We have four Sundays this year between the end of Epiphany and the start of Lent, and these help us to set the scene for Lent.

Today, the Sunday immediately before Lent, we hear the gospel story of the Transfiguration, a bizarre religious experience for Saints Peter, James & John, who, at the top of a mountain, see Jesus standing alongside Moses and Elijah. And yet when they come down, excited and exhausted and full of faith, they set about healing a sick boy, and they fail and the whole thing falls apart.

Sometimes we look back on distant religious, or just very touching, moments and we wonder if it was, in fact, real...or was it just that I was very sensitive that day, or I was particularly tired, or maybe I simply over-egged the whole thing....or dreamt it. I am sure that is how Peter, James and John must have felt. The vision is gone and life was back to its untidy and unspectacular normal. An amazing experience on one hand, and on the other all the mess, the ambiguity and perhaps disappointments of every day.

But when you hold these two things in your hand…, you are staring at the very heart of our faith, the very core of what it means to be a Christian. Because in Jesus Christ the Word was made flesh, God spoke directly to human beings, he walked among us, ….and the world was changed as a result. Religious experiences did break through into human daily life, and they were made real and meaningful and incarnate, and people's lives were changed.