Pastor Sherry’s message for February 11, 2024 

Scriptures: 2 Kings 2:1-12; Ps 50:1-6; 2 Cor 4:3-6; Mk 9:2-9

Last Sunday, my kids, grandkids, and I all drove up to Valdosta, GA, to see the first three episodes of season 4 of “The Chosen.”  If you have not tuned in to watch it, I highly recommend it.  It very closely follows Scripture.  And the actor who plays Jesus does a phenomenal job!  You can purchase the first three seasons’ worth on video now.

I won’t spoil the suspense, but let me just say that season 4 begins with Jesus’ frustration over the fact that His disciples do not really understand His mission.  We saw last week, in Mark 1:29-39, that they assumed He would remain in Capernaum, healing all that needed Him there.

He assertively redirected them.  He told them in v. 38 Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also.  That is why I have come.  His mission was greater than serving just Capernaum.  They kept trying to guide Him here and there–or to protect Him from this Roman soldier or that Pharisee–according to their ideas of what the Messiah should be doing.  But He kept gently resisting their need to control or to shape His ministry.

Imagine, then, how unsettling it must have been for Peter, James and John to have witnessed Jesus’ transfiguration!  Isn’t it true that we form these ideas of how God should act, and then are so surprised or even shocked when He behaves in ways we never imagined?  Let’s look at what our Scriptures today have to say about this phenomenon:

A. The Gospel (Mark 9: 2-9) is Peter’s (via John Mark) account of the Transfiguration.  Peter had earlier proclaimed to Jesus (in Mark 8:29)—You are the Christ (Lk 9:20—the Christ of God).  The word, Christ, remember, is a title—the Greek word for anointed one, or Messiah, in the Hebrew.  Peter gets that Jesus is indeed the long awaited Messiah.

Luke tells us it was about 8 days after this (Mark tell us it was 6) that Jesus took the three with Him (9:28)—…onto a mountain to pray.  Imagine their thoughts when they observed Him in all of His heavenly glory!

Luke describes His face changing, and His clothes…(v.29)—…became as bright as a flash of lightning.  Mark (v.3) describes the same thing this way—His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them.  Matthew writes (17:2)—His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became as white as the light.  They used the words they had to describe the incredible brightness of how Jesus shone.  These three disciples were being treated to a mind-blowing sight!  (I have seen something similar as I work with clients who are in a residential treatment center for addictions and mental health issues.  Their pictures are taken when they first arrive; but as they learn, grow, and heal, their visages change so as to be almost unrecognizable from those original photographs.  There is a transformation that takes place that is seemingly miraculous.)

In addition, the three disciples see the long dead but clearly resurrected Moses and Elijah talking with Jesus.  If that were not all, then they are treated to hearing the actual voice of God the Father speaking from out of a cloud (v.7)—This is My Son Whom I love.  Listen to Him!  (not to your ideas of what He should do, but to My ideas….) 

If you had been there to witness this Heavenly Surprise, wouldn’t you have been shaken up? Jesus is not just the long-awaited for Messiah, the Christ, the anointed One.  He is God incarnate!  How would that realization shape your responses to Him?  How would that new, earth-shaking knowledge shift your ideas of what he can and cannot, should or should not do?  I believe any of us would immediately move to “Who are we to try to direct Him to do what we want?”  Or, “Who are we to try to protect Him from anyone?”

B.  Our Psalm (50:1-6) fits this set of insights so nicely.  Asaph, the choir director, tells us that when God speaks (v.1)—He…summons the earth from the rising of the sun to the place where it sets.  Our most powerful God has created the sun and set the earth into an orbit such that it appears the sun rises and sets over planet earth.  Additionally, God manifests in fire and tempests, when He appears in judgment.  He is so powerful that when He summons the heavens or the earth, these great celestial creations do His will.  Asaph wants us to realize (v.6) our God is all powerful and totally righteous…and so too is Jesus!

Scripture talks about Mary, Jesus’ Mother, who (Luke 3:51)— treasured all these things in her heart.  Can’t you just picture Peter, James, and John all doing the same?  Pondering this great heavenly surprise; trying to process it, to figure out what this meant for and to them.

C.  This is what Paul is referring to in 2 Corinthians 4:3-6.  He directly follows this up in verse 7—We have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.

What is the treasure to which Paul is referring?  It is the knowledge that Jesus Christ is God Himself, come to live among us and to die to redeem us.  What are the jars of clay?  Those are us!  We are fragile repositories of this great and precious knowledge.

Paul describes Jesus among us as a light (v.6)—like the light of His transfiguration—which shine[s] out of the darkness.  It illuminates this dark world.  It guides us and gives us comfort.  Best of all, this light of Christ, this heavenly surprise— shine[s] in our heats to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.  Jesus draws us into His redeeming light.  Knowing Jesus, loving Jesus, ensures we will dwell with Him in His light eternally.

D. Then we have this unusual passage from 2 Kings 2:1-12.

What a send-off for a mighty prophet!  Elisha, his loyal side-kick, goes with Elijah on his farewell tour.  Directed by the Lord, they say goodbye to prophets at Gilgal, Bethel, and Jericho.  Elisha remains with his mentor as they cross the Jordan River, moving outside the Promised Land.

Then Elijah asks Elisha what he wants (v.9)—”Let me inherit a double portion of your spirit,” Elisha replied.  It may sound greedy to us, but what it meant was that Elisha saw himself as Elijah’s spiritual son and wanted what a firstborn son would inherit from his father, a double-portion (all the rest got divided among any other children).  He was essentially asking to be equipped to carry on his spiritual father’s ministry.

This was a difficult request for Elijah to honor as the prerogative to instill Elisha with Elijah’s power belonged to God alone.  God must have quickly told the older prophet that the heir would know his request had been granted if he saw Elijah jet off to heaven.  This is exactly what happens!

What a heavenly surprise, what a dramatic exit!  Elijah is carried away by a chariot and horses of fire.  Elisha witnesses this and knows his request has been granted.  He grieves the loss of his mentor, but he is allowed to see that Elijah is…taken up to heaven, bodily, without dying—like Enoch (see Genesis 5:24); and taken away outside the promised land without leaving a grave, like Moses.  This is a bigger deal than the funeral of a king.  The Lord is saying Elijah, and now Elisha–and not an apostate king–is the true representative of God on earth.

Once again, in a spectacular fashion, our Lord demonstrates the truth of Isaiah 55:8-9—”For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord.  “As the heavens are higher than the earth so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.”  Who would think that the Lord would carry off His prophet in a fiery chariot?  Who would think Jesus would appear to His 3 favorites as His pre-Incarnate, heavenly self?  How terrific of God to frame these events in bright lights and pyrotechnics we might never even think of!  If we had seen them, our faith would never waver, would it?

Not only that, but do you see that our Lord is capable of spectacular surprises?  Peter, James, and John must have been blown away by what they saw and heard on the Mount of Transfiguration with Jesus.  Elisha, too, must have pondered what he had seen at length.  Such events expand exponentially our concept of what God is capable of.

Additionally, as the disciples eventually discovered, we don’t want to be found thinking we can direct God or dictate to Jesus what He will do.  If we do, we will find ourselves highly disappointed.  We hear people express anger because God did not do what they prayed for.  The truth is we can ask, but we cannot demand.  He will answer, but He may tell us “Yes,” “No,” or “Not yet.”  We need to remember that God is God and we are not.

©️2024 Rev. Dr. Sherry Adams