19 March 2010
Psalm 102; Exod. 2:1-22; 1 Cor. 12:27-13:3; Mark 9:2-13

It’s all about identity. Moses was born during a difficult time, when Hebrew male children were being put to death by Pharaoh. When Pharaoh’s sister finds him in the river she immediately concludes he is a Hebrew but she took pity on him. Was this the reason his mother had placed him in the basket in the river, because she knew that there he would be found by women and not men? Later, when Moses went out to “his people” he identified with them against the Egyptian who was beating the Hebrew and surely thought that he would be accepted as one of them. The next day he learned that they didn’t consider him one of them, he hadn’t shared their difficult life, being raised as “one of them.” Pharaoh then decides that Moses has chosen to identify with the Hebrews and decides to kill him. The daughters of Reuel mistake him for an Egyptian. Moses’ story is incredible and he clearly knew his own story, but who was he, an Egyptian or a Hebrew? He would have forty years outside both those communities, resident as an alien in a foreign land, to work that out.

Here on the mountain, Jesus is speaking with Moses and Elijah, the law and the prophets, and the three disciples with whom Jesus spent much of his time want to make them all equal and capture this moment forever. What happens next is that the others are suddenly gone and Jesus stands alone with the voice from heaven proclaiming Him to be God’s son and they are to listen to Him. The identity of Jesus is made clear to them, He is the Son and has the place of primary importance, He speaks for the Father in a way that these others do not and did not. When we read the law and prophets we need always to keep the Gospel in mind, their fullness is found in Jesus’ interpretation. Both John and Peter, in their writings, reflect on this moment as important to them. John says, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” These men truly understood the revelation of the identity of Jesus.

Our identity as Christians must first be like John’s self-description, we are the ones Jesus loves. Resting in that love we can then begin to live into His call for our lives. We are not primarily identified by our gifts but by our love. The giftedness we have and which we offer to the body and the world is a secondary identity. It is important that we keep that identity clear in order that we exercise our gifts in love and not from a sense of either self-importance or from an excess of humility. Jesus’ primary identity was and is always, only begotten Son and it is out of that relational identity that He works miracles.

Let this be recorded for a generation to come,
so that a people yet to be created may praise the LORD:
that he looked down from his holy height;
from heaven the LORD looked at the earth,
to hear the groans of the prisoners,
to set free those who were doomed to die,