On the eve of day of his assassination Martin Luther King gave his last speech. It was filmed and watching it all these years on, it has lost none of its power.
As he draws to his conclusion, he talks of scripture. “I have been to the mountain top” he says, he has “seen the promised land”. He encourages his listeners no doubt wearied by the struggle for equality “we will get to the promised land” he tells them for “mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”
King was a man who had spent time with God. He had glimpsed more and he knew that he couldn’t let the injustice of segregation and inequality go unchallenged. Being with God had changed him.
Moses had, as we heard in our Old Testament reading been with God too, on Mount Sinai. This mountain top experience had changed him too, so that ‘the skin of his face shone because he had been with God.’
This morning we heard of how Jesus, together with some of his friends also went up the mountain to pray when ‘the appearance of his face changed’.