PURE JOY

Have you ever experienced a moment of pure joy? Not the fleeting joy of your favourite football team scoring a goal, or the taste of a particularly delicious piece of cake. I mean the kind of joy where the world slows down around you, where dust motes seem to hang in the air, and everything is bathed in light. The chances are that this moment involved another human being. Perhaps it was the first time you looked into the face of someone, and you realised that you loved them. A partner, a parent, a child, a friend. At that moment, as the blood rushed into your ears, everything in your life changed. From then on, whatever you did, whatever happened next, the world was different. You had touched the divine and nothing was the same.

If this has happened to you, I wonder if you remember the moment that followed it directly afterwards. Did life speed up and come crashing in? Or was the moment broken by pressing worries, a to-do list, by second guessing yourself?

ENCOUNTERS WITH GLORY

Our readings today all refer to humanity encountering the glory of the Lord. For Moses, it was an experience which so altered him that his face shone – so clearly that the Israelites would see it reflected in his very skin. This was such a tremendous sight that Moses had to veil his face to stop others from seeing it and being afraid of him. Paul too talks of seeing the glory of the Lord reflected in other peoples’ unveiled faces. These intense encounters are perhaps not designed to be experienced for more than fleeting moments – they are too precious and too overwhelming. Thomas Ken’s poem All Praise to Thee in Light arrayed describes this experience of glory as making our souls ‘lighten and inflame’. Oliver Tarney’s anthem, which sets this very text with a swelling organ part underneath the choir singing a cascading repetition of praise, similarly overwhelms our senses as we seek to experience the touch of the divine in the music.

Consider then Peter’s reaction in our Gospel reading of his encounter of the glory of Jesus with Moses and Elijah. He cannot stay still. Instead of sitting in the moment, letting the joy wash over him, he quickly forms a to-do list of making dwellings for the three. He does not know what he is saying: is he panicking? Is it all just too much for him? Or is he so enlivened by this joy that he is desperate to make it last, scrabbling to hold on to it, and sadly meaning that he misses out on living the moment fully?

SO WHAT?

What can we learn from Peter today? We know that it’s all too easy to get overwhelmed by fragments of joy or to let the pressures of the next task move us on, instead of stopping and appreciating the moment. In this world of deadlines and time pressures, I wonder whether we are so busy doing every task that we do not stop to appreciate the moments of joy in our lives. Joy. It’s such a little word to describe the fruit of the Spirit which elicits such a depth of profound feeling.

REFLECT AND GIVE THANKS

Perhaps it sounds counter-intuitive to speak about stopping to smell the flowers, given that we’re about to enter Lent. Well, no. Lent is a time of reflection as we seek to draw closer to God, so surely, we should be seeking to fully appreciate the fruits God has blessed in our lives. Think back. Have you experienced joy? Has that moment of joy stayed etched on your heart and in your face? Joy does not come in crumbs: it lasts a lifetime. With our modern, hardened minds that are preoccupied with the burdens of today, and the need to seek out the next thrill, we need to ask Christ to help us pause, taking the time in prayer to thank God for all the goodness that he has given us – past and present. I invite you to make this your Lenten discipline, which surely will deepen our appreciation on Easter Morning when we open our lips to sing Alleluia once more.

References:

Poem: All Praise to Thee, in light arrayed by Thomas Ken (1637–1711)

Anthem: All Praise to Thee, in light arrayed by Oliver Tarney (1984- ) published by Winton Music Press (2013)