Daily Devotions

As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead. So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what this rising from the dead could mean.

Then they asked him, “Why do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?” He said to them, “Elijah is indeed coming first to restore all things. How then is it written about the Son of Man, that he is to go through many sufferings and be treated with contempt? But I tell you that Elijah has come, and they did to him whatever they pleased, as it is written about him.” Mark 9:9-13

I think about writing a daily devotion every morning. I’ve tried to do it again. But the simple fact is that I got stuck here in the 9^th chapter of Mark after the story of the transfiguration. I don’t know what to make of the fact that the last time I posted a devotion was also on a Wednesday. In that last one, I called Wednesday – like the Transfiguration itself – a tipping point. Maybe that is what it is. So here we go.

We have been told, our whole lives, that we need to talk about Jesus with other people. Talk about Jesus. Talk about Jesus. Talk about Jesus. Talk about Jesus. You get the point.

So how does that square with Jesus’ words as he leads his friends down from the glory of their mountaintop peak experience into the real broken world in which they lived? “Jesus ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.”

What does Jesus know that we forget? Maybe it is this – as important as words are, as important as the Word is, the bottom line is that talk is cheap.

As we will discover later in the story, Jesus’ followers are there, not for the good of the world, but for the prospect of their own privileged position in what they believe to be God’s coming earthly, majestic, all-powerful, glorious, kingdom. Like a corrupt Senator trading on inside information to dump a stock before the market crashes, they are IN baby and they want to stay there.

But Jesus will have none of that. Watch what I DO, because ONLY THEN will you have the slightest understanding of what I have been saying to you all along! This isn’t, by the way, anything new. Have you READ the story of Elijah? Do you REMEMBER how the king and queen – yes, the politicians of the day – sought to kill Elijah?

What will be new? Jesus will rise from the dead. And his disciples will learn not just to talk the talk but to actually walk the walk. That, whenever and wherever it happens, will always be new.

Let us pray: Dear Lord, as we find ourselves today in this surreal experience of a worldwide pandemic, make us mindful of empty words that don’t lead to actual action. Give us the patience and the perseverance that you modeled as you fulfilled your purpose among us. Give us opportunity today, not to talk the talk but to walk the walk. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

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