Pastoral Letter 253

Dear Members of St. Andrew’s Uniting Church, Friends and Adherents,

Grace and peace to you all. I hope all is well.

Thia Sunday we will celebrate Transfiguration of Jesus and then we enter into the Lent season, starting with Ash Wednesday on the 5th of March, which will lead us to Passion Week or Holy Week and Easter, when we will celebrate the victorious resurrection of Christ from the death.

On Friday, 7 March 2025 at 10:00 am, we are invited to attend the World Day of Prayer, which will be held again at St. Aidan’s Anglican Church, down the road, 1 Chritina Street, Longueville. This year the program is prepared by the women of Cook Island. The theme is: “I made you wonderful”, based on Psalm 139: 1-18. Following the service, morning tea will be served. Please join us if you can and pray with us.

My placement here at Longueville will end on 31 May and the Service of Closure and Retirement will be held on Sunday 25 May 2025 at 11:30 am followed by refreshments, organised by the Church Elders/Council and Sydney Central Coast Presbytery. We are expecting a big crowd, Uniting Church representatives, local Councillors, Armenian Community leaders, friends and family members. And then from 1 June till the end of the year the Church Council and the Elders will organise the way ahead making sure that we will have our regular Sunday services and the programs running. With God’s help we will move forward keeping the faith.

We continue to pray for all those who need our care and prayers, remembering those who are facing many challenges, such as natural disasters, hunger, homelessness, uncertainties and so many other things.

Please pray for Ned, who was hospitalised last Sunday night after having a heart attack. He will be in hospital for a while, and he will undergo a critical medical procedure. The good news is that he and Adrienne are in good spirits and have totally committed to God’s grace and provision. Please continue to pray for Virginia and Frank as well.

If you are not able to join us tomorrow, please light a candle, have a small roll of bread and cup of wine and join us following the attached Order of Services.

Please let me know if you or anyone else has prayer points.

Here are some prayer points for this week:

  1. Pray the next phase of our ministry here at St. Andrew’s beyond 1 June 2025.
  2. Pray for Ned as he is in hospital after a heart attack.
  3. Pray for Virginia as she is undergoing treatment for her cancer and trust God for His care.
  4. Pray for trusting God and asking that He protect those who need protection.
  5. Pray for the oppressed and those who suffer undergoing challenges of different kinds.
  6. Pray for the poor, the sick, the hungry, the struggling, the stressed and those who are less fortunate.

In Christ

Krikor

MESSAGE

The Transfiguration – Transforming Experience

Luke 9:28-36

Just prior to the transfiguration experience Jesus began to tell His disciples about His impending death and that He must suffer many things and be rejected by the people. He told them that after three days He would rise again. His disciples didn’t want to hear about that and Peter, especially, spoke up objecting to His suffering and dying. After these difficult teachings, the disciples may have felt confused and depressed by all that Jesus was trying to tell them. They couldn’t grasp it because they were thinking in human terms, and He was trying to get them to understand in the light of eternity.

Six days afterward, Jesus took Peter, James, and John (His inner circle) up to the Mountain (Mt. Hermon, 9000 ft) to pray. During the night the disciples became sleepy and were dozing off when something happened. Because the very appearance of Jesus started to change right before their eyes, they knew that it was really Jesus. Previously dressed in a dull, dusty robe from the day, He was now wearing a white robe that “became dazzling white.” Luke’s account says that His clothes “became as bright as a flash of lightning” (Luke 9:29). His face shone with the glory of the Lord. Matthew describes the transformation as “his face shone like the sun and his clothes became as white as the light” (Matt. 17:2). It is hard for us to imagine such an experience as this. Scripture says it was a good experience, but it was also frightening to them.

This morning, we are invited to accompany Jesus and His chosen disciples as they climb a mountain, and there experience a wondrous moment – a turning-point in the lives of the special companions of Jesus who witness it. And as we descend the mountain once again, we are invited to respond to what we have experienced as we live out our lives of discipleship today.

But first, begin at the beginning of our journey that day. In our imaginations we follow Jesus, Peter, James and John as they begin to ascend the mountainside. Perhaps in their silent walking they were remembering Jesus’ words to them some days earlier, as He said to them: “lf any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” Jesus also spoke about what good it would do to anyone if they gained the whole world yet forfeit their life. I wonder what the disciples made of these sayings of Jesus, and whether they were puzzling over them as they climbed.

On they climb, ascending all the time – further and further away from the ‘world’ and all its complexities and distractions. They are purposely retreated from the ‘world’ to spend time in prayer and isolation. Then they stopped. They were glad, because they were tired and heavy with sleep. They sat down and note that Jesus was already deep in prayer. And as they relax, they began to feel very sleepy indeed! But just as they were about to ‘drop off’ to sleep, they saw something incredible that immediately made them wide awake again! Jesus’ face was shining, as if He was lit from within! They could see a definite light – getting stronger and stronger – radiating from Him and His clothing. Then through the cracks on their fingers, as they shielded their eyes from the now over-powering light, they saw two figures – one standing either side of Jesus. There they were, speaking with Jesus, the two great Old Testament Figures prophets – Moses and Elijah! And they could just hear the words they exchange with Jesus, about what He will accomplish in Jerusalem.

1. Moses – Represented the law.

2. Elijah – Represented the prophets.

Then Peter, quite overcome with excitement, and displaying his characteristic spontaneity, without thinking what he’s saying, suggested it would be a good idea to mark this incredible event with the building of three tents – one each for Jesus and the two prophets. But before the words left his lips, a great cloud enveloped them, which brough great fear to their hearts. Then they felt God’s presence and heard God’s voice as He spoke: “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him.” Suddenly, Jesus was alone again. And as they descended the mountainside again – as they returned to the ‘world’ they had temporarily left behind – they had a great deal to reflect upon. They said nothing about what they had witnessed to anyone, for some considerable time, as Jesus had instructed.

Well, what an amazing event! What an incredible experience! Who says that following Jesus is boring! Yet still we ponder the meaning of what they did that day, what they saw and heard. Right to this, our present day – today!

Next Sunday we begin our ‘travelling’ through the weeks of Lent. And perhaps this season of Lent be a time of searching and of seeking a closer relationship with God. Temporarily leaving aspects of the ‘world’ behind – helps us to understand a little deeper the importance of what happened all that time ago, there on the mountain.

First of all, Lent has traditionally been a time of ‘giving things up’. A time of renouncing some of those ‘worldly’ things that can so often pre-occupy us, so that we can concentrate upon our need of – our dependence upon – God, and to respond to God’s will. The disciples Peter, James and John did this – on a much bigger scale perhaps – with Jesus as they left the world behind them to climb that mountain and to that encounter with God. Lent is a time for renewing relationship with God and, in response to our encounter with God, to return to the world with a renewed vitality and vision about where God is calling us to go – just as God called Jesus to Jerusalem.

A second point about the Transfiguration event is emphasised by Peter’s desire to permanently mark it by building three tents on the spot. A sort of shrine perhaps; a memorial so to speak, where pilgrims forevermore could go and pray. Yet, as important as the Transfiguration experience was there and then, to the disciples who witnessed it there and then, it is far more important here and now! It is of lasting importance, because it is an experience that transformed the lives of the disciples, as they were later to exercise their ministry in the world. In their witnessing the Transfiguration of Jesus, they heard Him being affirmed in His providence, and this providence as being God’s will. They saw Jesus (quite literally!) in a new light – they saw Him as He truly was – God’s Son, the Chosen One. Certainly, after the event, the disciples needed time to reflect upon what all this meant for them, and what it would continue to mean as time went on. They had their eyes opened to the truth about the nature and purpose of God; of how God is working through Jesus – and they glimpse the possibilities of God working through them too, as Jesus disciples.

So, the Transfiguration experience effects and changes the heart and the soul and becomes the agent and the catalyst of change in the world. In his quick response, Peter thought that the Transfiguration experience was an opportunity to create a permanent structure-like shrine for people to visit – and then return home again. Yet, and no doubt after some reflection, he and the other disciples came to realise that the way to respond to such a moment was by letting it change – transform – their lives; by taking the experience and letting it change the world through them. The Transfiguration event was a turning-point in Jesus’ life: He knew that, from that point onwards, with no little certainty, that the way He would go – to Jerusalem and the Cross – was God’s way. The way, indeed, that Jesus calls His disciples to follow – to take-up their crosses daily and tread the same footsteps as He.

It may seem that our journeying through the 40 days and nights of Lent is somewhat of an uphill struggle. It may seem that, at certain times of our lives, we are in the midst of an uphill struggle. As a congregation we feel and sense that we are facing a difficult journey. After all we should be following Christ, and as He had His journey on this earth full of challenges and struggles, yet at the end He was triumphant. If we anticipate – if we fervently hope for, and trust in – a Transfiguration event in our lives, we too – with Peter – can exclaim (even when we seem to have reached the limits of our strength and endurance) “It is good for us to be here”. For the Transfiguration experience is a transforming experience: it begins in the depths of our hearts and radiates outwards into every aspect of our lives as individuals and as congregation. The invitation to climb the mountain of transformation is always open and is, in fact, an invitation of Jesus’ to encounter God afresh and anew, then to see ourselves, God’s purpose in our lives, and the world, in a different light. It is an invitation to see in a new light what God is calling us to be and to do as disciples of Christ Jesus in the world.

The journey then, which we begin next Sunday, is our Lenten Journey. And, in faith and in prayer, we can be assured that the Risen Christ is accompanying us as we climb the mountain, guiding us and sustaining us through the power of the Holy Spirit, towards a new encounter with God. Thanks be to God.

Amen!