Jesu Juva
“Listen to Him!”
Text: Mark 9:2-9; Exodus 34:29-35; 2 Corinthians 3:12–13; 4:1–6
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.
Rabbi, it is good that we are here.
That may be the understatement of the year! But indeed it is. It is good to be on that mountain and apart from the world - apart from the sin, apart from the politics, apart from the hustle and bustle, apart from the sadness and death, from the struggles, the misunderstandings, the fighting, the uncertainty. All the stuff we’d like to escape from in our lives. It is good to be here, with Jesus, in His glory.
So Peter wants to stay. Of course he does! Who wouldn’t? Who wants to go back to work or school after vacation? Who wants to go back to coach after being in First Class? We want to stay.
And notice . . . Jesus does not rebuke Peter. Now, let’s be honest: Peter sometimes says stuff that needs rebuking! He had, in fact, just a week before this, when Jesus told them He must be crucified, Peter objected - strenuously! And Jesus rebuked him just as strenuously, saying: Get behind me, Satan (Mark 8:33)! So Jesus is not shy about rebuking His disciples when it is needed. But He doesn’t. Not here. Not now. And not because He was too busy talking with Elijah and Moses to pay attention to Peter. He doesn’t, but because He agrees.
Yes! Peter got it right! Well . . . partially. Yes, it is good to be here. Yes, Peter should want to stay. And yes, Jesus wants them to be with Him in His glory. Yes, yes, yes. But not in tents, and not just for a time. Jesus wants Peter, James, and John, and all the world, with Him and Elijah and Moses, in glory, for eternity. That’s what He came to do. And that’s what He was going to do. He was going to Jerusalem to provide this future for the world.
For Jesus came to be the prophet greater than the great Moses. Moses led the people of Israel out of their slavery in Egypt, but Jesus came to save the world from our slavery to sin. Moses used a staff of wood to perform the wonders that would break Pharaoh’s back, but Jesus used a cross of world to crush satan’s head. And while sin and death kept Moses from completing the final step of the journey into the Promised Land, sin and death would not stop Jesus. Though He died for the sin of Moses, and you, and me, and the world, He rose from that death. And rising from the dead He ascended into heaven. So no sin left unatoned for, no death left unconquered, no step untaken. The glory and life of the Transfiguration is now open and available to all.
And that tent thing, Peter? You know, Jesus had done that before. When Moses led the people of Israel out of Egypt, God actually did dwell in a tent with His people. It was called the Tent of Meeting, or the Tabernacle. That’s where He and His glory dwelt for the people. Glory that was indicated not just by a cloud that filled the tent and led the people through the wilderness - though that would have been enough! But also by that whole Moses’-face-shining-thing we heard about earlier. That whenever Moses went into the tent to speak with God, he came out with the skin of his face shining. Like the shining that was happening in the Transfiguration.
Because you can imagine the arguments or objections that might have come up when the people were rebelling against Moses - which they often did! Yeah, Moses. Right. You go into a tent and claim to talk with God - yada, yada, yada. How do we know you do? How do we know what’s really going on in there? How do we know you’re telling the truth? Well! . . . that’s how! His face. Hard to dispute that.
But here’s the thing: despite that, the people still rebelled and continued to rebel. They didn’t do what God said. They worshiped the false gods of the nations they encountered. When you read through the books of Exodus and Numbers you get the impression that all they did was grumble and complain! God in a tent wasn’t enough. It was important, and it was significant, but it wasn’t where they could stay. It was, in fact, pointing to a greater reality, a greater tent, and a greater glory - when God would dwell in the tent of Jesus’ flesh so that not just one man - or three - but the world, could see His glory and dwell with Him there forever. That’s what Jesus had now come to do.
And it would be a victory even greater than Elijah’s great victory. For just as Jesus came to be the prophet greater than the great Moses, so He came to be greater than the great Elijah. Elijah who as a lone man fought the 450 prophets of the false god Baal and the 400 prophets of the false goddess Asherah on Mt. Carmel. But Jesus, as a lone man, fought all the hoards of hell on Mt. Calvary. Elijah used an altar of stone, Jesus an altar of wood. Elijah drenched his sacrifice in water, Jesus was drenched in His own blood. The fire of God came down and consumed Elijah’s sacrifice, and the fire of God’s wrath against the sin of the world Jesus was bearing on the cross consumed Him.
But just as with Moses, Elijah and his victory weren’t enough. In fact, Elijah’s victory hardened the evil queen in her sin so that she threatened to kill Elijah, so that Elijah ran away. No glowing face, no glory, just: It’s no use God. You might as well kill me, for I’m a failure as a prophet.
But the victory wasn’t for Elijah to win or lose - this was God’s fight. And what happened with Elijah and all those false prophets on Mt. Carmel was just a small skirmish in the upcoming war. A war Jesus would win. Though He looked like a failure of epic proportions when He was taken down from the cross and laid in the tomb lifeless and dead. That just led to His even more epic victory when He rose from that tomb alive and full of a life that could never end. That’s what Jesus had now come to do.
So Jesus does not rebuke Peter. Yes, this what Jesus had come to do. But at the same time, Peter (and the others) still have a lot to learn. And how they would learn that is by what the voice said, the voice of God the Father, which came out of the cloud: This is my beloved Son; listen to him. Listen to Him. Because this is what He has been telling you, and teaching you, and showing you. So instead of saying no and rebuking Him, listen to him. And in case there was any question of who God was talking about, who they should listen to, looking around, they no longer saw anyone with them but Jesus only. Listen to him. You want to stay here, you want to be with Jesus in His glory, listen to Him. He will tell you, He will teach you, He will show you, how.
Good advice for us today as well. Listen to Him. (1.) Listen (2.) to Him.
First of all, listen. That seems to be a lost art in our world today. With the rise of technology and social media and the internet, there are a lot of people talking, and saying all kinds of things, but it doesn’t seem like a whole lot of listening. And who we do listen to, are they worth listening to? Are they putting up a tent for a glory that isn’t going to last? Or are they leading us to the glory of eternity? Which leads us to the second point . . .
Listen to Him. Jesus is the one telling us maybe not what we want to hear, but what we need to hear. The truth of who we are, hopelessly sinful and unclean; but also the truth of who He is, the one who came to give us life and hope. To give to some glory in this world and life, but to provide for all the glory of eternity. So while you may or may not have the first (glory now), you can have the second (glory for eternity). Which is greater.
So listen to Him. Instead of telling God who you are, your self-constructed identity, that I’m a this person or a that person, listen to Him. That who you are is a fallen sinner, but after you’ve been baptized, a child of God. You inherited sin when you were conceived, but that sin has been washed away by Jesus’ blood, when you were born anew, born from above. So the sin that would bar you from glory can bar you no longer. That’s who you are. Listen to Him.
And instead of telling God what you have to do to get along in this world and life, that I just have to do this or have to do that, that God just doesn’t get it and that following His Word doesn’t work, listen to Him. That sinning, that following your own wisdom, your own desires, your I know what best for me, isn’t going to get you what you want or where you want to go. The Bible is filled with such stories. Listen to Him. Listen to Him whose Word gives life and freedom and forgiveness and glory.
And instead of telling God what you need, like He doesn’t know, listen to Him. Listen to Him who knows you better than you know yourself. Listen to Him who says This is My Body, This is My Blood, given and shed for you. Take and eat and drink. Food for your journey to eternal glory. Food to strengthen you. Food for life.
Listen to Him! Listen, for if you want life, if you want to be in glory, if you want to stay in that life and glory, He is the only way. Everything else is a tent and glory that will not last. But Jesus wants so much more for you than that. So He came down from heaven and was laid in a manger, and in the same way He comes down from His Transfiguration to die and be laid in a tomb. For you. All for you. That you who will one day also be laid in a tomb, will rise with Him to glory. With not just Moses and Elijah, but all the faithful, in that glory that has no end.
It’s good to get a glimpse of that, to know where we’re going. When life gets rough. When it seems like a tent would be a step up! When we get trampled on by others. When life doesn’t seem worth living. At just such times, it is good to know where we are going and how to get there. That as we will again remember this Lenten season that we are about to enter on Wednesday, Ash Wednesday: only through the cross comes the glory, only through repentance comes forgiveness, only through death comes life. So listen to Him who said from the cross: it is finished; who says to you now: all is forgiven; and who will say to you on the Last Day: welcome home. Those are words worth listening to.
In the Name of the Father, and of the (+) Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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