Better Than Who We Wanted
Transfiguration B (2 Kings 2:1-12; Psalm 50:1-6; 2 Corinthians 4:3-6; Mark 9:2-9)
Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!”
In Mark’s telling of the gospel, neither Peter nor the other official disciples of Jesus come off very well. Last Sunday, we read how Jesus spends one day in Peter’s home town of Capernaum. Peter went out looking for Jesus to drag him back to town, because Peter doesn’t understand yet what the ministry of Jesus is all about. For today’s marking of the Transfiguration, we skip ahead to that story. In Mark’s gospel, that comes six days after Peter tries to talk Jesus out of the cross, and gets himself called Satan. In this passage, Peter babbles incoherently on the mountain of transfiguration, not knowing what he was saying, because he and his friends were terrified. And it gets to the point that the voice of God has to say to him, Peter! Stop. This one, here, is my beloved Son. Listen to him already!
But if Peter is listening to Jesus, he doesn’t seem to be hearing him very well. And we know that ever as the gospel goes on, Peter talks a good game, but when the chips are down, Peter’s going to deny Jesus and walk away.
So what does Mark have against Peter? I mean, Jesus called Peter to be the chief disciple, Mark acknowledges that Peter was the first to call Jesus the Messiah. Peter’s leadership role among the first Christians was well-known to everyone. What’s Mark doing by making Peter out to be such a bumbler?
It’s not, I think, that Mark is trying to put Peter down, or cast doubt on his position in the Christian community. Mark assumes it. Rather, I think Mark is trying to show Peter as a model for all disciples. Someone that we’re supposed to see ourselves in. In Peter’s eagerness to follow Jesus, and Peter’s failures to follow Jesus very well. I think Mark wants to show us that the obstacles Peter has to overcome to be a follower of Jesus are the same obstacles that you and I face as we respond to the call to follow Jesus. And that the grace that Jesus continues to show Peter – and this is the point, over and over again – that’s the grace that’s extended to us as well.
So what then is Peter’s problem? Peter is not an unintelligent man. He’s not unfaithful, he’s not divided in his loyalties. Peter is, from the day that he left his fishing nets, a devoted and committed follower of Jesus. It’s just that Peter has a very clear idea of who he wants Jesus to be. And that’s just not who Jesus is. Peter has a strong opinion about how he wants Jesus to save him, and Jesus is not going to go about it that way. Peter really wants to follow Jesus, but he wants to follow the Jesus that he, Peter, wants to follow. And Jesus resists being who Peter wants him to be.
We see that in all of these stories. Last Sunday, we read about Jesus coming to the synagogue in Capernaum where he proclaimed the nearness of the Kingdom of God. Proclaimed it with a kind of personal authenticity that just stunned people. That called out unholy spirits in the congregation, that set people free in a whole variety of different ways. Peter has just started following Jesus, and this is what Peter gets to see. And Jesus even comes to Peter’s own house, brings healing and resurrection and a call to ministry to Peter’s own mother-in-law.
And, after just one night, the whole town is at the door of Peter’s house. And you can forgive Peter for thinking, Hey, I’m an important person now in this town. The healer that everybody wants to see is somebody I brought here, somebody who’s living in my house! I’ll bet Peter was lying awake that night coming up with all kinds of plans to capitalize on his amazing good luck of finding this guy Jesus. Maybe he can open a clinic, start a non-profit, get the rich guy whose daughter got healed on the board. The opportunities that Peter sees for moving up in the world are endless.
And so Peter wakes up the next morning full of enthusiasm, and Jesus is gone. He looks for Jesus, finds him, and tells him, We’ve been looking for you, Jesus. We’ve got things we need you to do. And Jesus says, no. We’re moving on. That’s what I came to do. Peter’s plans are not the plans that Jesus has.
And then, skipping over a bunch of stories in Mark’s gospel that we’ll come back to after Easter, when Jesus finally tells his disciples that he’s going to Jerusalem, he’s going to be opposed by the powerful, and be killed – dead – and then raised up. And Peter takes Jesus aside and tells him, No, no, Jesus, this can’t happen to you. You’re our ticket to success, you’re our hope of glory. You’re doing so many wonderful things, you need to be careful, you need to watch out. We can’t do this without you.
And Jesus has to tell Peter, Look, Peter, that’s not my mission. What you’re about is Satan’s mission. Take up your cross, and follow me. And then just days later, Peter and two others join Jesus atop a high mountain, where they see extraordinary things. Jesus lit up like Vegas at night, sensational, stunning and amazing. And now Peter is in his element. This is the Jesus I wanted to see! This confirms what we thought, Jesus is the One! Even Moses and Elijah have come to talk with him.. Oh, we are so blessed, so fortunate to be here! What can we do to make ourselves useful, so we can get to stay here as long as possible?
That’s what Peter is babbling about when the voice says: You want to do something useful, Peter? This, here, is my beloved Son. Listen. To. Him.
The theologian Chris Green writes that “Mark’s gospel confronts us with a hard truth. Those who know Jesus best are the first to deny him, the first to interfere with his mission. According to Mark, insiders, not outsiders, are the ones who need to be saved. Precisely because they think they understand the secret that’s been shared with them. Because they think that the secret is theirs to use.”
There’s the Jesus we think we want – the Jesus who offers us something we think we can use, something that fits into our understanding, our goals, our priorities. And then there’s the real Jesus, who invites us to forget about what we want, to take up the cross, and to follow him. But here’s the good news: The real Jesus is better than the Jesus we think we want. If for no other reason than that the real Jesus reflects the love of God, which is never about gratifying oneself, but always about the other. That’s how God loves. That’s the God in whose image we have been created. That’s the kind of love Jesus wants to set us free so we can experience and share it.
And on the mountain of transfiguration, Peter and his friends saw, if only for a brief and shining moment, just how good the real Jesus is.
On the way down, Jesus told them: Don’t try to use this. Don’t try to turn this to your advantage. In fact, don’t tell anybody about it yet. Wait for the resurrection. Wait for Easter.
If Lent is about learning to set aside the Jesus that we think we want, Easter is when we discover that the real Jesus is in fact the living Lord of all that is. What Jesus invites Peter, and us, to do, is not to settle for the Jesus we think we want. But to really listen to him. To really embrace the difficult and paradoxical and demanding way of the cross all the way to the empty tomb, and beyond. It’s my prayer that our Lent and our Easter this year will be a response to that invitation.