Sermon at Christ Church Cathedral, 19th February 2023
Transfiguration of Jesus
Sunday before Lent
Exodus 24. 12-end; 2 Peter 1. 16-end; Matthew 17: 1-9
“The Lord said to Moses ‘Come up to me on the mountain’”
“Jesus led Peter, James, John up a high mountain, by themselves”.
In 1950 a French climber called Maurice Herzog led the first expedition to summit and return from Annapurna, the Himalayan peak in North Central Nepal. It was one of the most dangerous expeditions ever completed and was the first 8,000 meter peaks ever successfully climbed. Herzog wrote about it in a book Annapurna in which he recounts a mystical experience at the peak of the mountain.
“I felt as though I were plunging into something new and quite abnormal. I had the strangest and most vivid impressions, such as I had never before known in the mountains. There was something unnatural in the way I saw Lachenal [his climbing partner] and everything around us. I smiled to myself at the paltriness of our efforts, for I could stand apart and watch myself making these efforts. But all sense of exertion was gone, as though there was no longer any gravity. This diaphanous landscape, this quintessence of purity–these were not the mountains I knew: they were the mountains of my dreams[1].”
Those of us who aren’t mountaineers, but who love a hill climb, will know of the wonder, awe, and sense of achievement that we get when we reach the top and the world opens out in front of us. Some of us may have had some kind of mystical experience, or sense of the divine in those occasions.
And if we have, we’re not alone in this.
It was on a mountain the Moses encountered God in the flames of the burning bush where God revealed his name and commissions him to go to Pharoah and release the captive Israelites; And it was on another mountain, in the reading we have this morning, where Moses encounters God again in the glory of the cloud and is given the tables of the covenant.
One of the words for God in Hebrew is El Shadai ‘God of the Mountain’
And so it’s not surprising that it’s on a mountain that the full glory of who Jesus is revealed to his disciples.
Rather like Maurice Herzog’s experience on Annapurna, the transfiguration has a dream like quality to it. Jesus’ face shines like the sun, his clothes glimmer, a bright cloud overshadows them. He’s joined by Moses who represents the law, and Elijah who embodies the great prophets, and into the scene there is an audible voice from heaven.
The disciples fall over in fear.
It’s a moment when the boundary between heaven and earth seems to open up and intermingle. The other moment like it is at the moment of Jesus’ baptism. And almost the same words are heard:
‘this is my Son, the Beloved, with him I am well pleased: listen to him’.
Matthew 17.5
It’s a moment when Jesus’ divinity is shown in all its glory. And it’s fleeting because almost as soon as they experience it, it’s gone.
It’s unlikely that many of us will be able to say we’ve had a mountaintop experience anything like as dramatic as that experienced by Peter, James and John.
But we may be able to recall times when we have experienced something of the Glory of God. Not as dramatic. But wow moments. Probably just glimpses, as St Paul says ‘as through a glass darkly’ or ‘reflected in a mirror’.
- The sense of deep peace when at prayer or listening to a beautiful piece of music
- A eureka moment when suddenly you hear the answer and can’t quite explain where it came from.
- When a person pops into our head, we later find out they needed help at that moment.
We get glimpses of the glory of God in these ‘mountain-top moments’, and we are to be thankful for them as they can sustain us, especially in the dark times, in the wilderness times.
But we can’t capture them or hold onto them.
On seeing the glory of God on the mountain top Peter wanted to capture the moment, build tents, hold on to the moment; ‘it is good for us to be here’. We know that feeling when we’re on holiday or in a wonderful place and think ‘wouldn’t it be great to stay here forever’.
But that’s not what that moment was for at all. It was good, but it couldn’t be contained in that way. Jesus brought them up so they could witness who he truly was, his divinity would be revealed and this would sustain them for what was to come.
And what was to come was the journey to Jerusalem, Jesus’ arrest and death, and each of them would be challenged in their faith.
Moses came down from his mountain to find that the Israelites had forgotten everything they’d been taught and had built golden calves. He had work to do. At the foot of the transfiguration mountain there was a man having seizures who needed healing.
The Christian life is not to be lived out on the heights but in the depths.
Rowan Williams writes that the life of the Christian is:
‘in the depths: the depths of human need, including the depths of our own selves in their need – but also in the depths of God’s love; in the depths where the Spirit is re-creating and refreshing human life as God meant it to be’. [2]
Maurice Herzog says of his experience on the mountain top:
‘Annapurna, to which we had gone empty handed, was a treasure on which we should live the rest of our days. With this realisation we turn the page: and new life begins’.
I believe that down the mountain we need people who have this treasure, who shine with God’s radiance. People who are transfigured into radical bearers of God’s inclusive love.
Who love their neighbour
Who use their gifts fully
Who are fully alive, with faces that shine with life
Who are hope filled
Who care about creation
Today is the Sunday before we enter into the season of Lent. The wilderness season of the Christian calendar. As we enter into Lent it’s good to remember the glimpses of glory we’ve been given, as these will sustain us.
A question we might ask ourselves as we move into Lent is:
How might we model our lives so that we might pay attention to these glimpses of glory?
Because they are so easy to miss. We’re busy. We’re distracted. We have things to do.
I have two suggestions.
Firstly, by making space to notice, to listen, to pay attention. Peter in our second reading says ‘you will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place’ (2 Peter. 19) We can’t do that if every waking moment is filled with screens, work, social media updates. I’m speaking to myself here. The forty days of Lent are a good time to create a new habit or let go of one that’s destructive. Or to add in space alone with God.
Secondly, by paying attention to where we feel most alive. Where do we think our eyes shine and our face glows? That might be really simple things. Like listening to beautiful music, painting, baking a cake, speaking up about something we care about.
This is where God is.
Not just on a mountain top. God is with us when we are filled with his Spirit and living lives that are fully alive.
Have the mountain top experiences, but be prepared to then be sent down into the planes to serve.
There’s a book on prayer which a title that I love: ‘After the Ecstasy, the Laundry’ [3]
And I will end with a quote from CS Lewis in his sermon ‘weight of Glory’ – ‘heaven beckons but meanwhile there’s Monday morning’.
[1] Annapurna: the first conquest of an 8,000 metre peak, by Maurice Herzog, Vintage Classics, 2011
[2] Rowan Williams: Being Christian, SPCK, 2014
[3] After the Ecstasy, the Laundry, by Jack Kornfield
Consider the Lilies - Clare Hayns 