclesiastical Macy-ism." You know, because it's a particular preacher, or a particular kind of worship, or a particular Sunday school program, we shop and we move from church to church because it's not actually King Christ that has gripped us; it's all those other things.
Peter Gets It Wrong
And the minute it doesn't feel comfortable anymore, the minute it doesn't attract us anymore, we're on the road down someplace else. Peter gets it wrong! It's Christ that is being revealed, and hope is only found in the person Christ. Is that your hope? Can you sing, "On Christ the solid rock I stand; all ground is sinking sand"? The passage says, "And then a cloud overshadowed them, and a voice came out of the cloud, 'This is my beloved Son, listen to him.'" Not only do you have a physical revelation of the divinity of Christ and His unique fulfillment of the law and the prophets; you have a divine confirmation of that identity by the words of God the Father.
It's the divine exclamation point on this glorious scene. And then as they come down the mountain, verses 9 and 10, Jesus charged the disciples "to tell no one what they had seen, until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what this rising from the dead might mean." Jesus again knew that these men were not ready to speak of the glory that they had envisioned. They would only begin to understand that after they experienced the triumph of the Cross, and the victory of the Resurrection, and the appearance of the risen Lord Jesus Christ.
Then this glory, this transforming glory, would become understandable to them. What does this passage hold for us this evening? I am concerned that you are not just informed by this moment; informed that Mark, once again, places before us the inescapable glory of Christ, His identity as God and the fulfillment of the law and prophets. My prayer is that in ways that are intensely practical as Christ wanted to have happen in the disciples, that you would be transformed by these truths; that the reality of the glory of your Savior and the shocking truth that by grace you have been invited into relationship with Him; that that glory would overwhelm anything else that seeks to capture your heart.
That you would say, "There is one thing that I want to live for; it is this Christ; there's one thing I want to give my thoughts and my desires and my gifts and my talents for--it is this Christ! There's one place where I'm going to place the rest of my heart and the hope of my soul; it's in this Christ. There's one reason for me to do the things that I do; it is this Christ. I trust Him; I believe in Him; I celebrate Him; I worship Him; I will follow Him by faith! This glory is the glory of my existence!"
May that be true of us at the most practical of levels. Let's Pray: What an amazing moment of gracious revelation we've looked at this evening. And, Lord, what a juxtaposition of Your glory and Your suffering is in this passage. We need the understanding that our Lord is a suffering Savior, but He is not weak, and He is not defeated because He is a glorious Saviour. And yet He is not unapproachable because, in His suffering, He has opened a way for us to be invited into Your presence, to be invited into relationship with You, to be adopted into Your family.
We praise You that this glorious One is a suffering One, and this suffering One is a glorious One! In these things, we find life and hope and forgiveness and deliverance. We thank you; draw our hearts to You, we would pray. In Jesus's name, Amen.
