Good morning, and a blessed Thursday morning to you. Would you open up your Bibles, please, to Mark, the ninth chapter—Mark chapter nine—for our time in God’s Word today.

This coming Wednesday, we will be entering into the season of Lent with Ash Wednesday. That is such a rich, rich time in the life of a congregation.

Prior to the beginning of Lent, the church remembers the Transfiguration of our Lord. That’s where Mark 9 comes into view. Look at that with me, please—verse 2:

“Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John.”

This little aside here—Peter and James and John—that was the inner circle Jesus had among his disciples.

“Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John and led them up a high mountain, apart by themselves. And he was transfigured before them. And his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them.

And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus.”

Jesus is manifesting his post-Easter glory here on the mount—that post-Easter glory in the presence, as Scripture says, of Moses and Elijah. It is rich in symbolism: the Law and the Prophets bear witness to the Lord Jesus Christ. So Jesus was transfigured before them, manifesting his post-Easter glory before the Cross.

Scripture tells us in the other accounts. In Matthew 17, his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. In Luke 9, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white.

It’s rather remarkable how some have tried to explain away this manifestation of the post-Easter glory of our Lord. Some have said, “Oh, this was just a dream or a hallucination,” or others have said it was merely the sun’s reflection off the snow-capped mountains—that this did not really occur.

No, this occurred. Peter, writing about it thirty years later in 2 Peter, the first chapter, says:

“For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.”

John writes in the first chapter of his Gospel—and “the Word” is another designation for Jesus:

“And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only Son, full of grace and truth.”

What one has here is the divine nature of God shining through.

Look at verse 7:

“And the cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him.’”

God in the flesh.

The Lord Jesus had to be divine so that he was sinless. He had to be human so that he could take our sin upon himself. And that’s exactly what he did on the Cross, when he paid the debt for our sin that we could never pay—winning for us, through his shed blood as the spotless Lamb of God, the forgiveness of our sins.

Look, please, at verse 8:

“Suddenly, when they looked around, they saw no one with them anymore, but only Jesus.”

Then verse 9:

“As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.”

Why did he order them not to say anything about it? Because his mission could only be fully understood in light of the Cross. The time for proclamation would come.

As we anticipate Lent this coming Wednesday with the Ash Wednesday service and that incredible season, we are reminded of the glory of our Lord Jesus. And we are reminded that now is the time to proclaim.

Let us pray.

Gracious Heavenly Father, we give you thanks for this time in your Word. Your Word is truth. We thank you, Lord, for this account of the manifestation of your post-Easter glory on the Mount of Transfiguration. We give you thanks, O Lord, that what followed these events would be the Cross—the reason why you came—to die and to rise for us.

And we give you thanks that now is the time to proclaim.

In your holy and precious name, Lord Jesus, we pray. Amen.

God bless you. Encourage someone.