“He ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.”
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
Today we find ourselves about halfway between Christmas and Easter. It’s been forty days plus some since we celebrated the birth of our Lord, and forty days plus some before we will proclaim with great joy His resurrection from the dead. I’ve been told that there’s a sporting event of note tonight, and I’ll admit that I was tempted to talk about today’s story of the Transfiguration as some kind of divine halftime show. I promise not to.
But I think there’s something to be said for relating this story of Jesus’s transfiguration—his metamorphosis, on this mountaintop—to where we have been, on the one hand, and to where we are going, on the other. Over the past few weeks, we have heard stories about Jesus making God’s power manifest in the world—Jesus showing the kingdom of God drawing near through miracles of healing and casting out demons. Just a few verses before Mark’s account of today’s mountaintop transformation, Peter confesses his recognition that Jesus is, in fact, the Messiah of Israel. And then today we see Jesus transfigured, dazzling bright, clothed in glory, joined by Moses and Elijah—the quintessential representatives of the Law and the Prophets.
But there’s a curious thing that runs through all these stories—through these stories of healing and restoration, through the stories of Peter and the disciples coming to see who Jesus really is and what he is doing. It’s a curious thing that we see again today as Jesus, after his transfiguration, comes down from the mountain. Over and over again, he tells people not to tell others what they have seen. When Peter calls him the Messiah, Jesus “sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him,” Mark tells us. And today, “he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.”
Why this command? Why the need to be quiet about who Jesus really is, even when he’s travelling around the countryside, followed by crowds, healing and teaching and feeding in such an obviously astounding way? Biblical scholars call this the “messianic secret,” and there are different proposals for why Jesus would have needed to keep his identity as the Messiah a secret from everyone. But unlike the people who appear within this gospel narrative, we have the benefit of hindsight—we know how the story is going to turn out—we are in on the secret all along.
In today’s story, Jesus’s invocation of this secret—that none of them should tell about what they have seen, until after the Son of Man has risen from the dead—points to where Jesus will go from here—to Jerusalem, to the Passion, to Golgotha and the Cross.
And his instruction to Peter and the others reveals that it’s only in light of the crucifixion—and the resurrection—that this transfiguration can truly be understood. Peter and the others have seen God’s glory in this new way, but even as eyewitnesses they don’t really comprehend it—they are still in the middle of the story. The fullness of this epiphany, this manifestation of God’s glory in the world—the fullness of this moment where God’s glory shines forth, centered between those paragons of God’s earlier self-disclosure to God’s people—Moses, the Law, and Elijah, the Prophets—the fullness of this moment can only be grasped from the other side of the Cross and the Empty Tomb. God’s glory here is inextricable from Jesus’s suffering, death, and resurrection.
What we see here is a God whose glory is inseparable from God’s living among us, taking on our nature and living and dying for us. A God whose majesty is wrapped up in, can only be fully understood in, the pain of the Cross and the joy of the resurrection. Not a God who orders us to obey as an authoritarian or a disciplinarian, but as a God who loves us enough to join us in our struggles, in our journeys, in our joys—a God who calls us to love God and to love our neighbor because it’s in that ethic of love that we will find our deepest meaning and fulfillment, our own transfigurations.
By linking the Law and the Prophets to the Cross and the Resurrection, this story of the Transfiguration shows us a God whose greatest glory is in Christ’s victory over death, the victory of self-giving love over selfishness and evil.
Friends, in a few days we will journey into Lent. We’ll put ashes on our foreheads and remind ourselves of our mortality. Maybe we’ll give some things up for the season, or take on some extra devotions, as a measure of penance for our sins. And as Easter draws near, we will remember those acts by which Christ defeated death and won everlasting life for all of us.
Whatever we do to mark this time, however, let’s remember that the austerities and disciplines of Lent are all a response to God’s love for us. As we’ve seen throughout these weeks after Epiphany, Jesus shows God’s love for us in his acts of healing, of casting away of evil, of calling us into fellowship and discipleship with him. We’ll see the ultimate manifestation of that love for us on Good Friday. But it’s in light of the resurrection that all these epiphanies gain their full meaning—the glory of the God who created us, who loves us, who came into the world that we might be healed, forgiven, restored, renewed—that we might join God in full and abundant life.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.