Before You Cross the Street

An old children's rhyme goes:

Stop, look and listen Before you cross the street. Use your eyes, use your ears, Then use your feet.

Great poetry it's not, bu the little rhyme served its purpose for those of us who learned it as children. It also acts as a sort of outline of the lessons we may be expected to take away from the Transfiguration account we find in Mark 9:2-10.

STOP:
Jesus takes time to be alone with his disciples. When is the last time you set aside time to spend with Jesus?

LOOK:
We often say that "seeing is believing." What do you think the disciples thought when they witnessed the Transfiguration? Do you think this event conviced them that Jesus was who he claimed to be?

In fact, if we backpedal through the text, we realize that the converse is true. The Transfiguration of Jesus happens only after the disciples are able to answer the question "Who do you say that I am?"

Because sometimes, believing is seeing. Sometimes we can only see God at work in our lives through the eyes of faith. The glory of Christ is fully revealed to Peter, James, and John precisely because they believe. This event invites us to keep our eyes open for Christ at work in our own lives as people who have declared who we believe him to be.

LISTEN:
The voice of God (like in last week's text) speaks audibly to the audience of this event. Peter James, and John hear "This my son, whom I love. Listen to him."

The proper response to seeing the glory of God revealed in Jesus is to attend upon his teachings. Adoration and worship are excellent pursuits, but the proper response to the gospel is one of obedience.

CROSS:
The cross is not explicitly mentioned in this passage, but it arguably stands behind the whole event. God commands the disciples to "listen" to Jesus in the wake of an event in which Jesus has spoken of his own death for the first time, as well as teaching that whoever would be his disciple must take up crosses of their own. While we are called to attend upon the full teachings of Jesus, this most recent teaching will still have been ringing in the disciple's ears.

On the way down the mountain, the disciples discuss among themselves what is meant by "rising from the dead." Jesus has made reference to his resurrection, which leaves them understandably puzzled. The idea of a man being raised from the dead presents its difficulties.

For us, the difficulty is in the "rising" part. Our post-enlightenment, modern minds have trouble grasping such a radical reversal of the laws of nature as we understand them. It's easy to assume that the disciples had the same difficulty. Perhaps they did.

But their mindset was likely quite different from our own, especially in light of the event thay find themselves experiencing. Peter, James, and John, according to the gospels, were from the fishing villages around the Sea of Galilee. Our current knowledge of the world in Jesus time suggests that this area was the equivalent of our southern Bible Belt in the United States. This was a region in which the Torah was taught and held in special reverence, where faith reigned supreme.

Among the doctrines prevalent in Jesus' day was the notion that certain of God's servants had never tasted death. Enoch, for example, has no recorded death. He is simply said to "walk with God." Likewise, Elijah is carried off in fiery chariots. Moses ascends Mount Nebo and never comes back down. The text says that he died there, and that God himself buried him, but the body is conspicuously absent, and many Jews in the days of Jesus held that Moses had gone directly to live with God.

This notion stood behind the Jewish expectation that Elijah would return before the Messiah. This was not a belief in resurrection or reincarnation. In their world picture, Elijah had never died. Jesus used similar language (at least in the gospel of John) to describe what would happen to those who believed in him. Just before ascending the mountain, he had insisted that some of his disciples would "not taste death before they see the kingdm of God revealed in power."

When they arrived at the mountain top and found Moses and Elijah, the disciples were suitably impressed, but had an instant understanding of what must be going on: Jesus has come to join Moses and Elijah to live forever in the presence of God. Peter even offers to build houses for the three to live in.

After all they had seen and experienced, Peter James and John were probably not really bothered about the idea of Jesus living forever. It wasn't the word "rising" that gave them trouble. It was probably the word "dead."

the empty tomb presented peter, James, and John with fewer questions than the cross. The empty tomb was what was expected. It's what God did for the great heroes of the faith.

The cross, on the other hand, didn't fit with their stalwart belief that this man was the Messiah. If this was God's chosen servant, would he not be spared pain and uncertainty? Would he not be vindicated by a steady, inexorable rise to worldly power?

The message of the cross is the precisely the message that the voice from heaven is calling us to "listen" to.

USE YOUR EYES, USE YOUR EARS,
THEN USE YOUR FEET.

And the message of the cross is not simply what Jesus would do. It was a call for each of us to follow. To place our feet in the footsteps of Jesus. To choose a life of sacrifice and quiet rebellion against the powers of the world over lives of priveledge.