The Beloved Son: Mark 9:7-8

To understand what God is doing, we need to pay attention.  We all know this.  You can’t learn if you aren’t paying attention.  If your attention wanes, you might miss out.  As a math teacher, I know the lesson well.  It pays to have good attention skills where God is concerned.

In a final moment of confirmation – as if the appearance of Elijah and Moses weren’t enough – the voice of God booms out of heaven.   God identifies Jesus as His Son and tells the disciples to listen to Jesus.  There is a significant amount of content to unpack.

First, there is the identification of Jesus and God’s Son, the beloved one.  God already spoke these words over Jesus at His baptism.  Why would God repeat this?  God doesn’t need to convince Peter, James, and John of this fact as they’ve been following Jesus from the beginning.  I believe God wants to make sure the disciples have a vivid moment of approval proximal to the crucifixion.  When Jesus dies, the disciples will be thrown into disillusion and distress.  Being able to remember this moment will make sure any doubt they have is fleeting.

Second, the Father commands them to listen.  Again, it is worth wondering why the Father says this.  Peter, James, and John were Jesus’ inner cadre of disciples.  If anyone listened to Jesus, it was these three.  However, remember the story that immediately precedes this.  Jesus tells His disciples about the crucifixion and Peter rebukes Jesus.  While I don’t think the Father is using this moment to revisit Peter’s sin, I do think the Father wants to teach the disciples that as Jesus’ teachings get blunter listening will get harder.  The religious elite will escalate the conflict, making it harder to listen.  The crowds will press in on Jesus and demand more time, making it harder to listen.  Life is about to get very complex for the disciples.  They need the reminder to listen.

There is another reason God speaks these words.  We need to hear them.  When the disciples share their recollection of this moment, the listeners will be reminded to listen.  Like the disciples, our lives are also complex.  The world wants to pull us away from the Father.  The world wants to teach us things that Jesus would not have us learn.  We need to be reminded that He is our teacher.  All truth comes from Him.

Then the event is over.  Moses and Elijah vanish.  Jesus no longer glows with a supernatural light.  Looking back, Peter’s suggestion to make tents doesn’t seem so off-base.  I’m guessing the moment is over before Peter’s mind catches up and makes sense of it all.  As spectacular as the moment was, once it is over it feels like a blink-and-you-miss-it event.  Sometimes the biggest displays of God’s power come on suddenly and are easily missed if we aren’t focused.  To understand what God is doing, we need to pay attention.