originally published as Mark 9:2-13 

Peter speaks

The feeling inside as we came down the mountain (even though we were quickly brought down to earth with a bump) was kind of ‘Wow!’ and ‘amazing!’ and ‘wow!’ again.  I was stirred and stunned, amazed and afraid, and totally gobsmacked all at the same time!  Jesus didn’t really have to tell us not to speak of it, because in truth I wouldn’t have known what to say!  I mean, how could anyone find the words to describe what we saw? Would any language be enough to truly capture that wonderful moment once again?

Ha! I’ve just realised what I said; ‘…Capture the moment…’  That’s ironic!  Can you believe that is exactly what I tried to do?  What a fool I made of myself! What an idiot!  How did I ever think I could capture that moment?  As if I could! As if I should!

But all that is jumping ahead, and I’m probably making no sense to you whatever! Better back track and start at the beginning, hadn’t I?    

There we were, the usual three of us, off up the mountain with Jesus. We climbed for hours, so it seemed, and so high!    

Now, if there’s a place I love nearly as much as the open sea, then it has to be up a mountain. The fresh air, the quiet, that huge sense of space!  Normally I’d be describing the view to you; that’s what catches you up a mountain, isn’t it?  You don’t look at the people with you, do you?  Companionable they may be, but your eyes are always drawn to something bigger; the vastness of the vista, the shadows racing across the valley and the amazing lighting effects on the hills.  Oh, and to see a sunrise or sunset from up there, the glow reflected in the mist below – glorious!  Nothing short of glorious!

But I can’t tell you anything about the view this time.  That’s not what caught out attention.  It was Jesus. Yes, he was glowing! 

How can I describe it?  Jesus was transformed before our eyes. His clothes became white – whiter than even my mother-in-law could wash them!  Shining white!  Unnaturally white! Glorious white! Dare I say it, it’s like he shone with the glory of God?  

It was just as I imagined it to have been for Moses when he met with God on Mount Sinai. Remember the story? His face glowed. It shone! And that’s just what happened to Jesus, except all over.  We saw God’s glory on Jesus just as it says they saw it on Moses. Only better, I think. This was not like something that came on Jesus, it came from him.  We were seeing him in his glory – the glory of the Son of God.

And then, suddenly, he was there too: Moses!  And not just Moses, Elijah too!  Both there, talking with Jesus.  Why they were there, I hadn’t got a clue. But it was amazing!

Then I thought, why are we there – James and John and I?  We were not party to the conversation, just looking on.  But Jesus had chosen us to come with him, so I thought he must have brought us along for a reason.  It never occurred to me that it was simply to be with him and to witness the event.  I had to do something – had to say something. (That’s me all over, isn’t it?  When I’m lost and out of my depth, I have to talk. It makes me feel better. A kind of defence mechanism, I suppose. I find it comforting to hear my own voice… Comforting to speak… Comforting to try to do something, even if I honestly have no idea what is going on, let alone what to say or do!)

Well, this moment was so wonderful – so awesome – that I just felt I had to capture it.  Keep it.  Stay with it forever. 

How to do that?  Why not build a tent?  No, not just one tent – three tents; one each for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah.  Yes, we could do that!  We could make them comfortable. Give them somewhere to stay. Elijah, Moses, Jesus … enshrined!  The moment kept forever!  (In truth, I was so shocked and scared that I did not know what I was saying.  How can we ever hope to keep God in a box?  But the experience was so intense, I Just didn’t want to let it go!)  

I wish, now, that I had never spoken, because the moment I did, it got even scarier still!  The cloud came in and covered us. Up there in the mountain, not able to see more than a few feet in front of your face, who wouldn’t be anxious or afraid?   But that was not it.  Moses… the mountain… the clouds … does that ring any bells?  And then, yes, the voice!  God himself was speaking to us, to me!  His voice was strong and commanding, almost a rebuke at my having dared to speak. ‘This is my son, and I love him’ God said.  ‘Listen to him!’ 

And when we dared look again, only Jesus remained.  We searched all around, but there was no Moses or Elijah, and no shiny, glorious clothes – only Jesus. The Jesus we had always known.  And the echo of the voice: ‘This is my beloved son … listen to him!’

Now you have got to excuse me, but I am only just beginning to get my head round all of this.  What I’ve told you is what I saw… although, I repeat, my words could never truly capture the moment. How could they?

James and John, I have to tell you, are as stunned as I am. The ‘Sons of Thunder’ unusually silent. Not just because Jesus told us not to say anything (and hadn’t God just told us to listen to him?), but because we just do not know what to say!

What do I make of it?  I don’t rightly know!  The mountains, the clouds and the glory rang loudly with allusions.  Moses, Elijah and God – were they really there?    Was it actually God’s voice telling us to listen to Jesus?   And what about Jesus, shining with glory?!   You work it out if you can!

And what about all that stuff about not telling anyone about what we had seen ‘until the Son of Man had been raised from the dead?’  What did that mean?  And why was Jesus so insistent about it?  I hope it all comes clear with time.  For now, I’m relieved I don’t have to try and find words to describe the indescribable.  But I’m also mystified as to why we were barred from speaking of seeing Jesus in all his glory.

This all came up on the way down the mountain, when we asked about Elijah. Why was it, we asked Jesus, that they said Elijah had to come first, to prepare for the Messiah?   

‘Indeed, he will come first,’ said Jesus, ‘In fact, he has already come, and look at what they did to him!’    His tone of voice and that pained look in his eye, gave away who he was thinking about.  Every time he talks about his cousin John, Jesus has that same look and tone.

Thinking back to all these weird predictions Jesus has been making, I’m now wondering if his “and look at what they did to him!”  means that Jesus saw a pattern emerging; a road laid out that he himself must tread?   You know just how hard I found that to swallow the first time I heard it in Caesarea Philippi.  But here it was again.  It was as though Jesus was saying: ‘You can’t build tents to protect me. I have to be free to follow the path God has set.’

Again, Jesus left us with a question: ‘Why do the scriptures say that the Son of Man must suffer much and be rejected?’   I’m still not sure that I knew that they did!   If they do, I’m not at all happy with it!   But this was Jesus’ last word after banning us from saying anything; ‘think about why the Son of man must suffer and be rejected.’  

Was his ban deliberate, do you think, because Jesus knows that there is something yet to come which is needed to make sense of all this? Something that reveals what true glory is?  Is that what his talk about dying and rising is all about?   Maybe.  

In that case, while this moment was so very special, it can’t be ‘it’, can it?  To cling to the moment and to try and capture it was a mistake.  And to try and capture Jesus in an experience, no matter how wonderful, will always be mistake.  He won’t be boxed in.  Jesus moves on.  He comes down from the mountain top and out into the thick of it, accepting suffering and rejection so as to fulfil the work of God.  ‘It is in this that true glory is displayed’, he seems to be saying.  And the voice of God echoes in my mind, “this is my Son- listen to him!”