In town, on the hill, and walking on
Sermon for Holy Trinity Church, Llandudno; Sexagesima, 15 February 2020
The churches of the Ministry Area of Llandudno are spending a year following the lectionary and themes of Brian McLaren’s We Make the Road by Walking. This sermon is the penultimate of the second season, “Alive in the Adventure of Jesus”.
Isaiah 42:1–9, 53:1–12; Matthew 16:13 — 17:9
+In nomine…
This morning, we’re in town, we’re on the hill, and we’re walking on
In our Gospel this morning, Jesus takes his disciples to two distinctive, contrasting places. He takes them to Caesarea Philippi, to a busy city; and he takes them to the peak of Mount Tabor, to the seclusion of the hillside. He takes them, so to speak, to Holy Trinity in the town centre, and up to St Tudno’s on the Orme.
In the town centre, in Holy Trinity, in Caesarea Philippi, Jesus asks his disciples — “amid all of this noise and busyness, can you see what’s important?”
And on the mountaintop, on the Orme, on Mount Tabor, he builds his disciples up by giving them a glimpse of heaven.
He asks them if they can see what’s important; and he gives them a glimpse of heaven.
We’re in town, we’re on the hill, and we’re walking on
Let’s spend some time in town, in Caesarea Philippi first. Caesarea Philippi was a city in the Golan Heights, named after Caesar Augustus (the Roman Emperor who caused all the world to be taxed) and King Philip II (the son of King Herod the Great who massacred the innocents). And there, in Caesarea Philippi, Jesus asks his disciples, his followers, a question. “Who do people say that I am?” In this busy district, where people throng and come and go, where Ba’al and Pan and all the ancient gods are worshipped, where the emperor’s cult is upheld, in this place of markets and palaces and temples, in this place of visitors and holidaymakers and shoppers, “who do people say that I am” asks Jesus. And to his disciples, to the people in Holy Trinity, he’s more direct. “Who do you say that I am?” Amid all the noise and busyness of the world, “can you see me” Jesus asks them. “Amid all of this noise and busyness, can you see what’s important?” Can you see the still, silent centre of things? Peter can see. “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God,” he says. I know who you are, Peter says, and that you are all-important to me.
Amid the noise of our lives — whether that noise is our busyness or our loneliness, our fears or our pain — amid the noise of our lives, can we see what’s important? Can we see the still, silent centre of things? What are our values? What do we live by? What is all-important for us — for you and for me? And am I always true to it; do I live up to it; do I live for it; how often am I really focused on what’s important, of value, and eternal?
We’re in town, we’re on the hill, and we’re walking on
From Caesarea Philippi, Jesus and his disciples travel south and west to Lower Galilee, and there Jesus takes aside Peter, James and John and leads “them up a high mountain, by themselves.” And there, the Gospel writers say, “he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white.”
So often in the Bible, a high, secluded place is a holy place — a place where God is encountered, a place where the beauty, truth and love of God is revealed, a place where we come face-to-face with divinity unveiled — a place where we catch a glimpse of heaven. And that is Peter, James and John’s experience on the mountaintop. And it builds them up, it gives them confidence, it sustains them.
Where, I wonder, is my high place? Where is yours? Where do you meet Christ in glory? Where do you take yourself away to in order to encounter God in silence, or imagination, or scripture, or sacrament, or creation. Where do you see the light? Where do you go to top up your spiritual energy? Where do you get your glimpse of heaven?
We’re in town, we’re on the hill, and we’re walking on
Jesus takes his disciples to Caesarea Philippi, to the busy city; and he takes them to the peak of Mount Tabor, to the seclusion of the hillside.
In town, he asks them if they can see what’s important; and on the hillside he gives them a glimpse of heaven.
And these things happen now, and we read about them today, for a reason. They occur at a hinge point in the Gospel story and in our Church year. Until this point in the Gospel, we’ve largely been in Galilee, following Jesus along its lanes and across its lakes, into its towns, up its mountains. We’ve seen Jesus born, brought up and baptized; we’ve seen him call and teach and heal. We have seen his disciples come to terms with, come to understand, the one they have followed. And today we hear them able to confess what’s important, and given a sustaining glimpse of heaven.
And then they descend, and from today onward they and we face Jerusalem, and a journey that leads inexorably to the Temple, to the Upper Room, to Gethsemane, to Pontius Pilate’s courtyard, to Golgotha.
And so, a week on Wednesday we keep as Ash Wednesday and the season of Lent begins, and with the disciples, we too will turn, and make that journey, and follow Son of Man as he passes to his fate.
And as we prepare for that journey, and for keeping a holy Lent, think of the town and think of the hillside. Amid the noise of your life, can you see what’s important — and if not, spend time searching this Lent. And where is your high place? Where do you get your glimpse of heaven? Do you visit that place often enough? And if you haven’t found it yet, how about discovering your high place, your glimpse of heaven, this Lent?
We’re in town, we’re on the hill, and we’re walking on, to nothing more and nothing less than Cross, and empty tomb, and eternal light.
