SECOND SUNDAY OF LENT A

[cappie]

Associated with the Gospel are two crucial words—glory and theophany. We glorify God’s Holy Name when we offer praises, but do we ever stop to think about what this word means?   If we look at the ancient roots of the word in Greek, they reveal that glory resides in knowledge, in knowing the one we are praising. The other word is theophany—the revealing, the appearance of God. Let’s keep these meanings in mind as we examine our scriptural passages.

Today, the Second Sunday of Lent we will concentrate on the event the Church has called the Transfiguration of Jesus. The story of this metamorphosis should be called “Seeing the Glory in Jesus,” for this is what happened when three fishermen from Galilee were given a glimpse of who their friend Jesus truly was.

This story is found in all three of the Synoptic Gospels, but here we have St. Matthew’s version.  who learned the story from Mark, who in turn heard it firsthand from Peter. One can imagine Peter telling Mark of those moments of glory and of terror. “And there I was,” he must have told him, “babbling, not knowing what I was saying. I was only sure that something wondrous was before our eyes, that I didn’t want it to end, that everything else in life suddenly did not matter, I was struck by Light and Glory and had lost my senses.”

What else was possible? Six days before, according to Matthew’s timeline, Peter, inspired by the Holy Spirit, had declared that Jesus was the Anointed One, the Son of the Living God. Now Peter, together with James and John, accompanies Jesus, who is taking the three of them on a hike up the mountain, probably Mount Hermon. The hike must have taken all day. Luke, who paid attention to details, adds that the three disciples were heavy with sleep, so night must have fallen, and he also adds that Jesus was praying when the glory descended upon him. The three disciples are used to seeing Jesus praying. They know, without even being told, that this is the way he is always replenished, his powers restored, his exhaustion lifted— when he prays to his Father. But this time, something changes drastically while he is praying. His face is transformed by blinding light and his worn, dusty robe is turned into brilliance. He is no longer alone but in conversation with two other beings. How do they know the two are Elijah and Moses? We are not told. Will they remember this moment of glory later when they watch their teacher and friend in the agony of the Garden in Gethsemane? Will Peter remember as he denies Jesus in the yard of the one who will condemn his dearest friend?

No. Human beings forget God’s glory and God’s light when they are confronted with sin and darkness. One moment we are crying in delight, “Let’s stay like this forever,” and the next, we are sure that the Light never shone upon us. It becomes so easy to blame God for all the ills of humanity. When Moses returns from the glory of his mountain, he is confronted with the perfidy of the people who have fashioned an idol. When Jesus returns to Jerusalem he is confronted with condemnation by the people he had loved and abandonment by his friends.

What does this say about us? Whose children are we? Of darkness or of the light? God gave us the great gift of memory, and these biblical stories help us to remember always that knowing God means knowing God’s glory. The dramatic stories of Moses on the mountain, of Jesus as he is transformed, of Paul as he is met by the glorified Christ and changes forever—these are our heritage. But the glory does not end there. We see it in the extravagant beauty of Nature; in the unconditional love of our pets; in the first smile of a baby; in the kindness shown from one person to another; in the hymns we sing, and in the Holy Eucharist we partake. We see it in the life of Jesus and in the lives of his disciples. We see the suffering and the pain also, but every now and then, there is that cloud of the Holy Presence and the Light of God’s assurance—that we are loved despite our forgetfulness.

Above all, we remember that Theophany did happen in the Incarnation and the Resurrection of Jesus. We hold on to that knowledge. We are not abandoned. Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.