Rev Helen preached this sermon on Sunday 2 March 2025. Here it is for you again:
‘The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.’ I love this verse from Numbers, mainly because when my I was a little girl and it was my dad’s turn to put me to bed and read me a story. He would always finish by putting his hand on my forehead and saying this prayer to me and it has really stuck with me and that is how I would drift off to sleep, or at least be pretending so I could laugh at him or my mum trying to creep into my room to try and turn off the night light without waking me up! I’m many of us have been on both sides of that at one point. That though of the Lord’s shining face was something that stuck with me as a beautiful image.
I tell you this because we have a couple of people who are shining in the readings today, one of them being Jesus in todays gospel. The three disciples who are there with Jesus see this change and they are amazed! They are amazed at what they see and it changes how they think of Jesus from that moment on, he was shining!
I’m going to try and do a visual display, fingers crossed this worked yesterday. Jesus is up on the mountain with Peter, James and John (hold up the bag of baby oil), he suddenly becomes dazzling white (pour in the glow in the dark paint), the disciples see that Jesus has changed, more than that he isn’t alone anymore he’s with Moses (we heard something similar happening to him in the first reading today) and Elijah, key prophets here with him and all this was because they were in the presence of God, (Be squeezing and mixing the paint), Can you imagine what it must have been like. Hopefully, fingers crossed, it might have been a bit like this, maybe a bit less green. Can you imagine if that happened, the shining light of God’s presence being seen and not only that hearing God’s voice speaking to them! ‘This is my Son, my beloved, listen to him’
Can you imagine that shining and what would you think! Would you be frightened, amazed, trying to find a logical explanation. I can remember one night I woke up in my bedroom and I could see white shining stars all over my bedroom floor and on my bed (I was in my thirties this time). It was early Easter Sunday morning so this did feel like…wow. Unfortunately I realised that it wasn’t. I’d bought some new bedding and mats that day after being at a rehearsal for the Easter Vigil and not spotted labels on them all which said ‘Glow in the dark’. Logical but that wasn’t the case up on that mountain. Can you imagine that scene on the top of the mountain that day, the disciples were witnessing! How frightened and amazed they must have been!
So what were they witnessing really? Jesus was shining but it was more than that, Moses face had shone when he’d seen God but Jesus whole self was shining because he is closer to God than anyone really, he’s God’s Son, he is the word of God made flesh and dwelling here with humanity. He’s about as close to God as it is possible to be. That is shown when God speaks and this disciples hear a command from God ‘This is my Son, my beloved, listen to him! That was God’s message to the disciples, listen to him do as he says, act as he acts, treat other people the way he treated them. Listen to him, do as he asks and be ready to be in his presence one day. That message is the same to us as his followers today to prepare for the day we will also stand before him God ‘This is my Son, my beloved, listen to him! so listen to him. Amen
St Margaret's Church Prestwich 