What an amazing series of events Peter, James and John experienced on that mountain. They must have been bursting to tell what they’d seen and heard. But Jesus had other plans: As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.
Maybe he did them a favor - what would that story have sounded like, anyway? A very, very weird dream?
“Well, all of a sudden Jesus face completely changed, and then his clothes became a blinding white, like the whitest white you ever saw…"
"And then all of a sudden he wasn’t alone. Two men were with him – and we realized it was Moses and Elijah!”
“How did you know it was Moses and Elijah?”
“Well, you know… Moses had that staff, and Elijah that cloak…. I don’t know. It was obvious.”
“Okay….”
“And then Peter wanted to build three little huts so that Jesus and Moses and Elijah could just stay up there—”
“Oh, but all of a sudden we were in the middle of a huge cloud; couldn’t see anything!”
“But we heard a voice, a booming voice… ‘’
“God’s voice—”
“Saying, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved! Listen to him.’”
“And then it was all gone – everything was back to normal. Just us and Jesus. Like it never happened.”
"Yeah. Right. And what were you smoking up there?"
Perhaps more perplexing to them was Jesus’ strange reference to the Son of Man “risen from the dead.” Mark tells us, So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what this rising from the dead could mean.
Did they think it some figure of speech, a metaphor, perhaps? How could one conceive of anyone rising from the dead? That event itself was hard enough to accept. Perhaps this surreal experience, accompanied by Jesus’ prediction, prepared them to comprehend that incomprehensible. And once they received the Holy Spirit, they no longer “kept the matter to themselves.” They couldn’t shut up about Jesus and his resurrection.
How about us? This isn’t a bad description of many 21st century church-goers – “…they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what this rising from the dead could mean.”
Those who have trouble “buying” Jesus’ resurrection are more apt to keep the matter to themselves. There is always room for questions and even doubts – AND at some point, we need to decide that we accept this spiritual reality we claim as foundational truth for Christians. Our questions, even doubts, can persist beyond that point, but so can our being released into ministry and faith-sharing.
Our whole Christian story must sound far-fetched on first hearing. That’s why it needs to come from each of us in our own words, as we talk about how our stories have intersected and been enriched by The Story. I pray we will feel settled enough about who Jesus is, and his rising from the dead, to stop keeping it to ourselves and let a thirsty world hear our Good News.
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