Sermon at Parish Mass Sunday next before Lent 2014

Exodus 24.12-18

2 Peter 1.16-21

Matthew 17.1-9

Last week I noticed via Facebook that a friend had gone to the Canary Islands. How lovely, I thought, imagining sun, sea, and leisurely hours on the beach. Then he posted a picture of himself in hiking boots surrounded by rocks, snow and ice. The picture was captioned: “Pico del Teide (12,198 ft)”. He’d gone there to climb a volcano on Tenerife.

Well mountains do have an attraction, and sadly there aren’t many in London - Muswell Hill doesn’t really count. But I have to say that my preferred way of appreciating a mountain, such as those in northern Italy, is from a lakeside terrace, as it’s coming up to dinner time, with a glass of Prosecco in my hand, or maybe an Aperol spritz, watching the distant peaks change colour from white to pink to purple as the sun goes down. 

Mountains have always been objects of contemplation. With its roots deep in the earth, and its peak touching heaven, the mountain is a symbol of the human soul seeking union with God. Mountains have always been important holy places, lifted up above the ordinary, places of encounter with the Divine.

And today we have another Gospel reading set on a mountain. The Church chooses the Sunday Mass readings for us, so that we read them in common with all our brothers and sisters who are gathering today to celebrate the Eucharist. And we always have the Transfiguration gospel on the Sunday before Lent.

We do this because it is the start of a journey, the journey we will follow through Lent, the last journey of Jesus to Jerusalem, to his betrayal, his death and burial, and his resurrection. As it happens the Gospel readings for the last few weeks have also been set on a mountain, as we have been hearing about the sermon on the mount. Today’s is a different mountain, and comes much later in the story of Jesus, but it is connected with the earlier one. Both the sermon on the mount and the Transfiguration are about revelation. They are about God showing himself in Jesus, in different ways. 

In the sermon on the mount we see Jesus as the new lawgiver, like Moses of old. But Jesus is the law in person; as well as being the messenger, he is himself the message. He lives out what God is like, and calls people to him to become his disciples, so that they can live with his life too. God is revealed in and through a human life.

But on the mountain of transfiguration the veils are parted, and God shines through. The disciples see the uncreated light, the light which is God, shining from the face of Jesus. They see the cloud overshadowing him, the cloud of God’s glory which in the time of Moses had appeared over the ark of the covenant in the wilderness.

But this scene of glory comes just after a much more dark and troubling scene. What comes before is told in Matthew chapter 16: “From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”

St Peter then had failed to understand, and tried to dissuade Jesus from a path that must have seemed madness. And again and again, on the path to Jerusalem, the disciples will not understand the way that Jesus is leading them. It is a path of darkness and contradiction. It is the journey with Jesus to Jerusalem, to rejection and the cross. At the end of that journey the disciples will desert Jesus and run away. Beyond that, and only beyond that, lies the glory of the resurrection. 

Today that path is illuminated by the glory of God revealed in Jesus. At the end, the glory of the resurrection will shine forth. But, in between, there is the path of darkness and contradiction. And this is the path that Jesus must take, the path that the disciples must follow.

Today, he says to them, “do not be afraid”, just as he will say after he has been raised from the dead. Do not be afraid. The path of darkness and contradiction is none other than the way of life and peace. The way of the cross is the way of glory. 

And Jesus touches them as he says this. As if to say, I’m real, I’m human. Like you. This real solid human nature, which belongs to Jesus and his disciples, is being transformed by the indwelling presence of God. This human nature which will suffer and die will also be raised to the glory of the Father.

The light of God’s glory has shone from Jesus, but that light illuminates the cross. The cross can only be understood in that light. God’s glory shines from Jesus on the mount of Transfiguration. But the cross too is a “mountain experience”, the symbolic mountain of Calvary where God’s glory is revealed in the form of submission to suffering and death. 

To unite us with God, God has united himself with our humanity. To free us from sin, Jesus suffers the consequences of sin. To raise us to new life, Jesus is raised to the glory of the Father. 

Humanity was created to share God’s life but through sin has turned away from God’s good purpose. Sin itself is a mystery, we do not know where it came from. We simply observe that humanity, from the dawn of consciousness, has preferred to be turned in on itself rather than being open to God. Humanity tends to prefer rivalry, violence, division, possessiveness, jealousy, lust - all those things that close us in on ourselves and shut us out from communion with God and one another. 

The way of the cross, which is the way by which we are liberated from all that, is simply this: God’s love entering into our unloveliness, to free us from ourselves and open us up once more to the love for which we were created. Love which is the glory of God transforming our human nature. 

The uncreated light transfigures our mortal bodies, changing us into the likeness of Christ. But this can only happen by the way of the cross, the way by which we renounce ourselves and willingly follow Christ on the path of self-emptying, self-denial and self-sacrifice. That path is symbolised by the Lent we will shortly begin, which will conclude in Jerusalem, at the cross and the empty tomb. 

But it is also the pattern of our lives, marked on us by our baptism. Like those first disciples, we do not always understand, we do not always get it right, but we follow. We follow because we have caught a glimpse of God’s glory in the face of Jesus Christ. We follow because we have seen something of what God’s loveliness is, transforming our unloveliness into his image. We have seen how different life could be if we live for Christ and not for ourselves. We follow him even along the path of darkness and contradiction that may mark much of our lives, because it is none other than the way of life and peace. By following Jesus we are joined with him in his death and his resurrection, so that we might come to share his glory.