Sunday next before Lent- St Peter's - 22 February 2004 

Revd Martin Wright

(Sermon was verbatim based on these notes)

The Oscar-winning movie Chariots of Fire, you may remember, told the story of two athletes at the 1924 Olympics. Harold Abrahams, after a gigantic struggle to gain form since his failure to qualify in the 1920 competition, achieved the gold medal in the 100 yards. Eric Liddell, the devout Christian who had refused to run on a Sunday, switched events and won the gold in the 440 yards. It is a moving double story, all the more so for being true.

After the Games were over, the movie showed all the athletes returning on the boat train to London, and spilling out excitedly into Waterloo station; all except Harold Abrahams. His girlfriend waited anxiously as the crowd thinned out. Only when all the others had gone did Harold emerge slowly from the train. He had achieved what he'd set out to do. He had the long-coveted prize in his hand. He had been up his own mountain, so to speak, and realized that whatever he did in the future he would never stand there again. He had to come down from the giddy heights and face reality.

We are taken, with today's lessons, however briefly, into a new dimension; a dimension where the living and so-called departed meet and mingle across the centuries; where bodies materialize and then dematerialize back into the other; where suddenly the chasm between the physical world and the spiritual world seems to be no chasm at all. For a brief, shining, glory-filled moment, Jesus, although human, was able to transcend time and space, life and death, logic, reason and common sense.

In the Old Testament reading this morning we find that Moses had veiled the reflected glory of God in his face when he returned to the people from meeting the Lord on the mountain, but he had removed the veil when talking to God. Jesus, on the other hand, allowed the disciples to witness the full glory of his transfiguration when alongside Moses and Elijah.

One can drive into the country on a morning when the thick mist cuts visibility to a few yards, yet travel over the same route a few hours later, and the sunshine lights up the view for miles. The beauty had been there before, but hidden by a blanket of fog. But the disciples on Mount Tabor experienced a very special sort of cloud, which hid the glory, the brightness, the majesty and the beauty which surrounds God himself, hiding him from the eyes of ordinary people who couldn't cope with the brilliance of God's glory. 

This glory shone in the face of Moses, and shone even brighter around Jesus on the mount. It had ushered in the laws, or commandments, of the Old Covenant; and it was there again around the Lamb of God who had come with the New Covenant: the promise to us, through the sacrifice of Calvary, of eternal life.

All the gospel-writers follow the story of the transfiguration with the story of a boy who is desperately ill, being filled with some evil spirit or demon. The disciples are not able to cure the boy and are chastised by Jesus for their lack of faith. The writers seem to be telling us that the two go together: the wonder of the mountain-top experience and the despair of the shrieking, stubborn demon and their inability to cast it out. Many people prefer to live their lives without the highs or the lows; to be people living on a sort of plateau of life, neither exciting nor challenging. God seems to call some people to that kind of life. But many also need the dramatic visions and spiritual experiences even though it places huge demands on their spiritual and physical resources. The more open we are to God, and to the different dimensions of God's glory, the more we seem to be open to the pain of the world. 

Luke has highlighted, throughout this passage, the way in which the transfiguration was preparing Jesus himself not just for one human tragedy but for the greatest threat of all. Moses and Elijah, says Luke in verse 31, were speaking with Jesus about his departure, which he was going to fulfil at Jerusalem: The word for departure is exodus, and Luke means us to understand that in several senses. It can mean, like exodus in the Old Testament, departure or going away. It can also serve as a euphemism for death, as when someone says "when I am no longer here"; referring to their own death. 

In the first Exodus, Moses led the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt and home to the promised land. In the new Exodus, Jesus will lead all God's people out of the slavery of sin and death, and home to their promised inheritance - the new creation in which the whole world will be redeemed.

Jesus himself, then, went through the mountain-top experience, knowing that it was preparing him to follow where the law and the prophets would go. It pointed down into the valley, to the place of despair and death, the place of demons and weeping sufferers, the place where the Son of Man will be handed over to sinners.

The disciples were overwhelmed by the transfiguration. They were unable to understand how it was that the glory which they had glimpsed on the mountain, the glory of God's chosen son, the Servant who was carrying in himself the promise of redemption, would finally be unveiled on a very different hill; that of Calvary.

We, too, often find it completely bewildering to know how to understand all that God is doing and saying, both in our times of great joy and our times of great sadness. But the word that comes to us is the word that came from the cloud on that strange day in Galilee: This is my Son, my chosen one. Listen to him.

So let us pray that in the coming season of Lent, God will shine his glory even brighter on our prayers and praises, our worship and witnessing, our meditation and singing and to him, and to the transfigured Christ, be all honour and glory.