Sermon from 25 February 2024. This is the second sermon covering the “Transfiguration” of Jesus in Mark 9:1-13. In the transfiguration, Jesus reveals God’s power – His ability to perform what He said that He would do, namely that He had the ability to be faithful to His promise to cause His people to know Him. And look who Jesus revealed this power to?!!! Pastor Don describes a very encouraging aspect of Mark where Jesus reveals Himself in a spectacular way to the “least of them” at this point in the story. Peter was just called “Satan” by Jesus and James and John were shown to be the “sons of thunder” who at one point asked Jesus if He wanted them to call fire down from heaven to consume people – as if Jesus ever gave anyone the idea that He was there to destroy those who didn’t believe in Him. Jesus revealed the power of the Kingdom of Heaven to three of the “top” disciples who were declared by Him to have hard hearts who were perceiving wrongly regarding Jesus and His purpose. In other words, Jesus was there ministering to His own disciples who had shown themselves to be sinful, needy people just like you and I.
The significance of this part of Scripture cannot be overemphasized: while the transfiguration reveals to us the heavenly—supernatural nature of Jesus, it overwhelmingly declares Christ’s superiority over Moses and Elijah as THE mouthpiece of God Himself. In the presence of THE two most important and significant people in the history and theology of Israel, God appears in a cloud and declares that Jesus is His Beloved Son and tells Peter, James and John to HEAR Him. We hope you are ENCOURAGED!