Listening for the Road Ahead

Standing at the Threshold of Lent

As we approach Ash Wednesday, we find ourselves standing at a threshold.

The season of Epiphany has invited us to see, to notice who Christ is and how he is revealed among us. But Lent invites something different. It invites us not just to see, but to listen. Not just to observe Christ’s glory, but to follow him down the mountain and into the deeper work of transformation.

Lent is often misunderstood as a season of spiritual self-improvement, a time to try harder, give something up, or prove our devotion. But at its heart, Lent is gentler and more honest than that. It is a season of attention. It’s a season of returning, of allowing God to meet us in the places of change, uncertainty, grief, and longing that shape our lives.

Before we receive ashes on our foreheads, before we make commitments or fast or take on new practices, it is worth pausing:

Where is the ground shifting in your life right now? What change are you facing? What uncertainty feels close to the surface? And where, in the midst of it, might Christ already be present?

The Gospel of the Transfiguration, always read on the last Sunday after Epiphany, gives us a glimpse of glory before the long road toward Jerusalem begins. It reminds us who Jesus is before we walk with him into the wilderness. It reminds us that the voice from heaven still speaks: “This is my Son, the Beloved. Listen to him.”

As you read the sermon below, I invite you not simply to think about Lent, but to gently ask:

Where is Christ inviting my attention this season? What would it mean for me to listen?

May this week be a holy threshold for you, an unhurried space before the journey begins.

Sermon: Listening for the Road Ahead

February 15, 2026

Church of the Nativity

Last Sunday After Epiphany

Matthew 17:1-9

Watch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dq-SXikRaMk

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Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I speak to you in the name of the One who is Light from Light, and Love made flesh. Amen.

I want to begin by inviting you into a memory. Think about a time when you were told that change was coming—real change. The kind that alters the landscape of your life. Perhaps it was a diagnosis. Perhaps it was a phone call in the middle of the night. Perhaps it was a conversation that quietly signaled the end of something you had assumed would last.

What thoughts were running through your mind? How did your body feel in that moment? Did you want to just hide and pretend as if nothing was changing? Did you need to talk to someone or be alone? What did you do next - were you immobilized or launched into action? Remember for a moment, how you felt in that moment and in the hours and days after.

In those moments, when the ground shifts under our feet, there is often a strange mixture of fear and anticipation. We may not know what is ahead, but we know enough to understand that life will not look the same and that uncertainty shakes us to the core.

When we know change is coming, we long for clarity. We long for reassurance. We want some steady word from God that tells us who we are and who God will be in the midst of it. I suspect the disciples in today’s Gospel were not so different from us.

Immediately before Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up the mountain, he tells all of them that he must suffer, that he will be handed over, that death is not a distant possibility but an approaching reality.

In Matthew 16, just before this mountaintop moment, Jesus has taken the disciples to Caesarea Philippi and asked them the question that sits at the heart of the Gospel: “Who do you say that I am?” Peter answers boldly, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Jesus blesses him for that insight, tells him this revelation has come from the Father, and speaks of building his church on this rock of confession. It is a high point. A moment of clarity. Peter sees who Jesus truly is.

And then, almost immediately, Jesus begins to tell them what being Messiah actually means. He must go to Jerusalem. He will suffer. He will be rejected. He will be killed. And on the third day be raised.

Peter, who has just declared Jesus the Christ, cannot reconcile that vision with suffering. He pulls Jesus aside and rebukes him. And Jesus responds just as strongly: “You are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

From there, Jesus widens the circle and says to all of them: if you want to follow me, you must take up your cross. The way of the Messiah is not triumph as the world defines it. It is self-giving love. It is surrender. It is a path that leads through death into life.

And it is six days after that conversation that Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up the mountain. And then, after the Transfiguration, he will speak of it again. The Transfiguration is placed between two announcements of suffering. It happens not in a moment of triumph, but in a moment of looming change. That timing matters.

The Transfiguration does not occur instead of suffering; it occurs right in the middle of Jesus naming it. Which, I think, makes this story less like a spiritual spectacle and more like a gift given for the road ahead.

On the mountain, something extraordinary happens. Jesus is transfigured. His face shines. His clothes become dazzling white. Moses and Elijah appear, representing the Law and the Prophets, the whole story of Israel standing alongside him. And in that luminous moment, the disciples see Jesus clearly.

Notice that nothing about Jesus changes in essence. He is who he has always been. What changes is the disciples’ perception. The veil is lifted, even if only briefly.

Epiphany, the season of revelation that began at the Jordan River with a voice declaring, “This is my Son, the Beloved,” reaches its climax here with the same affirmation. It is not new information, but deepened perception. The same voice that spoke at his baptism now speaks again: “This is my Son, the Beloved. Listen to him.”

That command is striking. The voice does not say, “Analyze him,” or “Explain what you see,” or even “Remember this forever.” It says, simply, “Listen.”

I love Peter, who in his very human way, responds as many of us would. “Lord, it is good for us to be here.” He wants to build dwellings. He wants to hold the moment still, to make permanent what feels holy and luminous. And who can blame him? When we glimpse beauty, when we sense God’s nearness, our instinct is to preserve it.

But Peter confuses the gift of the moment with its purpose. The mountain is not a destination; it is preparation. The vision is not meant to be contained; it is meant to be carried. We want mountaintops to be places where we settle, but God gives them as places that strengthen us for what lies below.

And so the voice interrupts Peter—not harshly, but gently redirecting him—“Listen to him.”

As we stand on the edge of Lent, that word feels especially important. Because Lent is not primarily a season of self-improvement. It is not about spiritual heroics or religious performance. At its heart, Lent is a season of attention.

To listen, in the Christian life, is not passive. It is an act of prayerful attention. It is choosing to slow down enough to notice where Christ is present. It is trusting that God is already speaking, even if the voice is quiet.

In my own journey into contemplative practice over the last decade, I have come to believe that transformation rarely happens through our own effort. It happens through faithful attention. Through moments of silence that feel awkward at first. Through reading Scripture slowly enough that a single phrase lingers. Through learning to sit with God without immediately filling the space with words.

The voice on the mountain does not hand the disciples a strategy for navigating suffering. It gives them a practice for the journey: listen.

And that practice will matter when they descend the mountain.

Because they do descend. And the same three disciples who witness glory at this turning point today between Epiphany and Lent, will later accompany Jesus to another place of prayer as we leave Lent and head into the Passion of Christ that carries us into Eastertide.

These same three disciples gather with Jesus at Gethsemane. This is another threshold moment for these three, but this time there is no radiant light, no Moses and Elijah, and no voice from heaven. There is only night, only sorrow, and fear, only Jesus praying while they struggle to stay awake.

The light of the mountain does not cancel the darkness of the garden. But it teaches them who Jesus is when the darkness comes.

It teaches them that the One who prays in anguish is the same One who shone with glory. It teaches them that silence does not mean absence. It strengthens them, even if they do not yet understand how. This is how the encounters we have with God in prayer, worship, and contemplation transform us. We may not understand it in the moment. We may pray and feel like no one hears our cries. We may read Scripture and feel like we didn’t gain any new understanding. We may fast during Lent, walk the stations of the cross, or sit in silent prayer - and feel like nothing at all is changing. And yet, it is these quiet, faithful moments of quiet faithfulness that strengthen us for the road ahead we do not yet know is coming - but God does.

I believe that is why the Church gives us this story today, on the last Sunday after Epiphany, before we enter Lent. Before we begin the long walk toward Jerusalem, we need this moment on the mountaintop. Epiphany ends not with a solution to suffering, but with a revelation of who Christ is. We are invited to behold his glory so that we may follow him in trust.

The Collect we prayed asks that as we behold Christ by faith, we may be strengthened to bear our cross and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory. That kind of change does not come through sheer willpower. It comes through attention. Through listening.

And here at Nativity, in a season when we too are experiencing change—a new vestry, new responsibilities, new questions about who we are becoming—we are invited into that same practice. I know I certainly need it as I apply for jobs and look ahead to what the next chapter will look like for me as a Priest. Change is not something the Church escapes. It is part of our life together. The question is not whether change will come. It will. The question is whether we will walk into it having seen Jesus clearly and having learned to listen.

At the end of the Transfiguration story, the disciples fall to the ground in fear. And Jesus comes to them. He touches them. And he says, “Get up. Do not be afraid.” When they look up, they see no one but Jesus himself alone.

No vision. No spectacle. Only Jesus. That is enough.

His Presence is enough for the road ahead, enough for Lent. Enough for us.

So as we leave Epiphany and enter Lent this Wednesday, perhaps the invitation is not to accomplish something impressive, but to cultivate attention. To read the Gospel slowly. To sit in silence for a few minutes each day. To ask, gently and honestly, “Christ, where are you speaking, and am I listening?”

And as we practice that kind of listening—steady, prayerful, attentive listening—we may discover that we too are being changed. Not in a flash of light, but gradually, quietly, from glory to glory, by the One who walks with us all the way down the mountain.

Amen.