Transfigured

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF MARK

TRANSFIGURED

Mark 9:2-4

2 After six days Jesus took Peter, James and John with him and led them up a high mountain, where they were all alone. There he was transfigured before them. 3 His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them. 4 And there appeared before them Elijah and Moses, who were talking with Jesus.

NIV

Hold on a minute, this is Jesus, a man born of a woman, true fully God but fully man, capable of being killed on a cross and something supernatural has happened to him. We all accept this as a normal event in the story about Jesus, calling it the transfiguration of Jesus, but it was more, it was way more. We are going to see how Peter reacts to this a little later, again not thinking of things above, but on things of this earth, even after having the spiritual insight that Jesus is the Christ. Yet we should focus on the moment, this change that occurred in the body of Jesus. Here he is a man, physical in every form, human flesh, and he is changed into something that only can be described as dazzling white. Matthew records that his face shone like the sun. His clothes were so white, whiter than anything white on the earth. Then if all that wasn’t enough, Moses and Elijah show up, two guys the Lord took away. Sure Moses died, but it was God who buried him up on the mountain. Nevertheless this story is about being transformed. The Greek word is metamorphoo, which means metamorphose, or changed from one thing to another. Jesus was not just shining, he was actually changed into a heavenly immortal being, as he was in the beginning and what he would be again as he sits at the right hand of the Father. He was showing them and showing us what would happen to us at the end of this human life. As it is explained to us in the letter to the Corinthians, we will be changed, we will go through some sort of metamorphose, putting off the mortal for immortal, putting off the corruptible for the incorruptible. Jesus was demonstrating what we would be like in the heavenly realms, and that we would see others, people who we know, as he was standing there with two that even Peter, James and John knew although they had never seen them before. If this isn’t enough to get us excited about what is to come, then nothing will. If this doesn’t fill us with anticipation of stepping into eternity then what will? We have been told the truth, those who have died before us will rise first, and we who are still alive will be catch up in the air to meet our Lord Jesus. We will all be changed, we will all be transfigured.