Good to Be Here

Preaching Notes

Focus texts: Deuteronomy 18:15-20, Mark 1:21-28

Then Peter said to Jesus, "Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah" (Mark 9:5 NRSV).

“It is good for us to be here,” he says. Lucky you, Jesus. Well done, Jesus. You need us here. We’re going to fix the hospitality problem you have. We’re going to take care of things for you. At least that is how it sounds. It is interesting how Mark defuses the awkwardness by saying they didn’t know what to say because they were shaking in their boots.

That’s understandable, I suppose, when the light gets so bright that you think you see dead heroes talking to your teacher on top of a mountain. And there was the cloud, covering up Peter’s feigned confidence, and a voice telling them to listen to the one who was glowing over there next to someone who looked like that actor in that movie, and the other one who seemed a bit scruffy. It is good for us to be here. James and John looked at Peter with mouths agape as if to say, “I can’t believe you said that, bro.”

This is the weekend before Lent begins and is, traditionally, Transfiguration Sunday. That’s this odd story in Mark about Jesus on the mountain and the change in his face and clothes and the words from the cloud and the light.  You remember that story. It’s one of those we sit and listen to and say, “huh.” Because it is, after all, about Jesus. It is just something for us to see or to wonder about. It’s about Jesus and who he was and who he is. We are bystanders, observers, at best. It is about Jesus.

At least, that is what we’ve always assumed. So, let’s leave the Gospel story for a moment and check out the Hebrew scripture text assigned for this Transfiguration Sunday to see if it might help us see this story a little differently.

If the Gospel story is about Jesus, then this “transfiguration” in Second Kings is all about Elijah. The old word was translation. This is the story of the translation of Elijah. It begins with the whole story in the first verse, “When the Lord was about to take Elijah up to heaven by a whirlwind.” Wait. When the Lord was about to... When? That’s kind of an odd way to present the climax, the main point of the whole story, isn’t it? It almost makes you think that the point of this story is something other than the miracle, something other than the special effects.

Please don’t misunderstand, I love the wide-screen stuff. I like the lights, sounds, and the awe-inspiring wonder of some of this Old Testament stuff here. Chariots of Fire, wow! Horses of fire, wow again! A whirlwind carrying Dorothy off to Oz--I mean Elijah off to God’s heaven; wow to the max. I would have stood there with my mouth open, not making a sound--like the company of prophets who came and stood on the other side of the Jordan to watch the spectacle, standing at a safe distance so as not to get fiery horse droppings on their heads. I’m ready to applaud the awesomeness of God just like anyone else. But Jesus had a few words about miracles for show, as I recall, so I’m inclined to think that maybe the pyrotechnics are not the center of this story. Whether we are talking about the light show with Jesus on the mountain or the last round-up with Elijah and the whirlwind.

It is good for us to be here.

Let’s take another look at this story to see if we can figure out what it is really about. For example, why does God take Elijah on such an extended journey to the pick-up point?  It’s sort of a Close Encounters vibe. But what would it profit Elijah (sorry, bad pun there) to make this journey? A farewell tour? If so, he didn’t say much, no proclamations, no final warnings or sermons. It was just one foot in front of another, mile after mile. It was just a couple of miles short of a marathon, near as we can tell. It was twenty-three miles of marching from place to place at the direction of a God who can’t read the timetables of the Jordan Cannonball.

Unless this whole event wasn’t for Elijah. What if, just suppose for a moment, it was all for Elisha? What if the constant suggestion that he go away was not a request from an old man about to meet his maker, but a test from a mentor prophet. The trip was for Elisha, a rehearsal of the activity of God with God’s people. The first destination was Bethel, where God dropped a ladder and made a promise of Presence. The second destination was Jericho, where God proved that there are no walls, no barriers strong enough to block that Presence and that Hope. Then there was the final destination, the Jordan River, the entrance, the welcome home, the gate opened by the hand of God.

Then, because Elisha went along, Elijah asked, “What do you need still?”  “A double share,” answers Elisha. Greedy? Make me twice as good as you? Was that what he said? Well, no. A double share meant, “Let me be your heir. Let me stand for you; let me represent you; let me be you to those who miss you, as I will miss you. Let me love as you loved, serve as you served. Let me be the one who carries on hoping in God, the one who points out the brokenness within, only because there is healing to be found. Let me bring God’s word to God’s people.  Let it be good that I am here.”

Elisha was the one who was transfigured--just as the disciples were the ones transfigured on that mountain with Jesus. Oh, I know Jesus’ face and robe shone like light. But when that voice said, “Listen to him,” the disciples became something more than what they had been, something more than was within them to be. It was good that they were there, good that they had followed him up that mountain to see him with more than their usual eyes, to see him as he was going to be for them and for us and for all.

Transfiguration is about Jesus, yes certainly. But it is also about us. Like Elisha, we’ve been led on a journey and asked a question. We’ve been led through the Providence and Presence and Power of God and then asked what we need. And we reply, “Give us a double share. Let us speak for you; let us live for you; let us be in service for you; let us love for you, let us die for you.”

“It’s a hard thing,” Elijah replies to us. We know that. The disciples know that. Or rather, they learned that with all that followed. And no doubt, they had their moments when they wondered if it really was good that they were there, that they asked for the double share. We know too. We’ve wondered the same. We’ve wrestled with it before and probably will again. But in the end, it is an offer we can’t refuse. Give us a double share. It is good that we are here.