2nd Sunday of Lent 2021
Genesis 22:1-2, 9-13, 15-18; Romans 8: 31-34; Mark 9:2-10.
“It is wonderful for us to be here.” Is it? What do you think? Is it wonderful to be in whatever place you are, on this planet, on this day of this year? Is it wonderful to be here, in a world ravaged by pandemic, by hunger, by war, by injustice, by threats to its very existence?
Well, yes, actually it is, because God has put us here, and God is here with us. In the chaplain’s room at Our Lady’s HS Lancaster, there used to be a poster which read “Blossom where you are planted”. There was deep wisdom in that apparently trivial adage.
A friend of mine has recently had to go into a nursing home, and to face the reality that he will probably never walk again unaided. Both the move and the realisation have hit him hard, and he is struggling to come to terms with them. One day last week, he was pouring out his troubles to one of the carers, a lass of nineteen.
“I feel like giving up” he complained.
“No, don’t do that” came the reply. “You have a lot to give, you can achieve a lot, just as you are. Go for it.”
I suggested last week that God sends us angels, both spiritual and human, in our wilderness times. Here was an angel aged 19, imparting heavenly wisdom in an earthly way.
But life isn’t all struggle and misery, even for those who bear the heaviest crosses. There are transfiguration moments, times when light and joy break through, when God reveals His face to us, and we can say without hesitation “It is wonderful for us to be here”.
Perhaps we don’t always recognise those moments at the time. Sometimes it is only in retrospect that we can say, with Jacob, “Truly God is in this place and I never knew it,” when we realise that we have been given a glimpse of the transfigured Christ, and an insight into the promise which awaits us.
Take a few minutes to recall some of your transfiguration moments. You may feel at first that you have none to recall, but if you allow your mind to wander back over your life, you may surprise yourself.
I remember glorious Wednesday afternoons during childhood summers, when the shop closed at dinner time and my mother, father and I would head off on long local walks along the river or canal, before catching the bus home. I remember kneeling in Lancaster Cathedral during my dinner hour from work, and knowing, rather than just believing, that Jesus was present in the tabernacle, and that I had to consider the possibility of a vocation to the priesthood. Many other transfiguration moments have followed, lighting what can sometimes be a deep darkness, and I am sure that the same is true for you.
Yet we cannot hold onto these moments of transfiguration. That is what Peter is trying to do with his suggestion of three tents, where they can stay forever. Instead, he has to endure the disappearance of Moses and Elijah, the representatives of the Law and the Prophets, who must depart because their mission is fulfilled in Jesus. He has to accept, too, the fading of the brightness and, with his companions, make his way down from the mountaintop to the valley of ordinary life, and later to the Garden of the Agony, where they would see their Lord in very different guise.
This fading of the vision reminds us that we must not attempt to cling onto God’s gifts, but must be openhanded, willing to relinquish them with faith that this is for the best, that the promise contained in the gifts will be fulfilled. This is the lesson which Abraham teaches us in his willingness to sacrifice his son. We need not concern ourselves with asking whether a loving God would have demanded human sacrifice, or whether Abraham should have concurred with such a demand. That is beside the point: what matters is that Abraham was willing to let go, and to put total trust in God. St. Paul reminds us how that trust was vindicated when God Himself made the sacrifice of His Son, that sacrifice which, in the last analysis, He did not require of Abraham.
This Lent, ponder your transfiguration moments, and thank God for them, but do not try to cling to them. Let them return to God as pledges that His promises will be fulfilled.
