The Beauty of Jesus (Mark 9:1-12)

When 2007, Mark Covington lost his job and had to move back home with his mother in Detroit, Michigan.

And he actually had to move back home into what was a rough part of town.

And one of the things that he noticed was that there were several empty lots.

That at one point there had been a house on there, but the houses had been taken out and the lots were overgrown.

And not just overgrown, but that they collected a lot of trash, that people sort of just would dump trash, litter, and it bothered him.

And so he began to clean.

He began to clear off these lots.

But what he noticed is that no matter how clean he made it, he always seemed to just invite more trash.

So he'd clean it, and then there would be trash.

And so what he actually began to do is to build community gardens on these lots.

That he didn't just clear off the lots, he actually began to make the lots fruitful.

And he actually began to create this whole urban farming community center that has totally transformed that neighborhood.

It's an amazing story.

But what I want to highlight is what he did to the ground, what he did to the lot.

There's two things, you've just heard it.

He cleared it so that he might make it fruitful.

And so often when we think about what is required for restoration, it's not just the mitigation of something.

It's not just getting rid of something negative.

There has to be something positive as well.

I mean, changing gears a little bit, when you think about when you have an argument with somebody you know and love, you don't just want the argument to stop.

The goal isn't just silence, though obviously an argument has to end in order to pursue one another in love again.

You want to get rid of the negative so that you can pursue the positive.

This is true with city lots, it's true of relationships, and it's really true of what Jesus has come to do for humanity.

And what we find in this passage, it's a wild passage.

It's one that kind of boggles the mind, and yet we are told this story, and we're intended to believe this story as it really happened.

Because we see what Jesus has come to do for humanity.

Yes, he's come to die for our sins, but he's also come to show us what humanity was created for in the first place.

And so we get a glimpse of what humanity was created for, and a glimpse of this hope.

So let me read from Mark chapter nine, and then we can ask God to help us.

And Jesus 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, 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 with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus.

And Peter said to Jesus, Rabbi, it is good that we are here.

Let's 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 the 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.

And as they were coming down the mountain, he charged them to tell no one what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead.

And so they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what this rising from the dead might mean.

And they asked him, 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 it is 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.

The word of the Lord.

Let's pray and ask for God's help.

Father in heaven, thank you for this word that you've preserved for us for thousands of years.

And then you record what you even said to your son as he was transfigured on this mountain.

And what we ask is that you would dig out for us ears to hear, and that you would give us eyes to see him.

And that by your spirit you would fill us with hope and wonder and love.

And we pray these things in Christ's name.

Amen.

So I've got uh three points for an outline this morning, and I want us to see how Jesus beautifies humanity, how he beautifies scripture, and how he beautifies suffering.

Okay?

He beautifies humanity, scripture, and suffering.

And if you were here last week, you know that we've kind of come to the hinge in Mark, that Mark is 16 chapters, and the first eight chapters show us that this Jesus, he's the king.

He's God's king.

And yet he doesn't use that language of himself, but rather Mark shows it to us.

We see that this man can control the wind and the waves, he can control demons, he can multiply fish and loaves, that this king is unique and unlike any who has ever walked the face of the earth.

But now we hit this backstretch, this last eight chapters, and we see not just that he's king, but what kind of king is he?

That what Mark wants us to see, and it's going to become more and more into laser focus, is that the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 is this man.

That Jesus is the suffering servant.

So he's the king, but he's a suffering king.

He's a king, but he's come to lay down his life.

And the way that Jesus says it last week is that if anyone would come after me, he must pick up his cross.

He must pick up his own death device and follow me.

And what Jesus is getting at is that we are to agree with Jesus about what the trajectory of our life should be.

That if Jesus dies on the cross for our sins, that if he deals with them, then we should, we can't deal with them apart from Jesus, but we can begin to deny ourselves in the very areas that Jesus has died for us on the cross.

And so there is a fighting, a denial of sin in our lives.

What Jesus wants to show us this week is that it's not just a denial.

He's also going to give us a glimpse of where we're headed.

And here's why this is important, because sometimes we think that the part of us that the scriptures would have us die to, die to yourself, and the scriptures always list what is sin and what is righteousness.

There is a part of us that thinks if I die to this sin, I'm actually dying to who I really am.

And that's not any more true than water that goes through a water filtration system becomes less water because the impurities have been taken out.

Okay?

Jesus died to remove the impurities from us, but he also wants to give us a glimpse, not just of impurities removed, but the fulfillment of what humanity is supposed to be.

So pick up your cross and follow me.

Follow me in your own redemption.

This call to deny ourselves, it doesn't give us the full picture of what Jesus intends for humans.

And this is look at what Jesus says right after this call to follow him.

In verse 1, 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.

What a statement.

There are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God coming in power.

What does that mean?

He's showing us what we are to expect to see in this transfiguration, that in a very real but preview kind of way, we see the kingdom of God coming with power as Jesus Christ is transfigured on this mountain.

Now, when you think kingdom of God, don't just think people.

Sometimes when we think, be a part of the kingdom, the kingdom of God, we think just people.

The people of God are the citizenship of that kingdom.

But the kingdom is as broad as creation is.

That's what God tells us over and over again throughout Scripture is that this good and beautiful world that is now fallen and marred in sin, it will be utterly renewed.

And it will be utterly renewed, and we will see that when Jesus returns in power.

And so what we see is that James and Peter and John catch a glimpse of the world that is to come when Jesus is transfigured on this cross, on this mountain.

And we read that he's changed, he's transfigured, he goes through a metamorphosis.

And not just he, his clothes become dazzling white.

And this is meant to conjure for us a sense of beauty that we can't quite wrap our minds around.

That if we're to take anything away from this passage, it is that Jesus is beautiful, that he is lovely, that he is the source of goodness and truth and beauty, that this transfigured one is mesmerizing.

This passage is so otherworldly that for us to try to imagine, what how could this have looked like?

I was thinking about this, like if you were to sort of shoot a movie scene of this, don't do that, right?

You would just it would just force it to be cheesy.

Light would emanate from behind, I mean, it would look like Derek Zoolander, you know, when he came up top with Magnum, you know, it's beautiful.

You can't make, you can't really imagine how to shoot this, how to picture this.

But have you ever seen something that was truly breathtaking that you couldn't put into words?

About 10 years ago, we still lived in Pennsylvania, and I was driving home, I think I'd been preaching somewhere, and we had just had a storm not altogether different from the one we had here yesterday.

And as I was driving, I saw the most, the brightest double rainbow I've ever seen.

And I had to like detour and find where it ended.

I wanted to get as close to this as I could find, as I could get.

And I've and it ended into a parking lot.

And the second rainbow was brighter than any primary rainbow I had ever seen before.

Making the primary, I mean it was the brightest thing I'd ever seen.

And it almost hurt.

It almost looked like I was looking at the sun.

Instead, it was just this streak of light across the sky.

And I took a picture of it on my 2016 camera and I uploaded it to Facebook, and here's what I said.

This picture is terrible.

It really is hard to describe just how bright this rainbow was.

Brightest I've ever seen.

How do you put into words something that is beautiful?

When you try, it's just kind of pathetic.

How does Mark describe the transfiguration?

He was transfigured before them.

His clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them.

I've never seen white like this before.

It's a pretty weak description, and yet there's something in here that I think we know, like this captivated them in a way that nothing else had it to this point.

Words fail him, but he sees beauty such as it points to the kingdom of God coming in glory.

That this world, what they know and what we now know, this world will be transfigured.

And the most beautiful double rainbow that we can see in this life will be but a dim reflection of the beauty that will issue forth at this whole redeemed world.

And Jesus will be at the center of it.

The beautiful one will be at the center of it.

And here's what I want us to consider.

In this transfiguration, Jesus shows us what he's come to do with humanity.

What he's come to do with flesh and blood, what he's come to do with those originally made in his image, given a task and then failing.

C.S.

Lewis once said, it's a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest, most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship.

That the most uninteresting, that the most boring person that you can imagine, that if they are redeemed in Jesus' name, that one day what they will be, if you could see it now, would tempt you to worship because it will be so beautiful.

Jesus has great intentions for what he will do with the material world and with human beings in particular.

Jesus has not just come to forgive us of our sins, though he has, and that is central.

He has also come to make humans what they were always originally created to be.

To develop and mature this flesh.

Paul tells us when he's teaching on the resurrection in 1 Corinthians, he says, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.

Behold, I tell you a mystery.

That this beautiful one who ought to capture our imaginations is also going to make us beautiful in ways that we can scarcely imagine or describe.

Why can't flesh and blood inherit the kingdom of God?

There's two reasons.

We know the first, our sin is a very big deal.

The kingdom of God is for those who fulfill righteousness.

So it's not just the kingdom of God is not just for those who don't sin, it's for those who fulfill righteousness, and Jesus comes to solve both of those problems for us.

We don't just need forgiveness.

We were created for perfect obedience.

And Jesus comes to forgive us of our sins, but also to fulfill all righteousness.

And the transfiguration is evidence that he is the human righteous one.

That he has obeyed, that he has followed the will of his father, that he has loved God and his neighbor perfectly, and now we see what humanity was always created to be, and only Jesus could fulfill that.

Okay, so Jesus beautifies humanity, but he also beautifies Scripture.

How does he do that?

He shows us that all of Scripture points to himself.

That all of it points to himself.

And there's so much here, but let's just hit a few angles.

Moses and Elijah, most commentators agree, they represent the whole Old Testament.

The law and the prophets.

Over and over again, you read in Scripture, the law and the prophets.

And Moses and Elijah are there.

They represent the law and the prophets.

They're not transfigured.

They speak with the transfigured one.

And here's what they know.

We know who we are talking to, not because we've seen him before, but because we have spoken with him before.

We have spoken with this one before.

Mountains are a big deal in the Bible.

I just want to highlight two.

The first will be no surprise, Mount Sinai.

We read about it in our Old Testament reading.

This is the mountain where God delivers the law to Moses, where God's glory comes and overshadows the mountain, where his voice booms, where Moses speaks in return.

There is a conversation that Moses has with the maker of heaven and earth on Mount Sinai.

But Elijah also has a conversation with God on Mount Sinai.

We forget this story.

He's fleeing for his life.

Royalty wants his head, and he flees to Mount Sinai, and there God speaks to him.

And so what we have are two Old Testament saints who have both conversed with God on the same mountain, though not at the same time.

Now they're conversing with him at the same time on a different mountain.

What's the other mountain you wanted to mention, Joe?

Eden.

We don't think about this very often, but the garden of Eden would have been on a mountain.

We know that four rivers issued from it.

It has the high ground.

And then in Ezekiel, he calls the garden of God, the Garden of Eden, he says, that's the mount of God.

The garden itself was on a mountain.

And here's what this imagery is showing us that God has always intended to meet with his people.

And he met with them perfectly in Eden for a hot minute until we sinned and rebelled.

And then he condescends, the high and lofty God, how does he meet us?

We go up on a mountain and he comes down to us.

He gives us his law.

He intended always for a perfect human fellowship with God and man.

And now we see it fulfilled in Jesus.

And now Elijah and Moses meet him and they surely are thinking, My God, you are a man.

A God man.

You have fulfilled humanity because you have the your divinity has filled humanity.

The fullness of God is in you, Jesus.

And now they can recast every interaction that they've ever had with God in light of this conversation.

And so should we.

That all of the Old Testament is recast in light of the God man.

Elijah at one point, when he when he had a conversation with God on Mount Sinai, he says, I and only I am left.

I'm the last one who believes in you.

This law that you gave to Moses on the mountain, it's not working.

And more and more people are disintegrating.

We're falling like flies.

I'm the only one left.

And God says, You're not the only one left.

It feels like you're the only one left.

And now he's speaking with the one who comes uniquely.

You felt like the last one.

I'm the only one who can make this law into something that can no longer condemn you.

Paul says in Romans 8, for God has done with the law, weakened by flesh, could not do.

But the point is that it has now been done in the flesh.

And Jesus' transfiguration is evidence of his perfect righteousness.

He beautifies scripture.

You know, Paul tells us that all scripture is God breathed, but Jesus himself tells us I'm the interpretive grid for it.

In Luke 24, and beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.

Now Peter offers his own interpretive gloss.

Rabbi, it is good that we are here.

Let us make three tents one for you, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah.

It seems as though the one who told Jesus last week, you shall not suffer and die.

Remember, he rebukes him, and then Jesus rebukes him and says, Get behind me, Satan.

That Peter again sees glory and says, We can have it without suffering.

We can stay right here.

We can have it without suffering.

We don't have to follow Jesus anywhere else.

We can set up shop.

And the Father speaks.

And a cloud overshadowed them, and a voice came out of the cloud.

This is my beloved son.

Listen to him.

Moses and all who would read him, listen to Jesus.

And Elijah and all who would read the prophets, listen to him.

And Peter, James, and John, and all who will write Scripture under their influence, listen to Jesus.

That all of Scripture can only make sense when Jesus is the beautiful center of it.

You know, it's interesting.

This is Peter's account.

Mark was Peter's disciple.

And so Peter is telling us this story through Mark.

And Peter really did take this to heart.

He tells us in one of his letters, for we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

But we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.

For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the majestic glory, this is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.

We ourselves heard this very voice born from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain, and we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns, and the morning the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation.

What Peter's saying there is, we were there.

We saw it, we heard it, we were wowed by it.

And then he tells us, you have a more sure word in the scriptures than we had on the mountain when we heard the Father saying, This is my beloved son.

And I think he says, You have a more sure word, because he says, I was there and I missed the point, at least at first.

I missed the point.

I thought this was evidence that we don't have to follow Jesus in self-denial, and I miss the point.

Incidentally, Peter, the one who wanted to avoid suffering, writes so often in his letters about suffering and how to suffer well.

I think he got the point.

So Christ beautifies humanity, scripture, and suffering.

Peter wants glory without suffering.

And the Father says, whether you are reading Moses or whether you're reading the prophets, whatever you're doing, you have to see that Jesus is the center of it all.

And Jesus comes to save his people by suffering on their behalf.

Peter finally understands suffering's not the end.

And it's this vision, I think, that helps him.

Self-denial is part of it.

The transfiguration shows us where that ends.

That there is a self-denial, a dying to self, a going down like Jesus did, but Jesus brings us up with him so that we too will have bodies that are beautiful one day, reflections of his glory.

I said earlier that Jesus has fulfilled all righteousness.

This transfiguration is evidence of that.

The second Adam has done it.

Why doesn't he stay on the mountain?

He has accomplished perfect obedience and righteousness.

He has, we see what humanity can look like.

And he comes down on the mountain because he intends to bring us with him.

But now he goes to the cross so that he might not just take our sins upon himself, that he might also lay his righteousness upon us, that we might have our sins forgiven and full righteousness, thereby securing, he secures for us a glorious future in a renewed kingdom of God.

The righteous human lays aside his glory that we might share in it.

And so Jesus doesn't just call us to die to ourselves, he shows us where we're going.

What do we do with all this?

For starters, we get to see Jesus as beautiful in and of himself.

That the God man is beautiful.

That there is nothing in all of creation that can compare with the beauty of this God man, not just visually.

And we will feast visually upon him for eternity and we'll never, we'll never get enough.

Not just visually is he beautiful, but what he's come to do for us, his love for us is beautiful.

And his love for us grips hearts, like it gripped James and John and Peter, and like he is intending to grip our hearts even now.

We're invited to see this Jesus.

Not exactly like James and John and Peter did, but through the pages of Scripture to see him as glorious and beautiful.

Put it another way, we're to worship him.

That if he is beautiful, that if he's lovely, that we worship him, we adore him.

And to fuel that worship, we get to see this beautiful one as the center of all the scriptures.

That we can read Moses and the prophets not in a way that crush us because he's already delivered us.

That we can read thou shalt not, thou shalt not, and not just cower in shame because we have, but because Jesus died for those sins, we can die to those sins too in new repentance, knowing that our home is in glory with Him.

And if we would follow Him, it will mean laying aside things that are valuable to us, whether rightly or wrongly, precious sins or money in our bank account or whatever.

It will involve laying aside things that are precious to us as we follow him to certain glory.

And we follow him because, not because we're trying to earn it, because we want to be where he is.

And we want to get where he is.

And he's told us the way, he's paved the way.

And so now if we desire to worship this beautiful Jesus and see him at the heart of these scriptures, he's calling us to him in his scriptures regularly.

Feast upon me, hear from me, receive my love.

We have a home in glory because Jesus laid aside the glory that he earned.

Let's pray.

Father in heaven, we thank you for your word.

We thank you for sending your son, Jesus, who is beautiful and majestic and gentle and lowly and patient and merciful.

And would you change us?

Would you enable us to follow Him, not out of fear, but out of your love and mercy?

And would you meet us at this table now, we pray.

Amen.