Mountain top experiences

Here’s what I preached at Boroughbridge this morning on Transfiguration Sunday…

The modern curse of society is the addiction to social media and the need to always be accessible. I talked to some children the other week about telephones in the 1970’s. We didn’t have a landline at home until 1977 when I was ten. The novelty of going over the road to my aunties before that who had a phone was a huge excitement! Do you remember the call box? The pips would come too soon and you’d scrabble around for more change to keep the conversation going. The thing I hate is people who walk along the street staring at their phone. They bump into you not seeing you, concentrating on the device not what is around them.

 

Spiritually we need to look up a lot more. There was excitement this week that the Red Arrows were flying over Ripon. People had read what time they could be seen. I’d forgotten all about them and I was in the cathedral shop buying a Lent book and we heard them but we didn’t see them. We often treat God like that. We intend to look for him but we get so bogged down in the demands and the minutiae of life, we miss him being about. Often looking up gives us a new sense of joy and blessing. There was a lovely rainbow on Wednesday. Doesn’t a rainbow excite you and lift your spirits? It’s a sign despite the horror and pain of the world; God will not abandon us.

 

Don’t we need that sort of message this morning? We spend a lot of time looking down. We are having our covenant service two months late because on the first Sunday of January it snowed heavily and in the days afterwards when the temperature plummeted to minus seven degrees the ice on the pavements was treacherous so we had to watch our every step. We look down at the pain of the world and wonder what to do about it. And even when we find hope looking up, the problems down around us can overwhelm us. On Friday night Lis and I went for a drive to catch the sunset and orange skies and then look at the stars and the planets on a really clear night. The road between Pateley Bridge and Grassington was peaceful and calming. As we drove along the news headline was the shouting match in the Oval Office. We worry about the state of the world every day at the moment. I wasn’t going to mention President  Trump today, I really wasn’t. A clergy group said yesterday any of us leading worship today who don’t mention Ukraine should consider our position. It’s hard to look up and be hopeful. But it was good for President Zelensky to hear cheering crowds as he arrived in Downing Street to meet the Prime Minister yesterday. He got quite emotional after his verbal battering the day before. 

 

When it all gets too much, we need to stop watching the news so much, put the phone down because it’s no good for our mental health. Growing up we watched the news once a day, a generation before you went and watched pathe news at the cinema. Now it can be in your face twenty four hours a day and it’s exhausting. Lis was trying to find Bach’s St John’s Passion on you tube yesterday afternoon for me to hear a bit of it as I was pondering going to hear it. On the screen it showed other things you might like to watch – one was Trump in the Oval Office! There’s no escaping but maybe we need to. 

 

This Sunday is the last Sunday before Lent when we go up a mountain to see Jesus transfigured. Jesus takes us up a mountain to see a different perspective. 

 

To see God is to be changed. For the last several weeks, during this season following the Epiphany, we have journeyed alongside those who first came to the realisation that Jesus might actually be the Messiah for whom they had waited.

They watched as heaven opened and heard a voice proclaiming, “This is my Son,” standing on the banks of the Jordan River. They tasted the water that had become “good wine” at a wedding in Cana. They listened as he taught in the synagogue and heard him profess that in him, that day, the scripture had been fulfilled. They watched—or possibly even participated in—the angry crowd which drove him out of the synagogue but could not destroy him. They pressed in on him to hear him teach. They obeyed him when he told them, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” They witnessed signs and believed. They heard him and felt hope as he declared, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.” They wrestled as he taught them to love their enemies and to “Do to others as you would have them do to you.”

Some were amazed, others became angry, multitudes found hope, and a handful left everything and followed him.

But all were forever changed.

How could they not be? How could we not be?

Peter, James, and John had already given up everything to follow Jesus. They had heard his teaching, they had asked questions, and they had witnessed the miraculous. 

Yet it wasn’t until this time and place that their eyes were opened to see Jesus the Christ in his true appearance, flanked by two of the greatest prophets of their faith.

“They saw his glory and the two men who stood with him.”

They had walked with Jesus, but it wasn’t until this very moment that their eyes were transformed to see Christ transfigured before them. They heard the voice of God: “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!”

They couldn’t un-see what they had witnessed—reality peeled back to give a glimpse of the Kingdom of God. They were changed. How could they not be?

When they descended the mountain, they kept silent and told no one of what they had seen and experienced. They were immediately confronted by a man whose son had been seized by an evil spirit. The demon dramatically dashed the boy against the ground, but Jesus was unfazed. He rebuked the spirit, healed the young boy, and returned him to his father.

“And all were astounded at the greatness of God.”

They had seen God and their lives were changed. How could they not be?

The moment was beyond their ability to detail. Something happened to Jesus as they stood there and he was transformed beyond understanding and description. John’s Gospel doesn’t have this story but, in 1:14, we hear: the Word became flesh and made his dwelling place with us and we beheld his glory.

Here, for a few moments, the glory is visible. And we need those moments to cope with the looking down we have to do. 

If we could talk to Peter, the Transfiguration would be an event he would go back to as one of the defining moments of his life. In fact, he did go back to it in his second letter:

“For we did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.

He received honour and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.’  We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain. We also have the prophetic message as something completely reliable, and you will do well to pay attention to it.”

Peter doesn’t try to explain the mystery of the Transfiguration. Later in life, it is enough for him to tell his listeners that he was an eyewitness: he saw Jesus in majesty and heard the voice of God.

It’s easy for a preacher to say we are all witnesses, but what are we witnessing to. What appearance of Jesus is there for us to testify about?

Well, there are always what we might call the small stories of hope – moments when people have encountered the Grace of God through everyday Christians like you. The gentle encouragement, the act of generosity, sitting quietly with someone while they grieve.

But occasionally there are remarkable stories that capture the attention. What’s your decisive moment, your remarkable story? I was at a service of prayer for Ukraine on Tuesday in the little church at Wilsill. I always like to take a church magazine when I visit churches to read what they are up to and borrow ideas. The vicar in the current one writes about ordination as his remarkable story. He writes “ I remember a friend of mine, Nicki, telling me about her ordination in Edinburgh Cathedral. As the Bishop laid hands on her, there was a huge clap of thunder. I thought then, and still do, that was so cool. Myordination was only a week or so later, and I couldn't wait for my own dramatic moment. The day came, and I knelt in front of the Bishop, thinking, "Here we go, what have you got for me, Lord?" The Bishop’shands rested on my head. I waited. And... nothing. No thunderclap ,no celestial drumroll. Just a quiet stillness. At first, I was a little confused. Where was my moment of divine theatrics? But then I feltsomething, an unexpected warmth, a deep sense of love flowing.through me from head to toe. It may have been only for me to experience, and some might argue that it was all in my head. But I know different.”

 

We need mountain top experiences to resource us to live in the world. Where’s your mountain? Your church? 

Do you go away from here changed having encountered a bit of the glory of God? Fellowship with others? The power of creation? That’s notdifficult to experience in this area. Silence? We might use Lent which begins on Wednesday to climb a mountain in order to get on with the demands of life. We need to take time to notice God again and be surprised and excited again at where God can be found. We need to behold his glory. Because that glory is all about us. We need to look up! And we need to help each other look up. Part of the call of the Church is to support each other with heights! Rather like this risk assessment: in accordance with the risks identified in our health and safety risk assessment and the solutions to be implemented, step ladders should only be used when another person is present!  

 

Go from this service today encouraged. Can I remind you how we learnt this story in Sunday School? 

Climb, climb up sunshine mountain
Heavenly breezes blow;
Climb, climb up sunshine mountain
Faces all aglow.
Turn, turn from sin and doubting,
Look to God on high,
Climb, climb up sunshine mountain
You and I.

 

Church here was busy on Wednesday. The larder was open, I had a meeting with Liam, our builder, and a young couple came in. One of the larder folk introduced me as the vicar. I got excited as I thought they might want a wedding! I’ve not had a wedding since I came here. Alas not, they were relatives of the Hawking family of Chatsworth House along the road and they’d never seen the stained glass at the back of church only a picture of it. They enjoyed looking up at it and went away happy. Friends that is how an encounter with Jesus just before Lent should leave us. We are forever changed when we see and encounter God.

How could we not be?