SECOND SUNDAY OF LENT YEAR "C"

SECOND SUNDAY OF LENT

Cycle “C”: Luke 9, 28 – 36

The Transfiguration of the Lord

High above Jerusalem, on Mt. Tabor, Jesus was transformed and transfigured  -  his human body, suffused with divinity, was a dazzling spectacle. How infinitely splendid Jesus must have appeared during his glorious transfiguration, outshining a million suns in his divine glory. The Old Testament figures of Moses and Elijah appeared by his side, absorbed in conversation with him. The Transfiguration was the meeting place of the Old and the New Covenant. Moses represented the Law, Elijah the prophets; the three apostles, Peter, James and John, were the leaders of the New Testament community. At this point of meeting, the voice of the Father bore witness to his Son, the chosen, the fulfilment of his promises of old and the pledge of life and hope for the future. The Transfiguration of the Lord is charged with promise.

Jesus’ three disciples were bedazzled and ecstatic in their wonderment, privileged, as they were to glimpse for a moment his transcendent power as he prayed to his Father. Peter, confused but desiring to capture the glory permanently, suggested pitching separate tents for Jesus, Moses and Elijah. It was not to be. They could not prolong this peak experience but had to come down the mountain and resume their tasks in the world. The disciples had to realize that even though they saw the “Beloved Son”, pointed out by the Father, in the glory that was natural to him, that beautiful Son would not get away with glory. He would descend Mt. Tabor to ascend Mt. Calvary.

That’s the kind of God we have come to know  -  a God whose glory is spelled out in wounds, painful cries, darkness, and death. A God pretty much like we are; worse off than we are.

The Bible story is about how God makes himself known and about his dealings with us. His presence is realized in the here and now of human life. Jesus stayed with that human life, was wholly involved in it. In him that human life was transformed and transfigured by a transfusion of the divine. And on Mt. Tabor Peter saw it and knew it. And in his wonder and awe at what he saw and heard, his words came tumbling out, the best he could find: “Master, it is good for us to be here.” We too can expect the Lord to allow us to glimpse and taste the heavenly life to which we are called. This can come in a variety of ways: a blessed time of prayer, an inspired insight into Scripture, the loving closeness of God. Such moments of anointing and blessing are God’s gifts to strengthen us so we too can take up our cross and follow Jesus Christ. Let me tell you the story of Sheila Cassidy, a still practicing medical doctor. She left England in 1971 to escape the “rat-race” of professionalism of British medicine to go to Chile to work among the poorest of the poor. In 1975, Dr. Cassidy was arrested by the Chilean police for having treated the bullet wounds of a revolutionary leader. At an interrogation centre she was stripped, tied to a bead, and tortured with electrodes attached to her body. Then she was placed in solitary confinement for three weeks and imprisoned in a detention camp for another five weeks before she was finally released and expelled from the country. About that horrific experience this is what Dr. Sheila Cassidy wrote in her book, Audacity to Believe, “I did not hate the men who had hurt us…The freedom of spirit we enjoyed was something that our captors did not possess. Incredibly, in the midst of fear and loneliness, I was filled with joy, for I knew without any vestige of doubt that God was with me, and that nothing they could do to me could change that.” 

Any transformation in us  -  any transfiguration  -  has to come from within, by the power of God’s grace. We are all awkward customers, plagued by our own follies and by the very many difficulties of being human in a world that runs to so much inhumanity. We are not easy to work with or to work through.

It is important to handle every experience to the best of your ability now. You may have to practise more patience, strive that much harder, reach inside yourself for a little more strength, muster a little more faith in God and yourself. If after you have given everything you have to give, you still come up short, you will have nothing to be ashamed of. You can experience the inner peace of those who know they gave their all. You will be a success regardless of the outcome. You will be better, not bitter, knowing that in God’s presence you did your best.

So, my dear friends, we can say, and with all others who bear witness to the work of God in the midst of us, we can say with thanksgiving and wonder:

“Lord, it is good to be here.”

PRAYER: One of the best-loved hymns written

 by Isaac Watts of Southampton (1674 – 1748: 74 years)

Lord of the worlds above,

How pleasant and how fair

The dwellings of thy love,

Thy earthly temples, are!

To thine abode

My hearts aspires,

With warm desires

To see my God;

O happy souls that pray

Where God appoints to hear!

O happy men that pay

Their constant service there!

They praise thee still;

And happy they

That love the way

To Zion’s hill.

They go from strength to strength

Through this dark vale of tears,

Till each arrives at length,

Till each in heaven appears:

O glorious seat!

When God our King

Shall thither bring

Our willing feet.

from my Diary
How infinitely splendid you look, my glorious Lord Jesus Christ!
I am ecstatic in my wonderment.
Powerful, glorious, transcendent, ineffable.
And it is your nature as God the Son;
God, as He beholds himself, 
knows Himself in one eternally present act of self-possession.
But God-as-He-knows Himself is going to pass, "go across" ("trans")
from one self-knowledge to another:
an emptying, shattering, utterly crushing self-knowledge.
Here I break down and weep, and I raise my heart to you,
my dearest Lord, for the way you emptied and lowered Yourself
so that you could meet me in my brokenness and misery.