2nd Sunday of Lent
Genesis 12:1-4
Psalm 32(33):4-5,18-20,22
2 Timothy 1:8-10
Matthew 17:1-9
A GLIMPSE INTO THE ESCHATON
Today's gospel passage presents us with a very vivid picture, but perhaps a rather surprising one for Lent. We tend to think of Lent as a rather gloomy season, but today what exactly has been revealed in the transfiguration? From the moment of his birth, Our Lord's divinity has been hidden behind His humanity. But slowly, Jesus has been teaching His disciples the truth about who He is and why He has come, and they have been gradually grasping some of what He was teaching. This understanding reached a climax when Peter said, 'You are the Christ'. As soon as Peter said this, Jesus immediately made the first prophecy of His passion and death, and told His disciples that they would have to take up their cross and follow Him. That was the mood of the group against which the wonderful event of the transfiguration took place.
The disciples were rather despondent and confused. They had faith, for otherwise Peter would never have been able to say, 'You are the Christ.' What they were lacking was another of the theological virtues - hope. Hope, to enable them to persevere in their faith, despite their confusion, knowing that the end would be as Christ had promised. And what better way of giving them this hope than by allowing them a brief preview of that end? They were bogged down in confusion about Christ's passion and death. What they were allowed to see now was a glimpse of what would come after that death - resurrection and new life. Not that they understood fully; they were too overwhelmed by what they had seen for its implications to sink in; but we are told that they came down from the mountain discussing what rising from the dead meant. They could not yet understand fully - how could they? But at least they were not puzzling over the subject of death; what they were confused about now was new life! They had seen that new life was, somehow, possible - they had been given hope.
Our first reading was the well-known story of Abram, and how he was prepared to leave his homeland and travel he knew not where, if that was God's will. It is a wonderful example of faith, of Abraham's absolute faith in God, and his willingness to do whatever God required of him. God never requires of us anything that he has not done himself; or as Jesus put it, 'You must take up your cross and follow me'. He has taken up his cross. We are not asked to do something he has not already done. And we are to follow, in other words, to go where he has already gone. As St Paul says in his letter to Timothy which we heard read, "Take your share of the suffering for the gospel in the power of God." But no matter how strongly we believe that He is God's Son, and no matter how much we know that we should follow Him, and even that we want to follow him, we need more than that faith - we need hope. That is what the disciples needed to help them to persevere and to follow their master to Jerusalem, to his certain death.
This is the key to understanding Christ's passion - so that through hope, we keep our faith when times are dark, knowing by faith that it was through His suffering and death that Christ came into His glory. Compared with His, our fears, our misunderstandings, our trials and tribulations are as nothing, but they are the way in which we share in Christ's passion and will come to share his glory. We cannot see that glory now; but we have hope.
And so the Transfiguration is a very proper theme for Lent - it reminds us why we are preparing for Holy Week, why we are undergoing some voluntary self-denial, for it gives us hope by reminding us what is promised to those who persevere in their faith to the end. Keep marching on and glowing into greater heights. There is light at the end of the tunnel.
Happy New Month of March!
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