In my sermon last Sunday, I said that, to me, something that encapsulates what Lent is really all about are the words we use at the Imposition of Ashes on Ash Wednesday;
‘Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.
Repent, and believe in the Gospel.’
But those of us here who can remember the days when we used the ASB, The Alternative Service Book, and there are many of us here who will remember that, will perhaps remember the words from the ASB’s companion volume, Lent, Holy Week and Easter which were,
‘Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.
Turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ.’
We might say that there’s very little difference in meaning between those two different sets of words, but I’m not so sure. Certainly, to repent is to turn away from sin but is believing the Gospel the same as being faithful to Christ? I’m sure all of us here believe in the Gospel, we probably wouldn’t be here if we didn’t, but how faithful to Christ are we, really? Because if we were faithful to Christ, truly faithful to him and to following his teaching and example, we wouldn’t have much, if anything, to repent of would we? So if we want to be truly faithful to Christ, we have to do more than simply know and believe in the Gospel. We have to make the Gospel part of us and put it at the heart of everything we do and say. We have to not only hear the Gospel and believe it but live the Gospel. And this is what’s meant in the story of the Transfiguration when Peter, James and John are told to ‘listen’ to Jesus. Because the Greek word we translate as ‘listen’ doesn’t simply mean to hear but to listen indeed and understand. To give what Jesus is saying our full attention so that we can truly grasp his meaning and act accordingly.
In some ways, I think the Transfiguration Gospel is placed in the lectionary so early in Lent as an encouragement. In the past, I’ve described Lent as a ‘spiritual marathon’, because, if we take Lent seriously, it involves 6 solid weeks of spiritual discipline, about the time it takes to train to run a marathon I believe. We’re not 1/3 of the way through that yet. We still have a long way to go and so a bit of encouragement is in order. And the story of Jesus’ Transfiguration gives us that encouragement by telling us just who it is we’re trying to follow more closely through our Lenten discipline.
The Transfiguration reveals Jesus’ true glorious nature, how he will appear in God’s kingdom. It reveals him as the fulfilment of both the Law and the Prophets, as he said he was. And the voice from the cloud, as it did at his baptism, identifies him as the incarnate Son of God. And we’re told all this about Jesus before we’re told to “listen to him.” And so, in terms of the Church’s lectionary, we’re told all this about Jesus towards the beginning of Lent to encourage us to listen to him more attentively, to try to understand what he’s saying to us more fully, and to follow him more closely – to be more faithful to Christ.
We listen to Jesus primarily, of course, through the words of scripture. Jesus can speak to us through the Spirit, he can speak to us through the Church’s teaching, he can even speak to us through other people, but if what we hear, or think we hear, from those sources is contrary to what we read in scripture, then we need to be very wary of what those voices may be saying to us.
But if our primary way of listening to Jesus is through the Scriptures, that leads to the question of whether scripture can be trusted. Is what we read true? Is it reliable? How much of it really happened? Perhaps even, did any of it really happen?
People do ask these questions about the Scriptures, and they are valid questions because we have to admit there’s some pretty weird and wonderful stuff in the Scriptures; the Transfiguration for one. But how about turning water into wine, feeding thousands of people with a few loaves and fishes and walking on water? That’s before we get into bring the dead back to life. We read some pretty strange things in the Scriptures, and so it’s understandable that many people find it hard to believe in the Gospel and, by extension in Christ. So how reliable and trustworthy are the Scriptures?
In answer to that question, I want to talk a little bit about another well-known writing from a time not long before the time of Christ, the Commentarii de Bello Gallico, or to give it its English title, the Commentaries on the Gallic Wars. That book is regarded as a primary source of information about the campaigns of Julius Caesar in Gaul during the 50s BC. And it’s regarded as that in part because it was written, or at least dictated, by an eyewitness to the events described – Caesar himself. And it was written soon after the events because we know it was reviewed and praised by the Roman statesman, Cicero, in 46 BC. So, while Caesar did, no doubt, ‘big up’ his own achievements in the Commentarii, it’s still seen as a reliable and trustworthy source of information because it’s based on eye witness accounts and was written very close to the time of the events it describes. But we can say these things, at least of the New Testament scriptures too.
We can’t be sure of the exact dates that the New Testament books were written. The earliest were probably St Paul’s Letters which were written over a 20-year period 15-25 years after the Resurrection (although some scholars believe that the Letter of James was the first and was written in the early to mid-40s AD), and the last were St John’s corpus, his Gospel, Letters and the Book of Revelation, towards the end of the 1st Century AD. But as the last of them were written by the Apostle John, all the books of the New Testament were written within living memory of Jesus.
And they were all written either by eye witnesses to the events of Jesus’ life and ministry or by people who knew those eye witnesses. James, who was the brother of Jesus’. Paul was a persecutor of the early Church. We know that he witnessed Stephen being stoned to death and that probably happened within a year of the Resurrection, so Paul must have known about Jesus and what his Apostles were saying about him. Later, when Paul converted to the Christian faith, he met with the Apostles, and no doubt many others who’d known Jesus too. Luke, a companion of Paul. John, who identifies himself as an eyewitness to the events of Jesus’ life and ministry a number of times in his writings. Mark who wrote the first Gospel and whom we think was Peter’s amanuensis. And Peter himself. In his 1st Letter he says that he was
‘…a witness to the sufferings of Christ…’
And in his 2nd Letter he says,
‘For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For when he received honour and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased”, we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain.’
So from the very earliest days, the Gospel has been proclaimed and spread by eyewitness testimony. The fact that what those people witnessed happened a long time ago doesn’t make their testimony any less valid than the passage of time makes the testimony of Julius Caesar about the events of his campaigns in Gaul. The fact that the eyewitnesses to the events of Jesus’ ministry saw some strange things, some weird and wonderful things, some things that might even defy explanation, doesn’t alter the fact that they said they saw them. And perhaps even more importantly, it doesn’t alter the fact that they were willing to suffer and die rather than change their story.
So can we trust the Scriptures? Well, when he tried to explain his reasoning, the fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes said,
“Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.”
And I think we can apply the same reasoning to the question of the truth of the Gospel. Is it possible that people would say that they had seen with their own eyes, the kind of extraordinary things they said about Jesus if they really hadn’t seen them? Why would they do that knowing that it would put them on a collision course with the very same authorities who’d put Jesus to death? What could they hope to gain from proclaiming the Gospel if they knew it wasn’t true? They’d have nothing to gain and everything to lose.
I think it’s impossible to believe that they would say the things they said about Jesus if it wasn’t true so, as improbable as what they said sounds, it is the truth. And so, let’s listen to what they said in confidence that through their words and eyewitness testimony, through the words of scripture, we are listening to Jesus. And let’s give what Jesus says our full attention so that can we understand more fully what he’s saying to us and so that we can be more faithful to him in our lives.
Amen.
Propers for Lent 2, Sunday 1 March 2026
Entrance Antiphon
Of you my heart has spoken: Seek his face.
It is your face, O Lord, that I seek;
hide not your face from me.
The Collect
O God, who has commanded us
to listen to your beloved Son,
be pleased, we pray,
to nourish us inwardly by your word,
that, with spiritual sight made pure,
we may rejoice to behold your glory.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.
Amen.
The Readings
Genesis 12:1-4
Psalm 33:4-5, 18-20, 22
2 Timothy 1:8-10
Matthew 17:1-9
Prayer after Communion
As we receive these glorious mysteries,
we make thanksgiving to you, O Lord,
for allowing us while still on earth
to be partakers even now of the things of heaven.
Through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Parish Church of St Mark Chadderton 