His mother shushed the youngster who then grumbled, “I just wish that Jesus would do something exciting.”
I was about to say something, but our name was called, and we went to be seated. I wondered aloud to Sue, “Where have we, as the Church, gone wrong? I mean, why isn’t rising from the dead exciting anymore?”
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Well, today we are looking at the Mount Olympus event in Mark. It is like a summit meeting of the heads of the heavenly state. Today we get to witness Jesus speaking with heavenly advisors and hear the words of Godself again claiming Jesus as his Son.
This does not take place in some distant, heavenly galaxy, far, far away, because the boundaries between heaven and earth have been torn open. This summit meeting takes place here on earth. True, as summit meetings go, this meeting is not the most exciting thing that is going to happen, but it does point to the most exciting event.
Let’s review the meeting. Almost exactly half way through the Gospel of Mark, Jesus goes up the mountain with Peter, James, and John. There he speaks with the great leaders of Judaism—Moses and Elijah. We, with the disciples, are assured of Jesus’ identity; and we, with the disciples, are pointed in the direction of knowing the fullness of God’s kingdom as we walk together into the end-times of God’s creation kingdom.
In Jewish thought, Moses and Elijah are the harbingers of the end of ages, the street criers of the coming Day of the Lord. But instead of being directed to God’s kingdom above, we, with the disciples, are given a vision of God’s salvation plan and God’s intentions for our lives in God’s world here. Then, with the disciples, we are sent down the mountain with this new vision, into a world of healing ministry involving care for the sick and peace for the nations, where we learn how to deny ourselves to live in Christ and the discipline of taking up our cross to follow Jesus.
This last part of taking up our cross is especially important. Too often we look at this as being a kind of suicidal martyrdom or at least a life of unpleasant drudgery and oppressive obligation, of walking with a boring Jesus who never does anything exciting.
But, thanks be to God, Jesus actually does some exciting things, like rising from the dead and raising up the outcasts of the world—the blind, the lame, the deaf, the maimed, the widow, the orphan, the undocumented alien, and the poor. In words and actions, Jesus offers a new way of living in a loving relationship with one another that is based on mercy and forgiveness that brings people together rather than meritorious competition that divides and estranges us from one another.
And so, bearing the cross of Jesus does not lead to death, it leads us ways of living in hoped-filled loving relationships with God and one another. This new way of living that Jesus calls us to does not support a story of rugged individualism where success is measured by one’s ability to rise above everybody else. It is not about isolationism or partisan politics.
Instead, this new way compels us to find ways of caring for one another as “members of the body of Christ.” The health of Christ’s body is determined by the health and welfare of the least of the body’s parts. Yes, the strength of the strongest chain is determined by its weakest link, and the strength and wellness of our society is dependent on our care and inclusion of those the world would ignore and exclude.
Life in Christ doesn’t have the dazzle of lightning bolts or the devastation of tsunamis, but, then again, this new way of living is not about fear and death, punishment and retribution. This new way of living is about life in God’s beloved one and God’s beloved ones, where we build up one another creating cooperative relationships of caring and peace.
Then someday, we will be living in the fullness of God’s intentions for God’s kingdom—a place where we do not have to worry about whether any one group of people have more rights than others; where we don’t have to worry about whether a nuclear bomb is going to fall on us or anybody else; a place where we don’t have to worry about our color, our religion, our sexual orientation; a place where we don’t have to worry whether we can get the healthcare we need or whether there will be food available when we are hungry.
This new way of living means that we could go to sleep at night knowing that God’s in God’s kingdom and that we are fully embraced by God’s merciful and forgiving kingdom rule and, as part of that forgiveness kingdom, all’s right with the world.
Today, on this mountain, we see Jesus transfigured before us; that is, the understanding of who this Jesus is is changed. This is the Jesus who is able to transcend the limits of the world, who speaks with the prophets of old, who is claimed by God as God’s only son, the one whom we are to listen to and obey.
Today we see the implications of what open borders between heaven and earth can mean. God’s concern for the world transcends those walls that would separate us from God and one another. The former border of death has been destroyed. “Neither death nor life, angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers nor height nor depth nor anything else in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Today, with the disciples, we are called to come down from the mountaintop into a life of healing ministries, challenged to consider just what this rising from the dead might mean because on this mountain we too are transfigured, that is, we are changed and challenged to think of God’s kingdom more inclusively than before.
As we have died in Christ, let us also know that we are raised up in a resurrection like his, and that in Christ’s resurrected body we have life everlasting.
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Yeah, I just wish that Jesus would do something exciting.
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