“This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!”

Mount Tabor. Photo: Matthew Duckett, 2010.

 

Sermon at Parish Mass Sunday next before Lent 2022

Exodus 34.29-35

2 Corinthians 3.12-4.2
Luke 9.28-36

A pilgrimage to the Holy land, if you have the opportunity to make one, can bring the stories in the Bible alive in a new way, with the insight that comes from being in the places where Jesus walked and taught, and seeing where the great events of salvation happened.

Some of the pilgrimage sites are well authenticated by history and archaeology. In Jerusalem, the places where Jesus died and was buried were venerated by Christians long before Christianity was officially tolerated, and are still there, in the exact spot, encrusted with the devotion of centuries.

Other pilgrim sites are rather more like representative places. We don’t know where the actual site is, but a shrine has been set up to help us make the connection. The traditional stations of the cross, for example, are marked out in winding mediaeval streets that bear no relation to Jerusalem at the time of Jesus.

When it comes to the Transfiguration, which we commemorate today, all the Gospels tell us is that Jesus went up a high mountain with Peter, James and John. The Gospels don’t tell us where this mountain was. But early Christian tradition was quick to identify it as Mount Tabor, near Lake Galilee in what is now northern Israel. Today there is a twentieth century pilgrimage church on top of Mount Tabor, next to the remains of churches from the fourth century onwards.

Now you might suppose that the early Christians just thought, pick any old mountain, it will do as a representative site. Until you go there. Mount Tabor is striking. It is almost conical, rising high above the surrounding plain. Even before you get there it looks like a place of supernatural revelations. But it is where it is that is most significant. The plain it rises above is the valley of Jezreel, the site of the ancient city of Megiddo. Or, as it is better known in Greek, Armageddon.

Those are the most ominous place names in the Bible. Because of their location, Jezreel and Megiddo have been the site of battles from ancient times, a plain where contesting armies collide. And fight. And kill. It’s no wonder that the Book of Revelation chooses this site as the location of the symbolic last battle before the Second Coming of Christ.

From the top of the mountain, you see the whole plain. The landscape itself seems as though it is in turmoil. It is a place for battles, contorted rocks in an inhospitable environment burned dry by the sun. But, on top of the mountain, you experience the shade of trees, peace, silence, and prayer.

If this was the site of the Transfiguration, then it makes perfect sense. Because the revelation of Christ in glory presents the world with a choice. On top of the mountain, there is light and glory, the testimony of the law and the prophets, and the voice of the Father, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!”. Below, there is darkness, division, hatred, conflict and war. Humanity, without the light of Christ, plunging into a horror and despair of its own making.

The revelation of Christ in glory tells us that it does not have to be this way. “Listen to him!”, says the Father. Listen to the good news of the Kingdom of God. Repent, turn away from violence, hatred, division and war. And his teaching is not difficult. His yoke is easy, and his burden light.

But the nations do not listen. Now, or then. The revelation of Christ in glory is the prelude to his last journey to Jerusalem, to his suffering and his death. Because the world would not listen, Jesus enters willingly into the darkness below, the place of conflict and death. Because the world would not listen, the redemption of the human race must needs be won at a far greater price than that of our listening, the price of his own blood.

We have looked on at the terrible events in Ukraine this last week with a sense of horror, fear, and helplessness. We wonder what might happen next, and what we can do, as once again we see how fragile civilisation can be. And how much contempt those in power can have for human lives.

And yet this is nothing new. The light of Christ shone from the mountain top onto the darkened world beneath, and shines still. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. It is Christ, the Chosen, the Son of the Father, who faces that world squarely, and freely walks into it to suffer all that it will do to him.

But his call remains, “repent!”. And the voice of the Father sounds in irrevocable command: “listen to him!”.

What can we do? Those things. Repent. Listen to him. Pray. On the threshold of Lent, that great season of repentance, prayer and listening, we realise that our response must begin by turning once again to Christ. The vision of his glory may seem bewildering, incomprehensible, disconnected from the dark world below. But it is precisely that vision which is the hope of the world.

It is that vision which strengthens the disciples before they follow Christ on the way of the cross. The way that will lead them through darkness they could not imagine. To fear and denial and hiding behind locked doors. But, beyond the darkness, their path will bring them in the end to the light of the resurrection. To the definitive encounter with Christ, the Risen One, once and for all triumphant over sin and death. To the one who breathes on them the gift of his Spirit, and says to them, and to us, always, until the end of time, “peace be with you, do not be afraid!”