Sermon: Sunday before Lent (Year A) – Sunday, 15th February 2026 – St Anne’s, Wrenthorpe – Parish Eucharist
Matthew 17.1-9 | 2 Peter 1.16-21 | Exodus 24.12-18
According to my records… Stuart and I were here on this Sunday before Lent two years ago. I was preaching then from Mark, and a very similar Gospel account, and I took the liberty of comparing my own experiences of Mount Tabor, visited on pilgrimage, with that of the Disciples. A poor comparison, of course… my experience had a mini-bus and clergy…. Theirs… well… you heard about that earlier!
Our experiences of where God comes near, and beckons us to look and live more closely with Christ, often stay with us. Such moments are likely to become something to share and to pass on.
On the mountain, Jesus with His friends, are accompanied by Moses and Elijah, symbolising the Law and the Prophet’s – completed then, by the voice that confirms Jesus as Son of God.
The blinding, dazzling light speaks not of clarity and explanation. In the bible, such an experience is an overwhelming presence – a light that makes all the other colours fade, revealing that which God wants to reveal.
Maybe a question for today is not – what happened on the mountain — but how do we see it, and do how we avoid seeing only what we want to see.
I don’t know what sort of bibles you were exposed to, if any, when you were younger, but I had some with pictures! Even now, I am always intrigued by illustrated bible stories for children. Some of those images remain with our memories, but do they still have the same effect on perception, of understanding of the story – of the moment and the message? Perhaps that is the enduring power of pictures, and yet we are mostly left with the words.
Someone imagined what those stories ‘looked like’ and created a picture to reveal a truth. The same could be said of all religious artwork. It is an interpretation. It is expression, guided by the Holy Spirit.
More often though, we rely on our imagination alone to frame these accounts of Jesus and to wonder….
Within the ministry of preaching, we use all at our disposal to hopefully bring things into a sharper focus, in this time and place. Which is not the same as interpreting scripture to suit our own ends!
On Mount Tabor, the accepted location of the Transfiguration, there is a church in which there are large frescos depicting the Transfiguration.
Hopefully these images will now appear on the screen….
[One – Moses]
[Two – Elijah]
[Three – Jesus was too blurred, so here is a ‘pilgrim’] [Grin]
And yet it is this fourth image, with which I have had a more intimate connection.
This is an icon, created by a contemporary Georgian artist, in Tbilisi. It is one of several presented on a return visit to Georgia in 2007. I took part in two diocesan visits to Georgia, with a variety of companions and experiences – all challenging my trust in God!
This icon lives on a wall in our living room. I see it daily. I like it. It has meaning. Yet, I cannot say that it explains anything to me. It is a representation – reaching beyond the words, with colour and light and ideas, by a person I met briefly in a far away land. It still remains as a little part of my faith journey.
Images, and pictures… like the fleeting richness of memory, can reveal part of the story. The rest, belongs to faith and lived experience.
Peter, in his own account, shares the power of being an eyewitness to such a moment. They were there; they heard the voice. He doesn’t mention his excitement, of wanting to build shelters or even that they were afraid. In the time since the mountain, Peter has been through much – from divine presence to bitter misery and denial. Now, with a different tone, the mountain, as a memory of awe and wonder, becomes a part of a life shaped by failure, forgiveness, and grace.
When he warns against “cleverly devised myths,” he is not dismissing our imagination, nor silencing true reflection. He reminds the Church that revelation is not ours to manipulate. It is not a story we bend to fit our own narrative. It is anchored in Christ alone.
And history teaches us how necessary that reminder is. Faith can illuminate — but it can also be distorted. Scripture can be read as life-giving revelation, or it can be twisted into a means to an end, even for harm. When interpretation drifts from the person and character of Christ, it doesn’t take long before belief becomes weapon rather than witness.
The events on the mountain occur some six days after their time in nearby Caesarea Philippi, in which Peter responds to Jesus’s question “who do you say that I am?”, with: “you are the Messiah. The son of the living God”. Remember?
And in today’s passage from Exodus, Moses waits on a cloudy mountain-top for six days, before God speaks on the seventh.
In scripture, it is the number seven that represents completeness —think of Genesis and the creation – so it follows that the incompleteness of the previous six days, on both mountains, is now transformed with God speaking, affirming – “this is my Son…”.
Where does our clarity come from?
Like all the stories in scripture – history, prophecy, poetry, law and journeying – nothing is without God’s purpose, nothing is wasted: to reveal an endless hope of returning all creation back to the Garden; that humanity might know God’s love.
Unsurprisingly, there are strange and contrasting parallels to be drawn, with both the Transfiguration and Crucifixion. Jesus no longer shining white, but stripped naked; no longer between Israel’s heroes – Moses and Elijah – but two criminals; then a bright cloud, now darkness envelopes the scene. Peter is now absent, and only a few of the disciples remain, still bewildered at the feet of the crucified Christ. Today it is the voice of God, tomorrow it is a Roman soldier that proclaims – this was the son of God.
Our transformation, on the life-long journey to discipleship, depends on holding all of this in balance – the ecstasy and the horror, the hope and the despair, the light and the inevitable darkness.
For those first Disciples, who had heard Jesus speak of what His mission would lead to, and the cost, this affirmation from God must have been incredible, on so many levels. Being told then not tell anyone must have been equally as mystifying! Not until after the Resurrection would these moments begin to make more sense.
In the early Christian communities, Peter’s eyewitness testimony would have reassured those wondering if they had made the right choice, following this Jesus who they hadn’t met, and when the Second Coming didn’t seem to be happening any time soon!
God will always reassure, somehow, often in ways we least expect. We can look closer, but it is likely that we will perceive with the eyes and ears of this world, and not of the Spirit.
A picture may only speak from the artist. Using words may not even explain the basics, for you and me. When we follow Jesus, and endeavour to live as He did, loving one another, as He loved… it becomes clearer.
How does all this help us as we progress into Lent?
Will this be a time of fasting for you? Less reliance on what we take for granted in a world of inequality?
Will it be a time of more – a little extra time for prayer and reading, maybe even share your story and inspire others?
How will you navigate the road through the mountains of your life, with its high passes and low valleys?
God speaks and tells them to listen to Jesus.
Who says – Do not be afraid….
Today’s readings remind us of how important these intimate encounters with God, and His divine authority, are to us. How we must trust in His timing, that we might be ready for the encounter that others will have in and through us!
If you were to tell someone about todays Gospel, what would you say? And how would you describe Lent – not just what we do at church, but what it means to you? There are usually plenty of people who ask “what are you giving up”. What will you say?
We can use words, stories, or maybe pictures. We can point to the example of people in scripture, or from elsewhere in human history. We might even speak of ourselves, and how there have been times when what we think God is saying makes sense to us. We could compare that to the darker times, when having faith has been hard work. Not just giving something up… but wanting to give it up completely.
Embrace both the mountains and the valleys.
From our viewpoint, we might think only the mountain top is worth preserving.
In the valleys, the work of God is quieter but no less profound.
God meets us in all of that and transforms us regardless.
As we journey through Lent together,
Listen to Him.
Do not be afraid….
May God be with you.
Amen.
Images
- 01 Church of the Transfiguration, Mount Tabor – fresco depicting Moses
- 02 Church of the Transfiguration, Mount Tabor – fresco depicting Elijah
- 03 Some idiot pilgrim with an antler fixation!
- 04 SB image of Icon gifted by the Georgian School of Iconography, Tbilisi (2007)
https://www.custodia.org/en/sanctuaries/mount-tabor-basilica-of-the-transfiguration/
https://www.friendsoftheholyland.org.uk/mt-tabor
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_Transfiguration
About the Icon
Zakharia Shioshvili is a contemporary Georgian iconographer, associated with the revival of traditional iconography in post-Soviet Georgia. Following the collapse of the USSR, liturgical art experienced a strong resurgence and several workshops in Tbilisi emerged, linked to church communities.
In Georgia, the Evangelical Baptist Church of Georgia developed a unique liturgical and artistic movement in the 1990s and 2000s. This movement reclaimed ancient Georgian Christian forms while remaining Protestant in theology. They established icon workshops that employed traditional egg tempera methods revived medieval Georgian styles formally trained students and signed and stamped their work.
I visited Georgia twice (2005/2007) as part of an ecumenical connection between The Right Revd Stephen Platten (former Bishop of Wakefield) and Bishop Malkhaz Songulashvili (Evangelical Baptist Church of Georgia). I represented Wakefield Cathedral, where another icon was installed on our return.