Jesus took Peter, James, and John and led them up a high mountain apart by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no fuller on earth could bleach them. Then Elijah appeared to them along with Moses, and they were conversing with Jesus. Then Peter said to Jesus in reply, “Rabbi, it is good that we are here! Let us make three tents: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” He hardly knew what to say, they were so terrified. Then a cloud came, casting a shadow over them; from the cloud came a voice, “This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.” Suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone but Jesus alone with them.” (Mark 9.2-8)
In our internet-centered culture and social media-obsessed world, a new category of people has come into the spotlight, these individuals using one or several of the digital platforms to secure their positions in the online world. They are called influencers, the word self-explanatory for the most part because their aim is to influence others in one way or another. Typically, an influencer uses his or her status, starpower, or stature to convince others to buy a certain product.
More or less the offspring of TV commercials, influencers accomplish much the same end–increasing sales–but people come to them on their platforms as followers whereas few TV viewers seek out commercials, regardless of the popularity of the star who is hawking the goods. It is the opposite with influencers because they garner a large following of enthusiastic and engaged people who take as gospel the views of the influencer.
Obviously, brands love and utilize social media influencers because they can effortlessly push products and create trends in short order, their followers quick to buy whatever the influencer is promoting, trusting in that person’s expertise, experience, or exhibitions. As a follower of the influencer, the potential purchaser bases his or her decisions on the word of the influencer who provides a marketing bonanza for selected products, depending, of course, on the number of followers the influencer has.
Interestingly, in the text from Mark’s gospel that we have today for our consideration, we are introduced to another influencer, although his platform was not TikTok, Facebook, or Instagram. His platform was the cloud, understood as a real cloud, not as a virtual cloud. And although Mark does not tell us his name, he assumes we will know who he is, a cloud in the Hebrew scriptures traditionally indicating the Divine Presence.
Here is how Mark presents the divine influencer to us. He writes, “Then a cloud came, casting a shadow over them; from the cloud came a voice, “This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.” It is, in fact, the second time in Mark’s gospel that the influencer has appeared from the cloud. The first came early in Chapter 1 when Mark tells us of the baptism of Jesus of Nazareth at the Jordan River. There, as here, a voice came from heaven and said, “You are my beloved son with whom I am well pleased.”
This second instance occurs at the midpoint of the gospel in Chapter 9 in an episode that has become known as the transfiguration. Mark, breaking from his normal habit of giving us few details, actually tells us a lot about the incident. He describes how Jesus took Peter, James, and John–his inner circle–with him to a high mountain where he was “transfigured before them and his clothes became dazzling white, such that no fuller on earth could bleach them.” Were that not surprising enough, then Elijah and Moses, revered prophets of ancient Israel, appear and “they were conversing with Jesus.” Soon enough, “a cloud came, casting a shadow over them.” And then the voice is heard, making the statement, “This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.”
More often than not, the readers’ attention becomes locked on the pyrotechnics that occurred after the small group had reached the mountaintop. Granted, the scene as told to us by Mark presents a powerful and provocative visual for us, the presentation of Jesus suddenly changing from his normal appearance to something spectacularly different. It is difficult to move beyond such a fascinating scene.
However, I tend to think that the really important part of the story comes at the end, as is the rule in most stories. And there we find the divine influencer speaking from the cloud, urging the trio of disciples “to listen to him,” that is, to Jesus of Nazareth. Everything up to that point, in my estimation, has been a build-up. Now, with the voice from the cloud we have the denouement.
Actually, the first part of the story of the transfiguration mirrors almost exactly the experience of Moses on Mount Sinai. In that ancient story, three men accompanied Moses, a cloud covered the mountain, God spoke from the cloud, Moses saw some part of God’s glory, the skin of Moses’ face shone dazzling bright, and the people of Israel were afraid by the display of Divinity in their midst. We can easily track the transfiguration story in that earlier biblical episode.
The difference, of course, is that the cloud does not call Moses his Beloved Son and does not tell the Israelites to listen to him, but instead informs Moses that his people are to follow the commandments that have been carved into the two stone tablets. So, where Mark departs from the Moses story is important. It tells us what Mark really wants to emphasize.
Seeing Jesus of Nazareth as the Beloved Son and listening to him will become the central thrust of the gospel from this point onward. Of course, as we travel alongside Mark, we will see that the scribes fail to see Jesus as the Beloved Son and they have no desire to listen to him. And the crowds, influenced more by the voice of the scribes than by any voice from the cloud, follow the lead of the scribes, which ultimately results in Jesus being nailed to a cross, accused of blasphemy, and executed as a political prisoner.
But it is not only the scribes and the crowds that fail to listen. We should not overlook the failure of the same three disciples–Peter, James, and John–who witnessed the theophany atop the mountain, but who fail miserably to listen to Jesus the next time he takes them aside, which occurs at the end of the gospel in the Garden of Gethsemane where Mark tells us that “Jesus took with him Peter, James, and John, and began to be troubled and distressed, saying to them, “My soul is sorrowful even to death; remain here and keep watch.”
Sadly, three times he catches them fast asleep, finally saying to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Could you not keep watch for one hour?” And, were that not enough, the contrast is drawn even more sharply in a matter of minutes when the disciples “all left him and fled” when the crowd appeared with swords and clubs. Peter scurries into the shadows “following at a distance,” a far cry from his outspokenness at the transfiguration when he says to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good that we are here!” The contrast could not be clearer.
There is more. It is intriguing that Mark ends his gospel with a failure on the part of the women at the sepulcher to listen to “the young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment” who instructs them to “go your way, tell his disciples and Peter that he goes before you to Galilee. There you will see him.” Instead, “they went away quickly, fled from the tomb, trembling and amazed, and “said nothing to anybody because they were afraid.”
Of course, it should be noted that, while scholars tend to agree that the original Marcan text ends there, a second ending was attached later with an appearance of the Risen Lord to Mary Magdalene who goes to the disciples to tell them that she has seen the Lord. But they do not listen to her–until the Lord appears to them.
So, as we can see, a failure to listen permeates the entirety of the gospel from the transfiguration to the tomb, raising the question of why everyone seems to fail to follow the voice from the cloud that tells them “this is my beloved son; listen to him.” At this point, it seems clear that Mark wants his readers to ask themselves if they also are going to be abysmal listeners, or if they are going to do as the voice says.
While it is convenient for us to beat up on the scribes, on the crowds, and on the followers of Jesus for their failure to heed the voice from the cloud that claimed Jesus as his Beloved Son and instructed all to “listen to him,” it is not really the point Mark is making. In writing his gospel, he wants to challenge us, the readers, asking us to search our souls to see if we are like all the others who failed to listen to Rabbi Jesus, or do we actually break away from the pack of naysayers and listen to him.
That, in my opinion, is the central question at the heart of Mark’s text and it is the reason that he puts the story of the transfiguration at the center of his gospel. After the transfiguration, Jesus leaves the mountaintop and moves towards Jerusalem, learning soon enough that very few people are willing to comply with the voice of the divine influencer who has stated unequivocally, “Listen to him.”
So, on this Second Sunday of Lent, a time set aside for serious soul searching, we can ask ourselves the same question. Who do we listen to? Are we more influenced by the voice from the cloud that has told us that Jesus is his Beloved Son and we are to listen to him, or are we more influenced by the voices all around us that would have us do the opposite of the words and the works of Jesus of Nazareth.
It is a brutal question because it forces us to face ourselves without the benefit of makeup and facelifts or the many other ways we run away from the truth about our unfaithfulness as followers of Jesus of Nazareth, the Beloved Son who loved the poor, healed the sick, and welcomed the unwelcomed to his table. When the voice from the cloud told us to “listen to him,” he was not only trying to influence us, but he also was asking us to be influenced by his beloved son who knew his heart better than anyone on earth.
As we ponder this story of the transfiguration, intentionally positioned during the season of Lent each year when all the tough questions are supposed to be asked, we may want to answer the questions that the esteemed theologian and inestimable preacher Richard Lischer posed in one of his sermons. He asked, “Who is it who blamed (and continues to blame) ‘the Jews’ for the death of Jesus and made them scapegoats for our every ill? Whose missionaries helped take this land from its inhabitants and subjugated them in the name of Jesus?”
“Who was it who cherry-picked some Bible passages in support of slavery and segregation? Who was it who erased the women from the sacred story and denied them leadership in Christ’s church? Who is it who fails to welcome the sojourner and the immigrant and thereby closes doors that God wants opened? Who is it who bandies around the name ‘Christian’ and cynically uses it for political advantage? Who?”
Whoa. Answer that question “who” and we may have a better understanding of what the story of the transfiguration is really about. As I said, we don’t want to get lost in the pyrotechnics, as fascinating as they are. Instead, we need to give our attention to the voice in the cloud and decide who, finally, influences us more–his voice or the voices of the crowds. In other words, who is it we really listen to?
–Jeremy Myers
Sunday Brunch 