Transfiguration – 2024
Mark 9:2-9
Marian Free
In the name of God who leads us into a future that is as yet unknown. Amen.
Most of us associate the expression “changing of the guard” with the ceremony surrounding the moment when soldiers who have been guarding a significant government building or boundary for a period of time are replaced by those who are rostered on for the next period of time. In England the tradition goes back to the time of Henry VII and the idea was to show both military discipline and ceremony. In England the guards are those who protect Buckingham Palace, but the practice is not unique to the UK. The border guards along the Indian Pakistani frontier also have quite an elaborate ritual when one group of soldiers replaces another, and no doubt other cultures have ceremonies of their own.
The phrase “changing of the guard” has entered our vocabulary. We use it refer to the time when a leader, a political party or other group or person of influence hands over their position to another person or group. In common parlance, “changing of the guard” is often associated with a change (sometimes subtle and often difficult) in style and policy.
It had never occurred to me that one way of looking at the Transfiguration was to see it as God’s way of making clear to the disciples that in Jesus there was to be a ‘changing of the guard.’ After Jesus was transfigured, Elijah and Moses appeared and spoke with him. Peter was terrified! Both Elijah and Moses were heroes of the Jewish faith. More than that, there was a widespread belief that Elijah would return before the end and among the community of Qumran there was also an expectation that Moses would return at the end of time. It is entirely possible that Peter thought that the presence of Elijah and Moses was a sign that they had returned to presage the end times.
According to William Placher, who is referenced by Chelsea Harmon[1], this is why Peter wants to make dwellings for the three men. If Elijah and Moses have returned, and if, as Peter has declared six days previously, Jesus is the Christ, the anointed one of God, they must be properly sheltered as they await the coming of the end. The problem, Placher
points out is that in declaring that three shelters are needed, Peter is making it clear that he believes Elijah and Moses to be equal to Jesus – even though it is Jesus alone who has been transfigured. In response, the voice from heaven seems to be chiding him: “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” (Elijah and Moses come from the past and belong to the past. God is doing something new. Now is the time to listen to Jesus.)
What Peter, and presumably James and John have failed to realize is that Jesus represents the changing of the guard. The prophets had their part to play, but now they must give way to Jesus, the beloved Son.
To be fair, it must have been confusing for the disciples – steeped as they were in the expectations of their faith, tied as they were to current practices and expressions of faith. Jesus didn’t enter the world with a bang, Jesus didn’t behave as they disciples expected a Messiah to behave, and Jesus didn’t conform to the religious standards of the day. Jesus has to bring the disciples along with him. He has to keep correcting the disciples, God has to keep giving them hints (or prods) and Jesus has to try to be as explicit as he can as to what they might or might not expect.
(When Peter rebukes Jesus for announcing that he will have to suffer, Jesus harshly likens him Satan, when Peter wants to build tents on a mountain top, God makes it clear that it is Jesus alone who will inaugurate the promised future, when James and John conspire to be at Jesus’ right and left hand, Jesus has to remind them that his message is counter-cultural – the greatest will be least and the first will be last).
To us, these thousands of years later, Jesus’ transfiguration seems an obvious way to reveal Jesus’ true identity, but to Peter, James and John it was anything but clear. Overawed by the presence of such great names as Elijah and Moses, they see Jesus as one among many, not as the one.
The Transfiguration is just one of the many occasions on which the misunderstanding of the disciples is used by God, or by Jesus to help them understand that something different is happening. Jesus might be one in a long line of heroes and prophets, but he is much more than that. Jesus represents a changing of the guard. Elijah and Moses belong to the past. Jesus belongs to the future. From now on everything will be the same – Jesus was and remained a Jew, as do the disciples. At the same time everything will be different – Jesus exposes all the misconceptions that have grown up over the centuries. He reminds the community of things long forgotten. He challenges the leaders of the church and models a new style of leadership.
All of this took some getting used to. The disciples would have to surrender their old ways of thinking and acting. They would have to learn to be truly open to what Jesus has to say and they would have to be willing to take risks – risks that might cost them their lives. The present and past must have seemed safe and comfortable in comparison.
On the mountain top Peter, James and John see Jesus revealed in glory but more than that, they begin to learn that they cannot hold on to the past but must let go of what has been so that they can begin to comprehend what might be.
We, like the disciples have become comfortable with the church as we know it. But the church as we love is dying. It took more than the Transfiguration for the disciples to grasp that God, in Jesus was beginning of something new. What will it take for us to see the future God had planned for us? What will it take for us to learn when to hold on and when to let go? What is God saying to us today?
[1] https://cepreaching.org/commentary/2024-02-05/mark-92-9-4/
Swallowsrest 