Transfigured

Homily for the Second Sunday of Lent

If you were with us last week for the First Sunday of Lent, you might remember that I started by explaining the structure of the Lectionary for Sunday Mass during Lent. During Lent the first reading, always from the Hebrew Scriptures, presents us with an episode from salvation history that prepares us for the mystery of the Passion, Death and Resurrection. On this Sunday, then, we hear a story from the Book of Genesis which sets the entire plan of salvation in motion. God calls Abram out of his homeland, away from his family and his father’s house to a land that God promises to make the home of the children of Israel.

When he calls Abram forth from his home, he makes a five-fold promise. God intends to make Abram the founder of a great nation, not just of a race but a nation. He promises to bless Abram which means that God will provide for Abram and his family. God promises to make Abram’s name great so that his name will become synonymous with a blessing. This would be regarded as a great honor. God then promises to bless those who bless Abram – in other words, those who honor and respect Abram will also be blessed. And finally, the other side of that coin is that those who curse Abram will themselves be cursed. When you put this five-fold promise together, God is promising that the children of Israel will be chosen to mediate God’s blessings on every other nation. We are then told that Abram did as God directed him – no questions asked, no hesitation. Abram respects God’s choices. The last comment that I wish to make about this particular reading is that while it seems that Abram is the protagonist in this passage, the reading is really all about God. These promises tell us exactly who God is as a provident and beneficent creator.

The second reading always speaks of our participation in the mystery that we call the Resurrection. In his Second Letter to Timothy, St. Paul writes that those who are called to put their faith in Jesus will participate in the suffering of Jesus by virtue of their baptism, the sacrament through which we die with Christ so that we might rise with him. Those who put their faith in Jesus will, like Jesus, defeat death and live eternally with God.

The subject of the Gospel for the Second Sunday of Lent is always the event that we have come to call the Transfiguration of Christ. One way to understand this event is to remember that this society into which Jesus was born is driven by the pursuit of honor and the avoidance of shame. The eventual crucifixion and death of Jesus on a cross will be considered the utmost shameful death. To prepare his closest associates for this event, he chooses three of them and shows them the glory that he will experience through his obedience to the will of his Father. By this time, Jesus has also demonstrated to his disciples that he has power, especially the power to expel evil spirits or demons and the power to cure the sick. His use of that power would lead to his death in Jerusalem as it becomes clearly evident to the chief priests and scribes that Jesus is a political threat to their own power. His Transfiguration atop Mount Horeb is a demonstration of the honor that God will bestow on Jesus through the resurrection.

Another way to understand this event is to consider it a classic example of theophany – a vision of God. It takes place on a mountain, and these people believe that God lives in high places. A cloud envelops them. Clouds were also seen in places where God dwelled, particularly in the Holy of Holies in the Temple of Jerusalem. A voice speaks to the apostles, not to Jesus or to Moses or to Elijah. It is the apostles who need to come to an identification of Jesus as Lord.

The response of the apostles is twofold. First, they wanted to prolong it. Who wouldn’t! Second, they want to participate in it. However, as soon as they express their desires, Jesus brings them back to the present reality, reminding them that while God lives on high, they must continue to dwell in the world where they will be given the task of preaching the coming of the Kingdom of God to all people.

Our holy father, Pope Francis, has often spoken about the fact that the church must cease to look inward and must continue to move outward as missionary disciples. All of us, by virtue of our baptism, will one day experience our own transformation, our own transfiguration when we are called home to live with our Heavenly Father. However, before we experience that promised reality, we must complete what Jesus had come to do. As the words of absolution during the Sacrament of Penance explain, God has poured forth the Holy Spirit among us so that we can preach forgiveness and reconciliation to a world that is broken and full of dissension. This is what we have been called to do. This is what our journey through Lent is all about. As disciples of the Lord who have experienced the healing power of Jesus, we are called to transform our world through our living of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.