Seeing is Believing: Glory
Jesus Christ is Fully God and Fully Man
Mark 9:2-9
Rev. Tim Callow
Preached Sun. Feb. 14, 2021
Soren Kierkegaard, a danish lay theologian and philosopher, tells the story of a prince who fell in love with a peasant woman. But the prince feared that he would overwhelm her with his wealth and power. Being a princess is, after all, a major responsibility. One also has to be familiar with the etiquette and ritual, it’s not all what Disney has led us to believe. So the prince hatches a plot, he puts on the rags of a peasant and goes to work with the woman. He jokes with her, listens to her stories. It creates a dramatic tension. When will the prince confess his love? Will the girl confess first? When will the prince reveal his true identity, take off his rags, and lead the girl to the castle so they can live happily ever after? Perhaps, he will even wait until the wedding night itself to reveal his true identity.
Sometimes, we think of Jesus’ incarnation this way. We can imagine that Jesus was really God in a man suit because he knew that we could not handle his true glory and divinity. He puts on the rags of flesh to court us, that we might fall in love with him. Then we eagerly await that moment when he’ll take those rags off, and reveal his true identity, and whisk us all away to his home in the sky.
The only problem with that, Kierkegaard says, is that Jesus is a man all the way down. There is no royal purple under his peasant rags. Jesus is fully man. The Romans knew this, they put nails through his hands and a spear through his side. They saw the blood run down. They heard him say, “I thirst.” The crucified Christ is the resurrected Christ, and it is only the crucified Christ that can save us.
Only the crucified Christ can save us because only the crucified Christ that can show us the way of peace. If Jesus were somehow superhuman, somehow unhuman, he could not be our savior. The savior of the human race must be part of the human race. If he’s a great human teacher, he has to be teaching something that we can actually follow. When we say that God took on flesh in Jesus Christ, we are not saying that he’s a cosmic superman. He still had a human will, he still had human bones, human muscles, a human brain, and a human soul. He was every bit as human as we are. Human rags all the way down.
This is why Paul can say, “And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.” Remember the carol Hark the Harold Angels Sing? “Veiled in flesh the Godhead see, hail th’ incarnate deity!” While Jesus Christ is human all the way down, he is still God in flesh. God with us. He is still the eternal word living a human life. And he is still the glory of God shining in the darkness. This is what we proclaim. It is only by the name of Jesus Christ that we may be saved, that it is in this Jew from Nazareth that we find our hope. For by being God he could break the power of sin and overcome the devil, but by being human he could do so for our sake. So while by all appearance he is just another man, it is by faith that we are given the grace to see our salvation in him.
Today is Transfiguration Sunday. Today we commemorate that strange account Mark places at the very center of his gospel, where Peter, James, and John are blessed with vision of Jesus’ divinity, in an episode that mirrors Jesus’ Baptism. Jesus leads them up a mountain, alone. Then, as they are up there, Jesus is transfigured. His clothes become dazzling white as no one could bleach them. He exudes the glory of God. And next to him stand Moses and Elijah, who are talking with him.
Peter is terrified, and doesn’t know what to say. So he blurts out, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” Perhaps Peter mistakenly thought the end had come, and Jesus was now going to restore the Kingdom of Israel. He is, after all, talking to the great lawgiver in Moses, and to the prophet who was to come before the Messiah in Elijah. But this was not the beginning of the restoration of the Kingdom. That would be the cross. Instead a cloud comes and overshadows them. And from the cloud comes a mighty voice. “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” Just as the whole episode began, it was over. The cloud dispersed, and they were once again alone with the Jesus they knew and love.
As they went down the mountain Jesus ordered them to tell no one what they had seen, until the resurrection.
In this moment, Peter, James, and John are given miraculous vision. It is a matter of grace, though they may not have known it at the time. It is vision that we too may be given. That vision is to see in Jesus more than just the itinerant preacher, more than just the healer, more than just the exorcist, more than just the peasant in rags. But to see in him the light that shines brighter than the sun, to see the robes bleached whiter than any human robes, to see in him the glory of divinity. The glory that was always present, though always concealed. The glory that may be seen by the light of faith.
Remember when Jesus told Nathaniel that he would see greater sights? When he told him he would see angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man? Here Peter, James, and John see those sights. They see that Jesus is not God underneath, but that this Jesus is God. And we may see as well. We may see in the rags the source of our healing, and in his flesh our salvation.
It is this Jesus, and no other, who is our hope. And contrary to all appearances, he is Lord. If we but have the eyes that see and the ears that hear. God desires to give the eyes and ears we need to all of us, who call on his name, believe in his word, and accept the coming of the Kingdom and repent.