Morning after thoughts, Transfiguration

Good Morning!

Well, I have just a few leftover thoughts from our text yesterday in Mark chapter 9. As a brief aside, I would recommend doing a study sometime between the differences of the 3 Transfiguration accounts from Matthew, Mark & Luke. There are some subtle differences. For instance, Luke is the only one who says Jesus went to the mountain "to pray." Mark, curiously lists Elijah first when he speaks of the two heavenly visitors, when clearly the convention in biblical literature is to list the "more important" person first. Matthew seems to correct Mark's "oversight" by swapping the order around--leaving one to wonder why Mark chose the order he did. Peter responds to Jesus in Matthew's version that it is good "Lord" to be here, whereas Mark uses the more Jewish term "Rabbi." Very curiously, Luke uses a word that could be translated as "Master" or "Supervisor,".....in other words, neither the Greek title "Kyrios," nor the Jewish teaching title "Rabbi."

Having said all of that, it strikes me that Mark's version COULD appropriately be used as a funeral text. Beginning with vs 1 of Mark chapter 9, Mark tells us:

1 And he said to them, "I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God come with power."

Then the text continues:

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.

After the mountain-top event, and they're on their way back down, the text says:

10 They kept the matter to themselves, discussing what "rising from the dead" meant.

This gives an indication that as far as Mark was concerned, the event should be seen--if nothing else--as confirmation of the promise of the resurrection of the dead. To some degree, the 3 privileged disciples were granted an advanced look at what RESURRECTION was all about.
This one-time advanced look then (obviously) quickly made its way into the genre of sacred story, was preserved in the oral tradition, and then included by Mark in his Gospel.
As I said yesterday, we cannot time travel back to the event and even if we could, only 3 of that larger group were privileged to see it. And yet if by faith we can accept that it actually happened, we can rejoice at this GLIMPSE of the resurrection, knowing that human pain, suffering, grief, and crosses will not have the final word.

cheers,

TM