2nd Sunday of Lent
(Sunday 21st February 2016)
Connecting the Transfiguration with the Passion – (Luke 9:28-36)
In this second Sunday of Lent we move from the temptations of Christ to the Transfiguration, when the Lord takes Peter, James and John up the mountain to be transfigured in their presence on Mount Tabor.
Jesus is accompanied by Moses and Elijah, two of the great men of the Old Testament, Moses being the one who brings the Ten Commandments to the people and Elijah the greatest of all the prophets.
A question that we could maybe ask is why, in the middle of Lent, does the Church give us this event in the Gospels to reflect on? The Transfiguration can seem a little out of place in Lent as we associate this time with prayer, fasting and penance, and yet what happens on Mount Tabor is to do with the Lord’s glory. But if we look at the Transfiguration in the backdrop of Christ’s suffering, death and resurrection, then we have a deeper understanding of why we are invited to meditate on this passage.
In this Gospel we see that there are three apostles who accompany Jesus; they are Peter, James and John. We will meet these three apostles again in the garden of Gethsemane when Christ will endure the anguish of accepting the chalice of suffering.
On Tabor they will see the full beauty of Christ’s glory; in Gethsemane, they will see Christ being crushed by the weight of sin as he takes the sin of the world upon himself.
As the apostles are eventually overawed by his glory on Tabor as “the aspect of his face was changed and his clothing became brilliant as lightning”, so they will suffer great fear and sorrow in Gethsemane, as that same face will appear tormented as “his sweat became like drops of blood falling down upon the ground”, and those clothes that were brilliant white are now blood stained.
This revelation of beauty and glory to the apostles on Tabor will help to sustain them in those dark days of the Passion; it will be a source of comfort and consolation to them.
A final point on this Gospel that is significant for us as we gather each Sunday at Mass.
The presence of the cloud, why is this significant? In the Old Testament, God’s presence among the people was signified by the cloud which descended on the tent of meeting and we are told in the book of Exodus that the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. We know that in the book of Exodus this descending of the cloud was witnessed by Moses, and here we have Moses again on this mountain. The Apostles would have been aware of the significance of the presence of the cloud, and as they enter the cloud the disciples become afraid probably out of awe.
For us today, we also have a tabernacle in our Churches, we have the presence of the Lord in the Holy Eucharist, and so where is the cloud we may ask?
Perhaps we could say this; as the cloud ‘veiled’ the presence of God, so also when we gaze upon the presence of the Lord in adoration the cloud which veils his presence is the appearance of the Lord as bread, when in actual fact we know that it is truly His body. For if we saw the Lord’s glory in the Eucharist, we would be so overcome that we, too, would be overwhelmed and be afraid, as it would be too much for us now. We would react like the apostles in the Gospel. But remember, when Jesus Christ comes at the end of time on the clouds of Heaven surrounded by the angels, he won’t have one drop more glory than he has now in the Blessed Sacrament.
Fr. James Devine