St Bartholomew Norton le Moor 07/02/2016
Exodus 34.29-35 2 Corinthians 3.12 - 4.2 Luke 9.28-36
It has been said that over time some people begin to
look like the pets they own.
Now whether that is true
or not, I do not know, although I must confess to having seen some people
particular in the horse world….
What I have noticed
however, is that in some photographs how much my wife and I are beginning to
look alike after thirty years of being married.
Therefore, it should come
as no surprise that when Moses had been in God’s presence something of that
radiant glory would rub off onto Moses.
However, notice that Moses
was not aware of this. Therefore, it is no good looking in the mirror trying to
discern if you are looking holy or full of God’s presence.
That is for others to
notice and hopefully not to puff us up with pride but to mention it to us to
give us encouragement.
I have it said of me
recently that I looked like a man of prayer and indeed in my home church in
Stafford I have been drawn into a small group who plan our regular Parish
Prayer Days.
1 Thessalonians 5.11
Therefore,
encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.
Moses was to encounter God
in quite a different way on top of a mountain with Jesus and Elijah.
One of those mysterious
moments when the curtain of heaven is pulled back and we get a tiny glimpse of
the reality of life and of God.
C.S. Lewis referred to
this world as it currently stands as ‘shadow lands’ – the really real world is
just beyond, yet not in some distance way up the bright blue sky, here among
us but in a mostly unseen dimension.
I love the story of Elisha,
Elijah’s successor, battling it out with the Syrians and particularly this part
of the story we find in 2 Kings 6.
Elisha’s servant wakes up
one morning to find the enemy surrounding them and is just a tad concerned –
well, in modern parlance we might say he was wetting himself.
The story continues like
this…
So,
Elisha answered, "Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than
those who are with them." Then
Elisha prayed and said, "O LORD, I pray, open his eyes that he may
see." And the LORD opened the servant's eyes and he saw; and behold, the
mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.
You may say to me, as
people often do, Gordon this world is so full of wickedness and people have
given up attending church and believing in God, what hope do we have? We are
struggling to pay our parish share let alone tell people about Jesus.
That is why we need to go
the mountain – that is why we need to spend time and more time and yet more
time in God’s presence.
However, please do not
think I am saying you should be in this building 24/7 – for God is as much out
there in the world as He is in here.
That was a mistake made by
the Jews of Jesus’ day. They could not imagine God operating outside of the
Temple and their sacrificial system.
St Paul writing to the
Corinthians says, ‘a veil lies over their hearts whenever the old covenant is
read.’
He goes on to say, ‘but
whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.’
Of course it is good to
remind ourselves that the first ones to ‘turn to the Lord’ where Jews, like
Paul himself who had a veil removed and saw the glory of God on the road to
Damascus.
A few years ago, my wife and I climbed up Mount Tide in Tenerife. We got our timing all badly wrong and by the time we reached the top, the cable cars taking people up and down had stopped operating. However, we needed to get off the mountain, we simply could not stay there, and the prospect of a six-hour walk back through the gathering darkness was not overly appealing.
A few years ago, my wife and I climbed up Mount Tide in Tenerife. We got our timing all badly wrong and by the time we reached the top, the cable cars taking people up and down had stopped operating. However, we needed to get off the mountain, we simply could not stay there, and the prospect of a six-hour walk back through the gathering darkness was not overly appealing.If we are to spend time with God on the mountain then equally there is a time to get off the mountain and take the message out to the people.
This what Moses did, coming
down from the mountain and proclaiming the Law.
If you read on a few verses
from our Gospel passage, we have the story of the young epileptic boy whom the
disciples could not heal. Down the mountain and into ministry.
When Paul was knocked off
his donkey on the way to Damascus and had a vision of Jesus, he did not simply
tuck it away as another good after dinner story. It changed his life and turned him around 180
degrees. A veil indeed was lifted for Paul, all the Hebrew Scriptures, and the
Prophets he had studied so assiduously suddenly found a completely new
illumination.
My own life was completely
knocked of course when I became a Christian at the age of 24 on the 1st
January 1975. It is a story for another
time save to say that within eighteen months I found myself having been
squeezed out of my job, divorced for being a Christian and having to leave the
family home that included our two-year-old daughter.
Let me ask you this, what
is your story?
Have you been the mountain
top, met with Jesus, and seen things in completely new way, the way you do when
you are high up and above everything.
Like Elisha’s servant, we
need to learn to see with the eyes of faith – and through the eyes of faith we
can say along with Mother Julian;
‘All will be well, and all
will be well and all manner of things will be well.’
Why?
Because of another
mountain Jesus climbed, and became glorified in a very different kind of way.
He climbed the hill of
Golgotha taking all the ills and the evils of this world.
He climbed the hill of
Golgotha and took your sin and my sin and all the wrong things we do or say.
He climbed the hill of
Golgotha so that the numerous sacrifices of the old Temple system could be
wonderfully fulfilled and find their completion as the pure sacrificial Lamb of
God was slain.
We go to the mountain and
we come down again not with the Law of Moses and the Old Covenant but with the
new and living way offered by Christ.
‘I
have come, said Jesus, that you may have life and life in all its fullness.’
In his book ‘The Joy of
the Gospel, Pope Francis said, ‘why do Christians look like they are going
through Lent rather than celebrating Easter?’
Well, from this coming
Wednesday we will be going through Lent.
Much in the same as we sought to travel in heart and mind to Bethlehem
to celebrate the birth of the Christ
child so we now seek to journey in heart
and mind as Jesus sets his face like flint towards Jerusalem.
As Jesus travels
purposefully towards Jerusalem, many of his disciples begin to fall away.
Then
Jesus said to them all: "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny
themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.
Luke 9.23
How does that work out for
you and for me on a daily basis?
A person going to the
cross has nothing at all, not even a veil to cover their nakedness and shame.
Have we truly handed over
to God everything?
Lent provides us with a
good opportunity for a stock take. To give back to God anything we may have
been holding on to, or even handed over at one time only to take it back later.
St Augustine said, if
Jesus is not Lord of all then he is not Lord at all.’
Lord of our finances, Lord
of our relationships, Lord of our work, Lord of our homes and our cars, Lord of
each and everything that makes up our lives.
Again, from the passage we
read from Corinthians…
‘Now
the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit is there is freedom.’
Those of us who have had
the veil lifted, who have seen a glimpse of God’s glory, we who have tasted and
seen and know that the Lord is good and have found freedom in Christ.
Those of us who reflect
the Lord’s glory and are being transformed into Jesus’ likeness, with an
ever-increasing glory – we are called to be Christ’s ambassadors.
We are those who speak out
and demonstrate a different way of being in the world.
We are those who as St
Paul says in Romans 12.2
“Have
not let the world squeeze us into its mould, but instead have allowed ourselves
to be transformed by the renewing of our minds.”
We are those who have been
to the mountain and caught a glimpse of the glory of Jesus and the really real
world that one day will be fully revealed when as we read in the Book of
Revelation, heaven will come down to earth, the two will become conjoined and
God will reign for evermore.
Therefore, if we consider
the world is full of darkness, sin, and wickedness then maybe it is because as
one Christian songwriter put it, ‘the world is living in the dark because the
Church is asleep in the light.’
Are you ready to climb
that mountain?
Let us pray…
O
Saviour Christ, in whose way of love lays the secret of all life,
and the
hope of all people, we pray for quiet courage to match this hour.
We did
not choose to be born or to live in such an age;
but let
its problems challenge us, its discoveries exhilarate us,
its
injustices anger us, it possibilities inspire us, and its vigour renew us.
Pour
out upon us a fresh indwelling of the Holy Spirit;
make us
bold and courageous in sharing faith
in both
word and deed for your Kingdom’s sake we ask. Amen
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