Coffee With God

 

Reflection: Mark 9: 2-10

Today’s Gospel opens with the phrase: “After six days.” What happened before six days? Probably it is a reference to the Gospel we have listened to yesterday – a question on the identity of Jesus that occurred in the region of Caesarea Philippi (Mt 16:13-20). There, Peter professed his faith in Jesus: “You are the Messiah,” although his idea of the Messiah was a wrong one: “You are thinking not as God does, but as people do,” Jesus told Peter. Now it becomes a necessity for Jesus to rectify this false idea about the Messiah: as one who rules over the people with power, a Messiah that dominates. The true Messiah is the one who serves, the one who is humble and disregards his divinity and takes the form of a helpless human being. Therefore he takes a group of his disciples who were probably the most prepared to accept the novelty of the Kingdom, and takes them up the mountain. The gospel speaks of a high mountain. In biblical language, the mountain does not indicate a material place, but the inner experience of a manifestation of God, where the intimacy with the Lord culminates. That is, it reaches heaven, reaches God. The mountain indicates the world of God. If you want to find the Lord, if you want to accept his thinking, his way of evaluating, of judging, it is necessary to disconnect with the plains of this world, where the crowds gather, where reasonings and gossips that have nothing to do with God’s way of thinking circulate. Jesus takes them apart. And this is what we are invited to do. If we want to experience the Lord, it is necessary to make a space where we isolate ourselves from noise, confusion, even the worries of everyday life and to enter moments of silence. The disciples loved idea of remaining in those moments of spiritual intimacy. Peter exclaims: “Lord, it is good that we are here.” He has been delighted with beauty of the face of God. And we are invited to see the beauty of this face by going up the mountain. Six days ago Jesus had asked Peter and his company, “Who do you say that I am?” And today, they are given an answer on the mountain of intimacy with Jesus – they listened to the answer very clearly: “This is my beloved Son, Listen to him.” The contemplation of this beauty is not enough; it is necessary to come down the mountain, return to everyday life, leave the church and start loving. Return to work, to one’s own social responsibilities; develop the