Sermon: Choral Evensong | 15 February 2026

Preacher:

Chris Hollingshurst

Date:

Sunday 15th February 2026

Venue:

Guildford Cathedral

Service:

6pm Choral Evensong

Choral Evensong 15^th February 2026 (1 before Lent)

This evening’s first reading is a wonderfully pictorial account from the life of one of the greatest figures in the Jewish Scriptures. Elijah knows that his moments are numbered, and so does Elisha. They play out a merry dance of ‘one more step along the world I go’ until, finally Elijah is taken up into glory and hidden from sight.

Whatever else this account from the second Book of Kings offers us, it is a helpful reminder that the Jewish Scriptures tend to portray death as the natural conclusion to a life rather than as an enemy to be feared.

The story of Elijah being taken up to Heaven doesn’t say that Elijah died, but he certainly ceased to be living on earth. Elisha’s grieving, signified by the tearing of his clothes, is no less real.

But this story is an important part of was an evolving understanding, one in which a faith in resurrection begins to develop. It strongly suggests that there is an existence with the God of life beyond the confines of our earthly being and living – beyond, even, the confines of time. Put simply, Elijah’s being swept up into Heaven, long before the resurrection of Jesus, suggests that death is not the end.

In the years of Jesus’ earthly life, perhaps eight or nine centuries after Elijah, the gospel writers, underline this particular connection. They show us a people that is looking for the coming of the Messiah which, as Jesus confirms in our second reading, is heralded by the coming of the second Elijah.

This understanding resonates with the second lesson of this passage. Elisha immediately succeeds Elijah as prophet-leader. Elisha is the only one who witnesses what happens to Elijah and he inherits both his brave and godly spirit and the powerful mantle by which Elijah has wielded authority.

This reading reminds us that faith in God is something that is inherited and handed down, sometimes at significant moments. Nevertheless, this handing down, this bequeathing, is also a continuous task. In this pluralistic post-modern age, people of faith have a duty to pass on to subsequent generations the truths which have inspired us and helped us through life.

Even when the Holy Spirit prompts movements like the present Quiet Revival, of people (many of them young men) arriving at churches and asking questions, we can’t just expect new worshippers to discover the riches of the soul and the tenets of faith for themselves.

I wonder…. can we – can you – recall those who first taught us the faith, and perhaps who passed on the responsibility for sharing the Christian faith a fresh in our own generation? And who is the Lord asking us to help in this way now?

I think this passage is inspiring. Faithful vocation is handed on in the context of life, glory, and expectancy. Despite, or even through, his loss, Elisha’s life now opens up in new ways. If we read on in 2 Kings, we see that he is sustained by grace and enabled to do new and good things in the time given to him.

So, death is not the end, and faith in God is something to be inherited and passed down.

Perhaps you can hold that double thought as I briefly step sideways?

This morning’s gospel reading gave us St Matthew’s account of the Transfiguration. At the top of a mountain, flanked by Elijah and Moses, Jesus is transfigured – illuminated – made to shine with – reflective of the glory of God. He is affirmed in his identity and calling when a voice from Heaven says, ‘this is my beloved son with whom I am well-pleased, listen to him’. 

Peter, James and John, Jesus’ three closest disciples, are witnesses to this mysterious happening and are overwhelmed by mystery and glory. It’s the ultimate mountain-top experience.

Now logically enough, this evening’s second reading continues from where this morning’s gospel reading ends, with Jesus and the disciples coming down from the mount of transfiguration.

Despite the amazing and supernatural things they have seen, the disciples are not to tell anyone one about what they have seen until Jesus’s being raised from the dead makes some sense of it. Why? Because the returning Elijah in the form of John the Baptist, and Jesus himself, have first to suffer and die before entering glory. 

As we heard in this evening’s second reading, the mountain party arrives back down on the plain, and finds suffering in the midst of God’s people, personified by the epileptic boy. Jesus’ healing of the boy is followed by words which leave the disciples so distressed:

“The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into human, and they will kill him, and on the third day he will be raised.”

How disorienting to have a dazzling encounter with glory and then run into the spiritual equivalent of a brick wall! 

For the first disciples, and for us, it seems there are still to be real struggles and difficulties in this life, until one day we stand before the heavenly throne.  Suffering and glory are inextricably linked.

Let’s return now to the earlier double-thought: death is not the end, and faith in God is something to be inherited and passed down.  

Death is not the end, and faith in God is something to be inherited and passed down.

Well – yes – and that will include passing down the seeming contradictions that each generation wrestles with.

I have found that one way to understand this is through the language of orientation, disorientation and reorientation employed by the theologian Walter Brueggemann.

For Brueggemann (who died last year) there are those seasons where things more or less make sense. Situations where the ground holds. Where the world feels coherent enough to live in without constantly questioning it. Where the praises of God come easily.  For example, “Lord, your mercy towers to the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies.”

And then something happens that pulls the ground away. Our personal circumstances collapse. Or something dreadful happens in the world. Disorientation arrives. Security drains out of the picture and the only psalms which make sense are the psalms of lament. For example, “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me?”

Time goes by, we learn that disorientation is not the end of the story, and something humbling takes place. We don’t get over what has happened to us, but we do absorb it, learn to live differently and in most situations move forwards eventually.

The Psalms insist on this reorientation too, even when they refuse easy answers. For example, “Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes in the morning.” Not a return to what was, but the slow emergence of something truer, more grounded, more compassionate.

Perhaps that is what Elisha, Peter, James and John all experienced in their amazing encounters with the Divine?

From signs of glory to signs of loss and then to signs of change – all held safely within the purposes of God and used to enable the handing on of faith to others. A faith that is not superficially triumphal or built on jam tomorrow, but a faith which is real and authentic, tinged with life’s experiences.

One of Walter Brueggeman’s most famous quotes is this:

“The prophetic tasks of the church are to tell the truth in a society that lives in illusion, grieve in a society that practices denial, and express hope in a society that lives in despair.”

Wherever you are, whatever you are carrying this evening, I’d encourage you to take heart from the moments and experiences of God’s glory you have known and to hold on when times of despair arrive. Perhaps more than ever we need to digest the words uttered on the mountain top: ‘this is my beloved son with whom I am well-pleased, listen to him’.  And to share them with others.

For death is not the end, faith in God is something to be inherited and passed down - and God’s good purposes will always and ultimately prevail.  Amen.