MK 9: 2-9 

Marginally Mark…The Transfiguration (Last S after Epiphany)… Revised 2018  

[For Epiphany 6 see MK 1: 40-45]

Ched Myers speaks of what happens on the mountain top as 'a kind of salvation-history summit conference’ ¹.  An interesting way of looking at things. Worth exploring for better spiritual outcomes than many of the conferences we have to attend? Discussing an icon of the Transfiguration, + Rowan Williams talks of the disciples as ‘sprawling in disorder’ ². There’s a God-energy in there for the disciples to struggle with. Perhaps, even, a renewing of energy for those past giants of Faith - Moses & Elijah? As there is in Jesus Himself as He’s transfigured up there. God, the Source of our being, is Energy itself, as well as Being itself.

Why isn’t Andrew up there? Busy at work fishing, or just not invited? How do we handle being left out of, or missing situations? Not seeing Jesus glow with light when others do?  

What does it mean that Moses represents the Law? What does it mean that Elijah represents the Prophets? What does it mean that in LK's account - 9:31- he adds that Moses & Elijah are talking with Jesus about His 'exodus' which is to happen in Jerusalem? Jesus' Exodus will be to resurrected life in a Promised Land embracing, but not limited to, this world. It is God's wisdom that M & E both die in unusual circumstances; but for God's Son to die on a cross surely defies belief!

Jesus is the new & greater M & E in terms of human time, though, in His own Person, God from before time as we know it, begins. Jesus doesn’t simply ‘represent’ God; Jesus is the God of Now come among us in human form! M & E are forever important, but no longer central, figures in our human spiritual journey. What’s really important now is our being transfigured in our service of God. Let God shine through! 

The disciples are, as often, puzzled at what's going on. Is Peter's wanting to build shelters a 'type', a foreshadowing, of the way we construct churchy comfort zones by trying to pin God down? Which is exactly what Jesus eschews (I can't find a better word than that old one) on the mountain top. If there's a case for anyone to stay up there, it's Jesus! But he has an Exodus to accomplish in Jerusalem. So down He comes. To explain to the disciples as best He can what this is all about; &, reading on a little further, to run slap bang into a hoard of people begging to be brought in from their margins.

Coming down the mountain, Jesus tells the disciples (as often in MK) to keep to themselves what they've seen, 'until the Son of Man (etc.) should rise from the dead'. Perhaps we’ve become too secretive about this Jesus business? Time to head up our mountain, then come resolutely down transfigured by God & for God? 

¹  Binding the Strong Man, Orbis, NY, U.S.A.,’97, p. 250  ² The Dwelling of the Light, John Garratt, Mulgrave, Australia, 2003, p. 3