A Debt of Gratitude: Mark 9:9-10
As Jesus draws closer to the cross, the disciples mature considerably in their faith. There is an underlying current of truth in this. The more serious our life situation, the more focused we can become. The more significant our need to get it right, the more we can understand our need to be proficient.
As the three came down the mountain with Jesus, He charges them to say nothing about this to anyone until after the resurrection. Jesus doesn’t explain Himself, either. As they travel, the disciples ponder what “raised from the dead” might mean.
Jesus may seem a bit aloof in this passage, but He is justified in being so. Jesus has already told His disciples He is going to be persecuted, killed by the religious elite, and rise again. Jesus shouldn’t need to go into a tremendous amount of explanation because He’s already done it.
Then again, how often do I learn the first time? How often do I hear an explanation, say it makes sense, and then flub the very next time I need to demonstrate proficiency in whatever I claimed to learn? It’s been said frequently on this blog the last couple of weeks, but hearing something once doesn’t equate to having learned it.
This is demonstrated as the disciples head down the mountain. In questioning the resurrection, they illustrate they didn’t get it. Granted, understanding the resurrection of the dead is the kind of thing one must experience to understand. If someone approached me and told me they were going to die but I’d talk with them a couple days later, I’m pretty sure I’d wonder about their sanity.
That makes me pause, though. In our churches, we profess to believe in the resurrection of the dead. In fact, we profess it so much it becomes something we say and talk about in normal conversation. We owe a significant debt of gratitude to the disciples and all the great theologians who helped ensure the teaching of the resurrection of the dead is understandable. Many modern Christians have no trouble understanding what Jesus means here. The very thing that confused the disciples greatly is something modern Christians now readily understand. This is the power of one generation passing the faith along to the next. We understand so plainly because those who came before worked so hard to make sense of it.
The disciples do listen to Jesus, though. When Jesus asks them to keep quiet about what just happened, they do. Sure, they talk to each other about it. But, they aren’t going around talking to outsiders about what happened. The Father tells them to listen, and they do. Unlike the crowds, who talk so they can have their fifteen minutes of glory, the disciples keep quiet and ponder Jesus’ teachings in their heart and small community until the time is right to share with the world. As Jesus draws closer to the cross, the disciples mature considerably in their faith.
