🦁 Transfiguration 👑
Readings: 2 Kings 2:1-12; Psalm 50:1-6; 2 Corinthians 4:3-6; Mark 9:2-9.
From the TRNG Room:
Reflection
Welcome to First Forward; Advanced Scriptural Insight for Christian Soldiers. This is Brother Logan Isaac broadcasting from Albany, Oregon. First forward just dives right into the readings, which is The sixth. This is the sixth Sunday after Epiphany, which is going to be right before Ash Wednesday when we change from Epiphany to Lent. And so the the Sunday before Lent is always when we do transfiguration. And so this is Transfiguration Sunday, also known this year in year B when we cover Mark, also known as Epiphany six, the readings that we'll be going over this morning are second Kings Chapter two, Psalm 50, second Corinthians four and the Gospel of Mark. Chapter nine and the Gospel Reading for Transfiguration Sunday for Mark Marks the Year B We have the Transfiguration. We have Jesus, Peter, James and John, and they meet Moses and Elijah. And so there are three and three and three is an important number here.
Jesus is going to be part of the three with Moses and Elijah Moses being the oldest back in Genesis, and then Elijah being the kind of middle prophet. And these are both prophets or these are people in their prophetic role. Moses, as a judge, I think he's also called a prophet. He's not a priest. His brother Aaron is the priest. Elijah, on the other hand, is the prophet. He never dies. In fact, that's another one of our readings, which I'll get to. And then Jesus is set up in this role of the latest prophet and the reading that this is paired with second kings too, makes it very clear that Jesus is the new prophet. Second Kings, too, talks about Elijah's death, and this gives us the reason why we we, you know, treat Elijah as never having died. He has an empty seat at Passover Seder dinners and in other situations because he never experienced death. But he does go away and his successor, Elisha, steps up. And so we'll turn to the readings for Second Kings to notice. There are there are themes of three. Not only is it Moses, Elijah, Jesus and Peter James and John. Here we have two prophets going in a series of three places. They leave Guild Gaul, the first place they encounters the River Jordan Here, Elijah strikes the river just and separates the waters and evocation of the crossing of the sea of reeds when they were fleeing Pharaoh's army. Then they come to Jericho, which is the first site of battle for the Israelites as they enter the promised land. And then finally, Bethel is the city that has recurring appearances, but its translation is Bayt Beit El, the House of God. And this is linguistically it is evoking the entire house of God, which includes the Israelites. They are the House of God. They house the Tabernacle of God, which will go up in Shiloh until the United Kingdom. But notice the three, the River Jordan, Jericho and then Bethel. And this happens again. And Joshua, where they re inscribe the story of Israel in their activities, their behavior, they are also circumcised. And Joshua, so it's repeating the same story to remember to remind them why they're doing what they're doing, what they're doing, how it relates to their own history and what is going what is going to pave the way for in the future.
Now, the site of the transfiguration is not named in Mark's gospel or any gospel, but it's traditionally held to be Mt. Tabor, which was the site of the Battle of Midian and judges for and remembered in song the song of Deborah and Judges five. This is the day of Midian, when Deborah and her Commander Barrack and the the woman El, whose name means Mountain Goat. This is what Mount Tabor elicits in Israelite memory. This is where Jesus goes to meet Moses and Elijah and brings three of his own people. Peter, James and John. So this is through and through. Using the military history of Israel as inclusive to the story of of Israel, but not the only thing about it. And it also draws on recent military history that they would have known about. Bethel was the site of a Maccabean fortress.
You know, the the Maccabees, the Hasmonean dynasty. They set up a military camp in Bethel, in Jericho, at Jesus's. During this lifetime it was a site of Herodian military fort. It was also another Maccabean I'm sorry, it wasn't Maccabee and Seleucid so it was an enemy encampment. And here again, Jesus's time. Herod was not seen as necessarily the friend at all. So these are enemy fortifications, Herod the inhabitants. When Rahab was there, etc.. And then the Jordan is a remembrance, remembrance point. In fact, Elisha, after Elijah was taken off, he grabs Elisa's coat or mantel. He rolls it up just like Elijah did strikes to the Jordan River, just like Elijah did. And it parts just like it did with Elijah. And there's a bunch of prophets who are watching this and they say, Oh yeah, the spirit of Elijah has rested on Elisha and then listen to what happens in that story as they're going up, they are met at these two locations by a company of prophets. Each were native to the town, first to Bethel, and they say, Do you know this is the day Elijah leaves and you become the new prophet? And Elisha says, Yeah, I know, shut up, right? Yes, I know. Keep silent as ESV, I think. And then Elijah asks Elisha again, Do you want to come with me? And he's like, Yeah, I'm going to come with you. Then Jericho, another company of prophets, says, The same thing. Do you know today you will become the new prophet and your master will leave? He answers the exact same. Yes, I know. Be silent. Yeah. Okay. Shut up. Right. That silence is important for later for the reading And Mark after these two town prophetic circles say these things. They're saying it verbatim and each time. Right? And he says, Keep silent and then it happens. And Elijah says to Elisha before it happens. If you keep looking, if you see it happen, you'll get that double portion of my spirit. But if you don't see it, you won't get it. So not only is hearing and listening involved, but seeing and paying attention is involved, paying attention being kind of the the central thing, right? When he says keep silent, he's really saying, let me pay attention to what's going on. Stop trying to distract me. And maybe you should also listen to. So Elijah has carried off Alisha has his robe. He strikes Jordan River. The the prophets are confirmed and this is going on beyond the reading, but it will eventually go on to talk about the bears, that the two bears that maul the men. And it's really just the young men. The people look at that and think, Oh, how unfair. It's like, are your sense of unfair is not what's going on here. The story isn't about you, it's about what's going on and the power that God is giving Elisha, this new prophet Jesus and Mark is the new prophet. And instead of the new prophet saying, Shut up, God is the one who says that Peter speaks up and says, What do we do? Well, let's let's make a record for you. And God says, Jesus, don't say anything. But they say they're terrified. And he's just kind of blurting out, you know, brain farts. And so God says, This is my son, the beloved, Listen to him, right? That evokes what Elisha was telling the prophets. Keep silent. The, you know, the implied message being, Listen, listen with me. I'm listening. Stop distracting me. Focus on what's important. And so there's these thematic elements that the and all the revised Common Lectionary is trying to draw in. But there's also I'm not there's a part that I'm not sure that we always have seen, namely this military association. Right. The new prophet as soon as in second kings three before. Well so second kings too. Elisha has received Elijah's power and God has done this thing. He sends bears to show the young men not to be douchebags and he strikes the water. There's a couple of miracles, right? Second Kings three, there's a battle. There's some brouhaha with I don't think it's Ahab. I can't remember who it is, but these were like, King is like, I'm going to go to battle. Like Elisha helps advise him then and second kings for the of my woman that has a son that has died, Elisha raises the son up and then in second Kings five, we have the only place in the Greek Septuagint where we have the word baptism, and it's applied to a foreign and foreign soldier name and the Syrian. Now think about that as we look at Luke seven, the soldier who is baptized or the the grace that comes to a foreign soldier is Captain Marvel in Luke seven. And after that a woman is healed the the the son, not the Sunni woman, the woman, I think with many husbands. And then just before that, there's doubting John. So there's these repeating patterns of three where military experience and perspective is overlooked at the expense of understanding and fully comprehending what's going on. Luke seven seems to draw very heavily on second Kings two and second Kings five I'm sorry, second Kings four and second Kings five four. Captain Marvel and the woman. Oh my goodness.
Nine The woman from nine and Luke seven. Who has healing brought to her. And it was the son. The son that died exactly like the and woman of Second Kings four. And the only difference is that Captain Marvel in Luke seven isn't baptized, but the first people baptized into the church is Cornelius and Acts ten. So there's this. I know it probably sounds like a conspiracy. We all like that meme of Kali from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, but it's there if you just look, if you look and only find the things that make you comfortable that re-instill this idea that God is nice and gentle and meek and mild and, you know, we just kind of we get upset that the bears maul this guy and it's like, well, if we believe in eternal life, there's worse things that can happen in death than death, and that I'd rather have something bad happen to me to correct something bad that I did. Then to go on without correction and to become the kind of person who will never inherit the kingdom of heaven. That's just me, right? Life is fleeting. But if what we believe about Jesus is true, that he was resurrected and that we can be resurrected in some in some way, then it's not about death, right? Death is not the worst thing that can happen to you. Oppression is bad, injustice is bad. The worst thing, though, the thing that will condemn you is to become a bad person. To spoil. Right? Like, you know, old fish that's been left out on the counter.
Those people who are oppressed, those people who are suffering, can be assured that it will end right with God's help, either in life or afterlife. But if you fuck it up right, if you become a bad person. I'm sorry. That's it. That seems to be the message, the eschatological reality that Jesus and Christianity points toward. Right. So yeah, you're right. A bunch of young men insulted a bald guy and they got killed for it. But I, I, I suspect I think the kind of ethical framework I see the Bible as promoting or creating suggests that they did something screwed up. Something screwed up happened to them, and the scales would reset and they're probably and whatever, you know, version of heaven we think existed during the Hebrew in the in Hebrew scriptures. Right. And so don't don't get too caught up in yourself. Pay attention to what's important. The things that we are being that we are paying attention to might not feel good. They might not, you know, feel satisfying in the nice, you know, nonviolent, kumbaya kind of way. But God and Jesus are not Kumbaya nonviolent. There's something else I don't know what to call it quite yet, but I think we have to notice these these cues in our readings in the Old Testament and be able to connect what the message, what God is doing throughout and across the Old and New Testaments as we like to call them. And part of that is coming to terms with the military history and the Old Testament and the military allusions and framework and the new. And I think this is one of those places where we have to do it, starting with the very base notion that Mount Tabor, if it's the site of the Transfiguration, Jesus is transfigured in the same place. Deborah and Barrack one at the day of Midian. Like that's a big deal. Jesus is the new prophet who succeeds and and overshadows Elijah, who fulfills the commandments of Moses that Moses brought, and that these this lineage is unbroken, that we can't just kind of excise parts of Moses or parts of Elijah and Alisha or parts of Israel's history to take it as a whole. We have to look at those uncomfortable bits and figure out and understand how they might fit into the whole. And so hopefully first forward is helping you do that. Thank you for subscribing. If you've listened to this on the morning of at First Formation, I encourage you to keep thinking about it, you know, and subscribe to first forward. If this is something that you want to know in advance to be thinking about before you know the the the sun actually arrives on and you'll be supporting a veteran business as well, or at least I don't know if I'm a business person or something close to it, and I'd appreciate your support and any feedback you have to offer.
