Slowly, slowly, slowly the world will be transfigured into the Kingdom of God, which is a kingdom of justice and peace and love.

Transcription

1 Lent. 2 On this second Sunday of Lent it is customary to read the story about Jesus being transfigured before his disciples into a glorious figure, with his face and clothes shining brilliantly, and Moses and Elijah engaged in conversation with him. I suppose this story is read on this Sunday in order to give us a shot in the arm, a little encouragement to continue with our Lenten resolutions, even though we are only a week and a half into them. And two weeks from now, on the fourth Sunday of Lent, there will be another word of encouragement for us when the liturgy will begin with the word Rejoice, a fact which gave this Sunday a name, Laetare Sunday, for that is the Latin word for rejoice. In using this Transfiguration scene as a boost for us, the Church s liturgy is doing exactly what this scene does in the Gospels themselves. Some scripture scholars believe that this story of the Lord s transfiguration is actually a resurrection story which has been pushed back into the time before the Lord s death and resurrection. Others say no. It was indeed an event in the Lord s life, and its purpose was to give his disciples hope and encouragement and in this

2 2 way prepare them for what was to come very soon, the Lord s arrest and trial and death. But even if it was a resurrection event, the writers of the Gospels present it to us as an event in the Lord s life, and they do so precisely for this same purpose: to give the disciples and us, the readers of their Gospels, hope and courage in order to prepare us for the Lord s passion and death. Transfiguration. The word is not unknown to us, even though we may not use it everyday. But we do use it occasionally. We might talk about someone being transfigured by joy or by sorrow. Perhaps we could even say that when television shows talk about make-overs, they are approaching the word transfiguration. They are promising people, usually women, that if they buy this or that cream or lotion, they will be totally transfigured. All their wrinkles will disappear, and their admiring husbands will say: My wife looks twenty years younger. In the Church s liturgical year, of course, the meaning of this word is deeper. The earthly Jesus now appears as a heavenly figure with face and clothes shining with the brilliance of God. And the voice of God coming from the

3 3 clouds reveals his true identity: This is my beloved Son. Then we are told to listen to him because as the beloved Son, he is greater than even Moses and Elijah who represent the Law and the Prophets of Israel and are now presented as being with him. And if we listen to Jesus as the Son of God, then a transformation or transfiguration should begin to take place in us, in our lives, our personalities, our actions. This Gospel scene of the Transfiguration, you may remember, has its own feast day in our liturgical calendar, the 6 th of August. This feast has been part of the liturgical calendar since the 15 th century. But it took on a new meaning, at least for some of us, after August 6 th, 1945, because that was the day that our country, in an attempt to end the war with Japan, dropped the first atom bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Then, three days later, we dropped another atom bomb on the city of Nagasaki. The transfiguration of those cities was unbelievable. The world learned for the first time what such bombs could do. The Japanese surrendered. But the moral question of whether or not it was right for us to use such bombs remains. In the Church s eyes it was not. The Church continues to argue

4 4 that civilians cannot be directly targeted in war. And since nuclear weapons are too massive to observe that distinction, the Second Vatican Council went on record as considering the use of them as immoral and warned that the nuclear arms race was a treacherous trap for humanity. Thank God, it seems that the world is slowly coming to the same conclusion. We cannot engage in nuclear wars and survive as a planet. Slowly, slowly, slowly the world will be transfigured into the Kingdom of God, which is a kingdom of justice and peace and love. What about our individual lives? How is our own transfiguration going? Are we being transfigured, though slowly, into the image of the Son? The Scriptures tell us that Moses spoke to God face to face, and afterwards his own face was so brilliant, so transfigured, that the Israelites could not look at it. So Moses had to cover his face with a veil. But in his Second Letter to the Corinthians Paul argues that when a person turns to Christ, the veil that hides the reflection of God s glory is removed. Therefore he claims that in looking at Jesus we Christians look with unveiled

5 5 faces on the glory of God, and this sight means that we can be transformed into the very image of The Lord. In a word, as our lives continue and become more deeply and fully Christian, as we become more faithful followers of Jesus, we are being transformed, transfigured, into the likeness of the one we are looking at, our Lord Jesus. May our Lent this year aid and quicken this process in us!