Glorious

“Amplify:  Glorious” Mark 9:1-13   God and Mountaintops . . .   God chose to reveal Jesus as God in the flesh. “And He was transfigured before them, and His clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them.” (Mark 9:2-3; John 1:14; Colossians 1:15-20; 2:9)   God demonstrated that Jesus is the Messiah and the fulfillment of the Law and Prophets, and God’s final and complete revelation.  “And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses . . .”  (Mark 9:4)   God encouraged His Son, Jesus, as He resolutely set His face to go to Jerusalem where He would be crucified for the sins of the world. “ . . . and they were talking with Jesus.” (Mark 9:4; Luke 9:51)   ·         The saving work of Christ would not have been completed apart from Jesus leaving the mountain and entering the shadowlands to embrace the cross. ·         We are not to freeze-frame mountaintop experiences, but we are to walk daily in the presence of Christ and the activity of His redemptive work.   God affirmed what Peter had confessed about Jesus. “This is My beloved Son; listen to Him.”  (Mark 9:7; 1:11)   Christ and the Cross . . .   Before Christ would ultimately be glorified, He would be brutally crucified. “And as they were coming down the mountain, He charged them to tell no one what they had seen, until the Son of Man had risen from the dead.”  (Mark 9:9; Mark 8:31)   From Mountaintops to Valleys . . .   Following Christ involves bearing the cross before wearing the crown. (Mark 9:34)   Following Christ means leaving the mountaintop moments and engaging those who dwell in the shadows of death.  (Luke 9:37)     ·         Know that Jesus is as present with us as we engage a broken world as He is with us in the moments of glorious and intimate worship.