I remember some time ago an important person giving a talk on Marriage and all its ups and downs – no names are being mentioned here, but he was head of a Christian Marriage Counci. lHe used an illustration that day which I thought made a lot of sense and I’ve used it myself since.

He took us, in mind, to the famous Meeting of the Waters in Co. Wicklow. I’m sure you know exactly where I mean. And he described how the rivers of Avonmore and Avonbeg meet at the pool of Avoca and how, and just like couples when they are first married, there are often rough waters at first to get through before the river Avoca settles down and begins to run more smoothly. That sounds nice and seems to make sense, at first.

In fact, that’s all very well until you actually go the Meeting of the Waters in the Vale of Avoca. You might know the town better if I call it ‘Ballykissangel’ where there is a pub called Fitzgerald’s, and there a lovely bridge over the river and around the corner a bit is the actual Meeting of the Waters; a famous tourist attraction.

There were a couple of times in the past when we would sneak off to Co. Wicklow for a bit of a break as a family, and I remember proudly showing Christine and Emily this wonderful beauty spot. Emily still has some photography of the bust of the famous Irish poet, Thomas Moore, who wrote the well-known poem about the Meeting of the Waters and whose poem is written out in stone on that spot...And then it suddenly struck me

Listen to just a couple of verses:

There is not in the wide world a valley so sweet

As that vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet;

Oh! The last days of feeling and life must depart,

Ere the bloom of that valley shall fade from my heart.

Sweet vale of Avoca! How calm could I rest

In the bosom of shade, with the friends I love best,

Where the storms that we feel in this cold world should cease,

And our hearts, like thy waters, be mingled in peace.

I suddenly realised we had got it seriously wrong! The whole point of this place is that these two beautiful rivers simply glide in to one another, with no troubled waters or upsets. In fact, it’s quite the opposite to what we thought we had been illustrating all those years:

And our hearts, like thy waters, be mingled in peace.

I wonder what else have we got wrong over the years!

It’s very difficult to get a full-proof illustration for a sermon because somewhere along the line it often falls down. But at the time it often helps to get a point across.

There was a programme on television recently which I had completely forgotten about and, to be honest I didn’t really watch it. It has only recently just come back into my mind and I wish now I had paid it more attention. But, as far as I remember, it posed the question, are you a good person or a bad person?

It went on to purport that we humans actually have a propensity to do good rather than harm; that most people are good people, that we have, for example, an immediate emotional attachment to someone in trouble. The criminal psychopath, I think it was argued, doesn’t have that same emotional attachment and is therefore capable of doing the most appalling things to other people, without conscience or any sense of wrong. We often hear and read about extraordinary acts of bravery and, we often say, it restores our faith in human nature.

There is a great deal of appalling evil throughout the world, there is no denying that. But if human nature is essentially good, then what’s all the fuss about? What’s all this preaching about how bad and sinful we are?

What about the old woman who said coming out of Church in East Belfast (and this is true), I love that Church, but why does he have to tell me every week how bad I am.

Have we got this all wrong too?

When I often do private Communions at home with such saintly people, we go through the old confession, ‘We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wicked- ness, which we from time to time most grievously have committed...’ and I think to myself , what appalling act of evil has this wonderful person committed since I last saw them?

If we’re not really all that bad, then why all the condemnation from street corner preachers?

Why the banging of the pulpit? If we’re basically ok, then this turns that kind of preaching on its head.

What have these preachers been doing all these years? Have we got it all wrong? Or are we simply forgetting something?

Did Jesus teach how bad we all are? Did he not rather say, you are the light of the world, you are the salt of the earth? What’s the greatest commandment? Love God! That’s it!

Part of the problem is scale; that we might not be as good as Mother Theresa, but we’re not as bad as, say, Hitler or Fred West; perhaps we’re somewhere in the middle. But the question is, what’s the standard? And the standard is the sky! But Jesus has not come to condemn us but to love us, that is the Gospel message, that’s what it says!

Our Lectionary seems to be all over the place, from the Baptism to the Presentation of Jesu in the Temple, to “In the beginning” last week and today we’re at the Transfiguration! He took Peter James and John, his inner circle, up onto a mountain and showed to them who he really is –

He is saying, don’t get this wrong!! And there they heard the voice of God himself, and God says the same thing he said before.

Why has the preaching of the gospel so often been a gospel of fear rather than a gospel of love? They are two opposites. For there is no fear in love. If there is, then we have got it truly wrong. And that is why, today, we have to realise and know for ourselves who this Jesus is, this transfigured Lord, and simply listen to him for ourselves, and hear his words of love and forgiveness and welcome.