Jesus the Tabernacle (Mark #29)

All of us have moments where we open our mouths and reveal our own foolishness.

I remember one of mine. Sophomore year of high school, driver’s education class. That particular day we were learning to drive on gravel roads — which, growing up in Iowa, is a necessary skill. And this road had fresh gravel on it, so it was loose.

I was in the back seat. My driving partner was at the wheel and our instructor was in the front passenger seat. As we drove, the car slipped and slid a little on the loose rock.

And I decided to share my wisdom with everyone.

“Man — if it’s this slippery in the spring, imagine how bad this is in the winter.”

Many of you already see the problem. In that moment I watched my partner and my instructor glance at each other, and I knew instantly I had said something foolish.

My instructor gently explained that when rain freezes on a gravel road, the rocks break up the ice and effectively create tread — which actually makes a gravel road safer in winter than a paved road, where the ice forms a smooth sheet and you’re far more likely to slide off.

You’ve Had Your Moment Too

There’s an old adage — I tried to confirm Mark Twain said it and couldn’t — that it is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.

In the back seat of that car, I removed all doubt.

And I suspect you’ve had your own. Maybe people were discussing sports. Or theology. Or car repair. Or the latest news. You thought you understood, you spoke up — and as everyone turned to look at you, you realized your foot was firmly in your mouth.

Today Peter Does Exactly This

Today we watch Peter speak up in a moment he doesn’t understand — and reveal his foolishness.

The problem is that looking at his foolishness will probably expose some of ours.

We’re in one of the most famous stories in Christendom: the transfiguration. Most people read it, watch Jesus shine brilliantly white, think we got a glimpse of his glory — and move on.

And moving on is precisely what keeps us in our foolishness.

Because if we look closer we’ll find three elements in this story showing that Jesus isn’t merely displaying glory. He is being shown as completely set apart — distinguished from anyone who has ever lived.

The Passage

Mark 9:2–13.

After six days, Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up a high mountain by themselves. He is transfigured before them, his clothes becoming radiant and intensely white — whiter than anyone on earth could bleach them. Elijah appears with Moses, and they are talking with Jesus.

And Peter says: “Rabbi, it is good that we are here. Let us make three tents — one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” Because he did not know what to say, for they were terrified.

Then a cloud overshadows them, and a voice comes out of it: This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.

And suddenly, looking around, they see no one with them but Jesus only.

Coming down the mountain, Jesus charges them to tell no one until the Son of Man has risen from the dead. They keep it to themselves, asking each other what rising from the dead could mean — and then ask him why the scribes say Elijah must come first.

Element One: Elijah

Walking down the mountain, Peter is doing what Peter does — filling an awkward silence.

He can’t ask about the “rising from the dead” business, because last week we saw him try to correct Jesus about being killed and get rebuked sharply for it. So he casts around and lands on something safe: Hey — why do the scribes say Elijah must come first?

To understand that, you need to know who Elijah was.

Elijah was a prophet whose ministry was marked by extraordinary miracles.

His most famous was a spiritual showdown with the prophets of Baal. Hundreds of them built an altar, laid out a sacrifice, and spent the day calling on their god to send fire — dancing, shouting, even cutting themselves to get his attention. Nothing happened.

Then Elijah took his turn. Same setup — except he dug a trench around the altar and had the whole thing drenched with water until the trench filled. Just to make sure nobody could claim it was easy.

And then he simply asked God to send fire. And it fell and consumed everything.

But that wasn’t his only miracle. He helped a widow whose son had died — and God used him to raise the boy. Earlier, when that same widow had almost nothing left, he asked her to make him a small cake from her last grain and oil, promising she would not run out. And every time she poured, there was more oil. Every time she reached in, there was more grain.

And in one of the more delightful moments, he told the king where to go — and then outran the king’s chariot to get there first.

But That’s Not Why They Talked About Him

All of that would establish Elijah as a great prophet. But it isn’t why his name was constantly on Jewish lips.

Malachi 4:5–6 says that God will send Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes — that he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and children to their fathers.

Those were the last words recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures — what we call the Old Testament.

From that point, God went silent as far as Scripture was concerned. It would be roughly four hundred years before more was written.

So the Jewish people clung to those words — because they knew that if Elijah appeared, the Messiah wasn’t far behind.

It’s like a farmer in a drought spotting clouds in the distance. Hope. They kept their eyes on the horizon watching for Elijah, because Elijah meant the Messiah was coming.

To this day, at the annual Passover meal, Jewish families leave a seat for Elijah, or leave the door cracked so he can enter. Some set out a fifth cup — Elijah’s cup — that no one else drinks from. Because when Elijah drinks, the Messiah is on his way.

So Why Did They Meet Jesus First?

Peter, James, and John knew Malachi. Elijah comes, then the Messiah.

But last week Peter identified Jesus as the Christ — the Messiah. So they met Jesus first, and are only now seeing Elijah. Does that mean they got it wrong?

So they ask. And Jesus answers: he’s already come.

Mark doesn’t spell it out, but Matthew’s account of this same scene tells us the disciples suddenly understood he was speaking about John the Baptist.

Compare them and the parallels stack up. Elijah wore camel hair fastened with a leather belt — and so did John. Elijah’s ministry played out largely in the wilderness — and so did John’s. Their preaching, their bearing, the whole air about them lines up.

John was the Elijah to come. The fulfillment of Malachi. He came first and prepared the way.

So Elijah’s appearance on that mountain says: Jesus is not merely another prophet or miracle worker. He is not someone who multiplies grain and oil. He is the one Elijah points to.

Element Two: Moses

If a group of Jewish people debated the greatest of all their Old Testament figures, Moses would be in the conversation.

Someone would argue for Abraham, since God used him to begin the Jewish people. Someone would argue for David — the giant-slayer, a man after God’s own heart, the line the Messiah would come through.

And inevitably someone would say: it has to be Moses.

God used Moses to bring the people out of four hundred years of slavery in Egypt. And then Moses put up with those people for forty years in the wilderness — which alone is remarkable evidence of greatness.

But the strongest argument is Exodus 33:11, which says the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.

You don’t see God relate to anyone else in the Old Testament quite that way.

“Show Me Your Glory”

Which is probably why, a few verses later, Moses has the audacity to ask God to show him his glory.

Moses has already watched the plagues in Egypt. He’s watched a sea part. He’s watched manna appear. And he still asks for more.

And God says yes — that he will make his goodness pass before him and proclaim his name, and be gracious to whom he is gracious and show mercy to whom he shows mercy.

But then verse 20: you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.

So God places him in a cleft of the rock and covers him with his hand while the glory passes — and then removes his hand so Moses sees his back, but never his face.

Hold onto that. We’re coming back to it.

The Prophet Like Moses

In Deuteronomy 18:15, Moses tells the people that God will raise up for them a prophet like himself from among their brothers — and it is to him they must listen.

Like many prophecies, this one carries a dual nature — often fulfilled in the near term so the people could see God’s faithfulness, and fulfilled again later and more completely.

The near fulfillment was Joshua. Moses’s right-hand man led the people across the Jordan into the promised land after Moses was barred from entering, led them in battle, and established them as a nation.

But the ancient Jews sensed this was also messianic — that a prophet would come who would lead them out from under an occupying empire into a promised land. Which is exactly why, in Jesus’s day, people were watching for Elijah: they needed a Messiah to free them from Rome.

But Jesus wasn’t there to establish a geopolitical power. He had something far more important to do.

He is the true and better Moses — because he led us out from under the tyranny of sin, out of slavery, into the promised land of relationship with God.

Moses could go in and speak with God. Jesus is God. Moses led people out of slavery to Egypt. Jesus leads us out of slavery to sin.

And notice what the voice from the cloud says: This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.

What did Moses say? That God would raise up a prophet like him — and it is to him you shall listen.

God is confirming it. This is the one.

Element Three: Peter’s Foolish Words

And this is the element that excites me most — because it arrives inside Peter’s blunder.

Remember, tradition holds that Mark received this account from Peter himself, likely while Peter awaited execution. So imagine Peter saying: Okay, this part is embarrassing. I didn’t know what to do, so I just started talking.

And what he says is: let us make three tents.

My translation says “tents.” Others say “shelters,” or “dwellings,” or “memorials.” But the underlying Greek word is tabernacle.

Translators generally avoid that word because most of us don’t know what a tabernacle is.

A tabernacle was a tent — a structure erected fairly quickly, but a place of worship. It marked where God’s presence dwelled.

And here’s the connection: in Exodus 33 Moses asks to see God’s glory. By chapter 35 they are gathering materials to build the first tabernacle, exactly as God specified — and God promises to fill it with his glory.

But remember what God told Moses: no one can see my face and live.

So in a sense, the tabernacle allowed you to come into God’s presence and survive it. It was protection.

Peter Is Asking for Protection

Look at what’s happening. The curtain between the reality of earth and the reality of heaven has been pulled back. They’re seeing Jesus in his divinity. A cloud descends and surrounds them, and the voice of God speaks out of it.

They are fully in the presence of God.

And Mark tells us plainly why Peter spoke: because they were terrified.

So without fully understanding it, Peter is saying: we need a tabernacle. We’re in the presence of God, and no one sees God and lives. We need protection.

We see this reaction repeatedly in Scripture. In Isaiah 6, the prophet has a vision in the temple and sees the train of God’s robe filling it. Not God — just the hem of his robe, because God couldn’t be contained in that space.

And seeing only that, Isaiah cries out that he is undone — a sinful man who cannot stand in the presence of such holiness.

The Verse We Always Skip

And then verse 8: suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone with them but Jesus only.

That’s the verse we skip. It reads like a stage direction. We just watched Jesus blaze white and met two Old Testament giants — and now it’s over, so let’s move along.

That’s exactly where we stay foolish. Because verse 8 is where the power of this story lands.

Peter, James, and John were surrounded by that cloud. They heard the voice of God. They saw Jesus in full glory — and they saw his face.

Moses only saw God’s back.

These three men saw the face of God the Son — and they lived.

Which means Jesus is their tabernacle.

Jesus himself said he is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through him. He is the protection. It is through Jesus that we come and worship. It is through him that we can look at the face of God and not die.

Wait — Doesn’t God Love Us?

Why would God’s presence be fatal? Isn’t that harsh?

Back in Exodus 33, when God passes by and shields Moses, it isn’t because God would be angry at being looked at. It isn’t how dare you glance at me.

It’s protection. It’s love.

God knows that even Moses — chosen, elevated, set apart as a great leader — is a sinful human being. And a sinful human being cannot survive contact with a perfect, pure, holy God.

So when God says I’ll place you in the cleft of the rock and cover you with my hand, it isn’t embarrassment. It’s a father shielding someone he loves.

Jesus Is Both

Jesus is our tabernacle, protecting us. And Jesus is God’s hand, sheltering us.

He goes to the cross and absorbs our sin. He takes away the stain — our earthliness, our sinfulness — and we become white. We take on his righteousness, his goodness.

And that is what allows us into the presence of God.

We don’t merely glimpse God’s back as his glory recedes. Because of Jesus, we get his face.

Walking Back Down That Mountain

I think as those three men descended, realizing they had stood in the presence of God and were still alive, they worshiped. They were filled with awe.

They had already watched Jesus still a storm — and we saw how that pointed to his divinity. They had watched him raise the dead, and only God holds that authority. Last week they became convinced he was the Messiah.

But now it moved from what they knew and had experienced into undeniable reality. Jesus is God.

And notice — they still don’t have it figured out. They’re still asking questions. He’s telling them the Son of Man must suffer and die and rise again three days later, and it makes no sense to them.

And they worship anyway. Because he is the one Elijah pointed to. He is the true and better Moses. And he is the tabernacle that protects us and allows us to come and worship the one true God.

Sometimes We Just Want Him to Make Sense

We often approach God wanting particular things, in a particular way, on a particular timeline. And sometimes what we really want is for him to make sense.

Sometimes, in mercy, he grants that. He answers. He provides the job, the spouse, the child.

And sometimes he doesn’t.

But that is not because he is stingy with grace. It’s because he has already given you the most gracious, merciful thing he could possibly give.

He gave you Jesus.

So on the days you don’t understand what God is doing, look at the cross — where your sin was absorbed and you were given access to God. What more do you actually need?

Yes, I’ll pray with you for the job. Yes, I’ll pray you know how deeply you are loved and sense it in your relationships. Yes, I’ll pray for your health and your recovery.

But most of all I pray you see Jesus for who he truly is — and see that he loved you enough to become your tabernacle, shielding you from the overwhelming holiness of God so he could cleanse you and bring you fully into his Father’s presence.

Not Five Practical Points

So don’t leave merely having seen that Jesus glowed white. Don’t leave seeing him only as a miracle worker like Elijah, or only a great leader like Moses.

See him as the Son of God who is your tabernacle — God’s own hand over you, protecting you, because he loves you.

And let that lead you to worship.

Which is why I don’t have five practical points today. I can’t tell you what your Monday should look like. All I have for you today is Jesus.

If you’re not yet a follower of Jesus, what you need is Jesus. Most people, when they grasp that he went to a cross to take away their sin so they could come into God’s presence, mark the moment in prayer: God, I confess my sin. I am not worthy of you. And Jesus, because you gave your life for me, I now give my life to follow you.

And if you already follow him — simply rest in the love of God. Jesus is your tabernacle. Through him you can come and worship, and you are protected. He is the hand of God over you, so that you are not consumed.