Pastor Nick Gatzke

Adoniram Judson sailed for Burma in 1813, as the first Baptist missionary sent from the United States. He labored six years before one person came to faith. Then war broke out, and in 1824, the Burmese emperor imprisoned nearly every Western man as a presumed British spy, missionaries included. Judson spent nineteen months in prisons.

His wife Nancy kept him alive by pestering, begging, and bribing officials to deliver food to Judson, all while nursing an infant and raising two orphaned Burmese girls. Then Nancy died. Six months later their two-year-old daughter died. Within his first fourteen years on the field, Judson buried his wife and every one of his children. He grew despondent and wondered whether he carried death with him like a contagion.

When his expectations and his circumstances stopped matching, despair moved in. This faithful missionary wondered: Did God really call me to this?

Expectations, Obliterated

That is exactly where Jesus’s disciples were when he took three of them up a mountain. The disciples followed Jesus expecting big things to happen. And they did––people were healed, thousands were fed, and Jesus’s fame increased. But the opposition began as well. Mark records that Jesus “began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again” (Mark 8:31).

That was not the Messiah they signed up for. The long-promised anointed one was supposed to be strong, not weak; powerful, not persecuted; a ruler, not a condemned man. Then it got worse, because Jesus declared, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34). The disciples had already left jobs and families. Now they were learning that Jesus was going down and they were going down with him.

If you have followed Jesus for any length of time, you know something of how the disciples felt.

A Glimpse, Given on Purpose

So Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up Mount Hermon—over nine thousand feet, a full day’s climb—and Luke tells us he took them there to pray. But what happened at the top rearranged everything.

“And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them” (Mark 9:2–3). The word behind “transfigured” is the Greek word for metamorphosis, and it appears only a handful of times in Scripture, always for radical transformation. Jesus does not simply appear more divine. He had been proving his divinity through his teaching, miracles, and authority. What changed was deeper. For a few minutes the veil was pulled back and three tired men saw a glimpse of God himself.

The transfiguration was not for Jesus; it was for his friends. He was about to ask them to walk into suffering, so he showed them first what they were walking toward. God is remarkably generous with encouragement at the exact moment it is needed.

Then Moses and Elijah appear, talking with him. Both had met God on a mountain. Both had glimpsed his glory. Both left the earth in unusual fashion. Between them they represent the whole Old Testament—Moses the law, Elijah the prophets.

Luke tells us what they discussed. The two “appeared in glory and spoke of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem” (Luke 9:31). The eternal Son, the lawgiver, and the great prophet stand together in glory, and the subject is a death. The very suffering that had crushed the disciples turns out to be what the law and the prophets were pointing toward all along. Jesus said as much: “I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Matthew 5:17).

Then the cloud came down—the same cloud that led Israel through the wilderness and met Moses on Sinai—and a voice said, “This is my beloved Son; listen to him” (Mark 9:7). When Peter, James, and John looked around, Moses and Elijah were gone. Only Jesus remained. And only Jesus was enough.

A Command Given

God gave them an encouragement and a command, and the command is easy to skim past. Not admire him. Not feel something about him. Listen to him.

That is the answer to the question the disciples carried up the mountain, and the one you may be carrying right now: How do I make it through this? By listening to the words of Jesus. That is what carries a person through suffering all the way to glory.

So listen to him when he says, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). Listen when he says, “Let not your hearts be troubled” (John 14:1). Listen when he says, “I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades” (Revelation 1:18). And listen when he tells you that anyone following him must take up a cross.

The Messiah would suffer. They would suffer. And those who follow Jesus today will suffer.

Back in Burma, Judson kept listening to Jesus. He baptized his first convert in 1819, six years of labor for one person. His goal had been to translate the Bible and hopefully to leave a hundred members or so. But when he died, he left the Bible, a hundred churches, and eight thousand Christians. He got to glory the way you will get there–by listening to Jesus.