Jesus doesn’t want his disciples to announce his kingdom until they get it, until they understand the upside-down nature of the kingdom. So, for example, Peter confesses that Jesus is the Christ. Jesus then says, “Good. You’ve got that I’m the Messiah. Now let me tell you what kind of Messiah I am. Let me enlarge your understanding of Messianic identity.” And so he begins to teach them about his coming betrayal and death and resurrection. He says it “plainly,” clearly, with no mystery. And then Peter’s Confession leads to Peter’s Confusion.

And here in Mark 9, Jesus, who had the appearance of average-looking First Century Jewish man, suddenly changed into something else. His clothes became radiant and intensely white — and this was not your mother’s bleach. Mark says that. This was an other-worldly, intense, shining kind of white. And because we have an imagination, we can kind of get the idea. This would have been stunning to see.

Shame is a painful emotion we feel in the presence of others for not living up to their expectations. And the intentional effort to bring shame on someone in public is nothing new to the twenty-first century.

So here are three basic facts about reality. You are here and now. God—your Maker—is here and now. And this God, the living God, is pursuing you. These three facts yield a fourth—every moment of every day, we are confronted with a Choice— either embrace and welcome this reality, surrendering ourselves to the eternal, omnipresent, and pursuing God, or we can vainly try to hide from him, to resist his advances, to reject his demands.

We can hardly overstate what is happening here, because for the first time in the Gospel of Mark, someone understands a parable from Jesus. And it wasn’t the Jewish leaders of the day, it wasn’t the men skilled in understanding the Hebrew Scriptures, and it wasn’t even the disciples who had been living with Jesus; instead, it was this Syrophonecian woman with a demon-possessed daughter who lived out way by the coast in the land of pagans. This woman, in every category, would have been the exact opposite of the Pharisees! — and the most important thing that is different about her is that she has faith. That is her connection to Jesus.

It’s okay for this to feel surprising. How quick might we be today to say, “C’mon, Jesus, focus on the family.” Well, a time will come to woo his brothers and to make provision for his mother’s care as he hangs on the cross, but now is a time to graciously, firmly resist his own family’s worldly desires for him. God’s call on him can’t be held back by their ability to understand him at this stage.

Paul wants for the Colossians, and for you and me, to be mature in Christ, and that means not centering our lives on anything else.

It’s a sin to invent sins. Put another way, it’s a sin to establish your own righteousness. This is why Pharisaism is popular in every generation, and comes in every size, shape, and color. There is great power in being the cultural gatekeeper. If you establish your own tradition, and you fulfill your tradition, and you can convince others to follow your tradition, you’ve got a lot of power, especially if you can convince them that your tradition is from God, that your commandments are the doctrines of God.

Because of the cross and resurrection of Jesus, because of Easter, we have hope. That’s what we celebrate today. And Paul’s point here is to strengthen our hope by telling us that it can never be taken away.

This is one of the greatest events in the earthly ministry of Jesus. It’s actually the only miracle that’s told in all four Gospels. And I want us to look at it this morning at a couple levels. First, there is just the reality of what happened; so I want us to just walk through how this story unfolds. But then, second, there is something that Mark wants us to know about Jesus here, and that’s main point we’re going to see.