A service to mark Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent.

We often speak of mountain top experiences: those moments when God is powerfully present, when we feel that we have stepped outside of the humdrum and the ordinary and touched the divine and the eternal.  Both readings this morning recount such an experience.  In both they take place on a mountain top, above the concerns of the everyday. 

In Exodus 24:12-18 it is only Moses who is permitted to draw near to God, the rest of the people must stay at the distance.  In Matthew 17:1-9, however, Jesus takes people with him.  Here, instead of the “devouring fire” seen by Moses on the mountain, they see Jesus transfigured by the fire, the light and glory emanating from within him. 

The disciples are scared out of their wits but Jesus restores them with a touch.  Here God is no longer separate from humanity, no longer distant and other but is deeply and intimately enmeshed in and with humanity. 

God does not remain on the mountain top, God accompanies them back down the mountain into the world of the everyday.  Here they are to learn that they too can be transfigured, soaked through with the love and the will of God.  And, being filled with Christ, recognise Christ in others and in the world around them. 

God is not for special times and special places, God is for all times and all places.  Shining through the world, shining through each and everyone of us, calling us to reach out our very human hands that through them God might bring healing and renewal to a needy world.

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