Epiphany 6 & Sunday before Lent

SENTENCE FROM SCRIPTURE:

He spoke to them out of the pillar of cloud (Psalm 99)

HYMN-

GREETING

Grace and peace to you from God our Father
and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen

COLLECT FOR PURITY

Almighty God,
to whom all hearts are open,
all desires known,
and from whom no secrets are hidden:
cleanse the thoughts of our hearts
by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit,
that we may perfectly love you,
and worthily magnify your holy name;
through Christ our Lord. Amen.

SUMMARY OF THE LAW

Our Lord Jesus Christ said: The first commandment is this:

Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is the only Lord. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength.”
The second is this: “Love your neighbour as yourself.” There is no other commandment greater than these. Amen. Lord, have mercy.

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CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION

God is love and we are God’s children. There is no room for fear in love. We love because God loved us first.
Let us confess our sins in penitence and faith.

SILENCE

God our Father,
we confess to you
and to our fellow members in the Body of Christ
that we have sinned in thought, word and deed,
and in what we have failed to do.
We are truly sorry.
Forgive us our sins,
and deliver us from the power of evil,
for the sake of your Son who died for us, Jesus Christ, our Lord.

ABSOLUTION

God, who is both power and love,
forgive you and free you from your sins,
heal and strengthen you by the Holy Spirit,
and raise you to new life in Christ our Lord. Amen.

GLORIA
sung by Sue Turner

COLLECT

Almighty God,
grant that with our minds set always on your wisdom and love,
we may pursue both in word and deed
those things that are pleasing in your sight;
through Jesus Christ, our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, world without end. Amen

PROCLAIMING & RECEIVING GOD’S WORD

FIRST READING
Exodus 24.12–18
read by Gill Swales

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12 The LORD said to Moses, ‘Come up to me on the mountain, and wait there; and I will give you the tablets of stone, with the law and the commandment, which I have written for their instruction.’ 13 So Moses set out with his assistant Joshua, and Moses went up into the mountain of God. 14 To the elders he had said, ‘Wait here for us, until we come to you again; for Aaron and Hur are with you; whoever has a dispute may go to them.’ 15 Then Moses went up on the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain. 16 The glory of the LORD settled on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days; on the seventh day he called to Moses out of the cloud. ✝

17 Now the appearance of the glory of the LORD was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel. 18 Moses entered the cloud, and went up on the mountain. Moses was on the mountain for forty days and forty nights.

SECOND READING
2 Peter 1.16–21

16 We did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty.

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17 For he received honour and glory from God the Father when that voice was conveyed to him by the Majestic Glory, saying, ‘This is my Son, my Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.’

18 We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven, while we were with him on the holy mountain. 19 So we have the prophetic message more fully confirmed. You will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. 20 First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, 21 because no prophecy ever came by human will, but men and women moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.

GRADUAL HYMN

GOSPEL Matthew 17.1–9, read by Rev Chris Wren

Hear the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Matthew, Chapter 17, beginning at verse 1
Glory to Christ our Saviour

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1 Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. 2 And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. 3 Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. 4 Then Peter said to Jesus, ‘Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.’

5 While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!’ 6 When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. 7 But Jesus came and touched them, saying, ‘Get up and do not be afraid.’ 8 And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone. 9 As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, ‘Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.’

Give thanks to the Lord for his glorious Gospel
Praise to Christ our Lord.

SERMON

NOTES

This is one Sunday of the year when the links between the three scriptural readings: from the Old Testament, the Epistle, and the Gospel, are at their most clear. Just as the teaching of Moses was held to constitute the first five books of the Bible, the Pentateuch, so the Evangelist, St Matthew, arranged the teaching of Jesus into five sections – the best known of which is the Sermon on the Mount. St Matthew represents Jesus, therefore, as the Messiah who fulfils, but also transcends the law of Moses, and is a far greater figure. In Matthew’s account of the Transfiguration, therefore, there are obvious parallels with the ascent of Moses on Mt Sinai.

Exodus 24.12-18.

The narrative records the giving of the Ten Commandments to Moses from God, which Moses wrote down on tablets of stone. Mountains in the Bible, and in other religious traditions also, represent the fact that God’s dwelling place is in heaven, using the steep ascent, the mountain’s verticality, as a symbol of this. The mountain, like so often is the case with Criffel, was shrouded in mist. This may well have been the case when Moses climbed Mount Sinai, but behind the imagery of the cloud lies another symbol. Because God in His essential nature was hidden from human beings, His “Shekinah”, the Presence of the Holy One was conveyed using the symbolism of a cloud.

When Moses reached the bottom of the mountain, he discovered that in his absence the Israelites had made a golden calf to worship. In his frustration he broke the tablets on which the Ten Commandments were written. The story reminds us that although on rare occasions we may have something akin to a mountain top experience, we cannot stay there indefinitely. We need to engage with the ordinary and the everyday again, which is also the place where God reveals Himself.

2 Peter 1, 16-23.

Peter, according to the story of Jesus’s Transfiguration, was one of the three disciples who went up the mountain (probably Mount Tabor) with Jesus. He says very little about the experience itself apart from telling us what the content of God’s message was, “This is my Son, my Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” The same words appear in connection with Jesus’s baptism, but the writer of the epistle makes it clear that the reference was not to the baptism of Jesus. It was, instead, the occasion we know as the Transfiguration, because he adds that this was the voice they heard while they were with Jesus on the holy mountain.

Matthew 17.1-9

The Transfiguration, recorded here by Matthew, has, in fact, been given far more prominence in Eastern Orthodoxy than in the Western Christendom. In Eastern Orthodoxy the Transfiguration is not so much a story about what happened to Jesus. It is that, of course, but it also has to do with the idea that the Risen Jesus can transfigure us, so that we become images of Him, as His Presence shines through our lives. This understanding is not absent from the Western interpretation of the narrative and the Collect for today picks up this theme, it is just that in the East it has been accorded a greater prominence. Like the cloud on Mount Sinai, here too we find a mention of a bright cloud overshadowing Jesus, Moses, and Elijah (the latter two standing for the Law and the Prophets). Again, it is symbolic imagery to convey the Shekinah – the Presence of the Divine.

Notice how Peter, in this story, suggests the building of three tabernacles one for Jesus and one each for Moses and Elijah. It was an attempt by Peter to capture what had been a wonderful spiritual experience on his part for eternity, but things are not as simple. We need, after being on a spiritual high, like Jesus and Moses before Him, to engage with the world as we normally experience it – that is when we are not so conscious of bathing in the divine light.

THE CREED

We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
God from God,
Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one substance with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven;
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate of the Virgin Mary,
and was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit,
the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father.
With the Father and the Son,
he is worshipped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

Prayer Requests – Baildon Methodist Church

PRAYERS

As we focus our hearts and minds to pray this morning, we remember the refrain from today’s Psalm, 99, He spoke to them out of the pillar of cloud. We give thanks for the instances in which God spoke to his people from a pillar of cloud in Old Testament times, more recently to the disciples at the time of Transfiguration we’ve been looking at today, and to us at all times, if we make space for him to do so.

So we remember first those closest to us: family, including members of this Congregation, friends, neighbours, colleagues. We give thanks for them, and ask that you bless, guide and direct all our relationships.