They saw only Jesus

from Helen

In our gospel reading (Mark 9:2-9) today we heard the story of the transfiguration. At the moment the Church calendar is moving quickly through the life of Jesus. He was born in December, there was the epiphany in January, then there was the presentation of Jesus at the temple by his parents. Now today we have stepped forward a long way to the transfiguration. 

Whenever I think of the transfiguration I think of lots of light and brightness. I think of an explosion of colour but most of all I think of complete amazement and awe as the three disciples saw not only Jesus but Moses and Elijah as well.

I think completely shocked would not be an adequate word to describe this. Peter, James and John had travelled with Jesus to another place. At this place they had seen something incredible. They saw the one that they had been following with the great Moses, who represented the law and then Elijah who represented the prophets. Jesus was bringing together these two great parts of the faith of the disciples and of the people of Israel, but more than this He was surpassing them. Jesus was so much better than they could imagine. He had shown them the greats of their faith and had then overshadowed these. 

I think that it must have been the type of experience that you would never want to end. The type of experience that whilst you know it’s once in a lifetime you don’t really want to go back to normal life. 

It must have been an incredible experience,  but the part I want to think about is that suddenly the disciples looked and all they could see was Jesus. 

How amazing ! Imagine if when you looked all you could see was Jesus. I love the fact of Jesus with us always but I also love that idea of looking and only being able to see Jesus. 

Of course we don’t literally look up and see Jesus and only Him but I am sure we have all been in someone’s presence where it has felt as if we are in the presence of God. Those people who we look at, whose lives touch us so that we feel as if we are looking right at God and His image.

A while ago I read a story on the internet that has stuck with me. It is... 

A little boy wanted to meet God.

He knew it was a long trip to where God lived, so he packed his suitcase with biscuits and six cans of lemonade and he started his journey. When he had walked for a short while, he met an old woman.

She was sitting in the park just staring at some pigeons. The boy sat down next to her and opened his suitcase. He was about to take a drink from his lemonade when he noticed that the old lady looked hungry, so he offered her a biscuit.

She gratefully accepted it and smiled at him. Her smile was so pretty that the boy wanted to see it again, so he offered her a lemonade. Again, she smiled at him.

The boy was delighted! They sat there all afternoon eating and smiling, but they never said a word. As it grew dark, the boy realized how tired he was and he got up to leave, but before he had gone more than a few steps, he turned around, ran back to the old woman, and gave her a hug.

She gave him her biggest smile ever.

When the boy opened the door to his own house a short time later, his mother was surprised by the look of joy on his face. She asked him “What did you do today that made you so happy?”

He replied, “I had lunch with God.” But before his mother could respond, he added, “You know what? She’s got the most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen!”

Meanwhile, the old woman, also radiant with joy, returned to her home.

Her son was stunned by the look of peace on her face and he asked, “Mother, what did you do today that made you so happy?” She replied, “I ate biscuits in the park with God.”

However, before her son responded, she added, “You know, he’s much younger than I expected.”

I love that story and it says something about what it might look like to see God and only Him. The disciples saw something incredible and when they looked they then saw only Jesus who was more than enough for them. 

Through Jesus we can see and know what it is to see God. 

The point is though that as God’s people today we need to show Jesus to people so that when they look at us and the way we act they only see Jesus. 

I think the greatest compliment that someone could ever have is that they are like Jesus to people - how brilliant if people could look at us and say, ‘oh, they follow Jesus and you can see Jesus in them.’ 

Being like Jesus means that we are to be full of love and compassion, it is to show that God is amongst us by the way that we live together. It is about being someone who loves  the unlovables, who reaches out to those in need, who makes a difference by living out their faith.

It means being reconciled with God and each other, it means no back biting, it means no going behind each other's backs.

This week we move into one of what I call the spiritual aerobics periods. We will be in the time of lent. The time when we look at ourselves and God and think of how we would like to be and what we need to change to be more like Him. 

We may do this by giving something up, by taking something up, spending more time in prayer as we seek to draw closer to God. 

We will be starting a Lenten group looking at the Psalms on Wednesday as I have said. Lent is a serious time, it is a time of repentance when we are seeking to be made right with God. It is not a test to see how Holy we can be, it is a time set for us to reflect more on God.

One thing that could be done is to keep thinking about what it means to be people through whom the light of Christ shines so that others can look and say - they’re like Jesus and then want to know more of God in their own lives. 

Jesus was transfigured, He was transformed. May we be ready and willing to allow God to transform us so we become more and more like Him. AMEN