A frustrating and recurring phrase from childhood is this: “You’ll understand one day.” It is a variation on, “I’ll tell you, when you’re older.” As a kid, I detested those phrases. As an adult, I understood their truths: There are some things that make sense only with a little maturity, and the passing of time.
Coming down from Mount of the Transfiguration (held to be Mount Tabor, at least since the 4th Century) Jesus tells the core group of disciples (Peter, James, and John) “… to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead” (vs. 9). Often, this is noted as an example of the Messianic Secret found throughout Mark’s Gospel. Jesus does something remarkable, and then orders folks not to tell a soul. This is a head-scratching concept – why not shout about this from the rooftops? Yet, note the time limit imposed on the secrecy: “… until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.” It appears that what Jesus is teaching, and what he is doing, will make little sense to folks until after his death and resurrection. In fact, folks may get entirely the wrong idea about Jesus, absent the defining events of his passion. Given how wrong and off-course folks can get when a verse or two of Scripture is misinterpreted or taken out of context, we can easily understand Jesus’ demurral.
Here, Jesus refers to himself as the Son of Man, perhaps an allusion to Daniel 7, where the Son of Man is described as wearing dazzling white clothes and descending from God’s throne to bring godly control over the empires of the world. Yet, Jesus will not accomplish this through force of arms, but by changing hearts, including the excluded, offering healing and restoration, embodying love, sharing amazing grace. This will find its climax in his death and resurrection, which will also reveal the context and purpose of his incarnation. What kind of Son of Man is he? He is the Suffering Servant!
It is within this absence of context that Peter reveals his profound lack of understanding as to what he is witnessing. Yearning to prolong the encounter with representatives of the Law (Moses) and Prophets (Elijah); desperate to savor this fulfillment of the Old Testament promises in the person of Jesus; unaware that the mountain top of ecstasy must yield to the hilltop of suffering; Peter wants to build wee dwellings for them all. That is the problem with what the Celts describe as “thin places,” where the division between heaven and earth is gossamer-thin, if it exists at all. There, one can easily lose oneself in the divine – which is mysticism. Luther’s distaste for mysticism, of course, is a practical one: it is impossible to be a servant to one’s neighbor, to truly love the neighbor; if one is (ironically) lost in the One who commands such service and love in the first place.
And so, down the mountain this band of brothers comes. Calvary beckons. Jesus is to be judged, before he becomes the Judge. Peter, James, and John are to experience sheer terror, before they again experience the ekphoboi (vs. 6) of awe and wonder.
