March 20, 2011 — Second Sunday of Lent
First Reading – Genesis 12: 1-4a
The LORD said to Abram: “Go forth from the land of your kinsfolk and from your father’s house to a land that I will show you. “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you. All the communities of the earth shall find blessing in you.” Abram went as the LORD directed him.
Responsorial Psalm - Psalm 33: 4-5, 18-19, 20, 22
R. (22) Lord, let your mercy be on us, as we place our trust in you.
Upright is the word of the LORD, and all his works are trustworthy.
He loves justice and right; of the kindness of the LORD the earth is full.
R. Lord, let your mercy be on us, as we place our trust in you.
See, the eyes of the LORD are upon those who fear him, upon those who hope for his kindness, To deliver them from death and preserve them in spite of famine.
R. Lord, let your mercy be on us, as we place our trust in you.
Our soul waits for the LORD, who is our help and our shield.
May your kindness, O LORD, be upon us who have put our hope in you.
R. Lord, let your mercy be on us, as we place our trust in you
Second Reading—2 Timothy 1: 8-10b
Beloved: Bear your share of hardship for the gospel with the strength that comes from God. He saved us and called us to a holy life, not according to our works but according to his own design and the grace bestowed on us in Christ Jesus before time began, but now made manifest through the appearance of our savior Christ Jesus, who destroyed death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.
Gospel – Matthew 17: 1-9
Jesus took Peter, James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them; his face shone like the sun and his clothes became white as light. And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, conversing with him. Then Peter said to Jesus in reply, “Lord, it is good that we are here. If you wish, I will make three tents here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” While he was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud cast a shadow over them, then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.”
When the disciples heard this, they fell prostrate and were very much afraid. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Rise, and do not be afraid.” And when the disciples raised their eyes, they saw no one else but Jesus alone. As they were coming down from the mountain, Jesus charged them, “Do not tell the vision to anyone until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”
Reflection
The Transfiguration is recorded in each of the Synoptic Gospels, and the accounts from Mark and Luke help shed additional light on the passage from Matthew. In each, the timing of the Transfiguration is situated just after Jesus has made a prediction about the suffering he must undergo as part of God’s plan, and just before Jesus and his disciples make their way to Jerusalem for the beginning of the series of events we now refer to as the Passion.
Likewise, in each of the accounts, Jesus ascends a mountain. The act of ascending a mountain is heavily symbolic in Jewish tradition. Most famously, Moses went up the Mount of Sinai to receive the Law from God, but there are dozens of other examples scattered throughout the Hebrew Scriptures wherein humans encountered God in a special way while on a mountain. Too, Jerusalem, the holy city, is built on a Mountain, and it is for this reason that one always “goes up” to Jerusalem, even if one is approaching from the North. (Much the same way one might say, “We went up to Aspen last weekend,” even if one had driven South from Wyoming to get there.) Therefore, as soon as we are told that Jesus is leading the disciples up a high mountain, we know that something special—some uncommon encounter with the Divine or some instance of explicit revelation—is about to occur.
Next, it is worth noting which two individuals appear alongside Jesus. Moses and Elijah are, arguably, the two greatest figures in Jewish history, and each represents a particular dimension of Jewish religious life. Moses embodies the Law. It was to him that God entrusted the Commandments that would guide the people Israel as they returned to the Promised Land, and it was to him that was ascribed authorship of the Torah, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, and a word that literally means, “The Law.”
Elijah, similarly, represents the prophetic tradition of the Jewish people, and therefore, concomitantly, the explicitly revealed wisdom of God spoken through the mouth of a human being. In Jewish religious life, the priests were the individuals who offered sacrifice at Temple (members of the Tribe of Levi; only Levites could be priests—it was not a job one could apply for, nor a vocation one who was from another tribe could feel “called to” the way we think of modern priests). But it was the prophets who spoke God’s message to both the king and the rest of the people.
The way it was conceived, God placed His own words directly in the mouth of the prophet, and the prophet served literally as the mouthpiece of the Divine. Frequently, the prophets of the Old Testament forewarned that the people had strayed from their Covenant with God, and that conversion was necessary. At other times, the prophet brought hope to the people during times of great suffering. Either way, the job of the prophet was to deliver what was in God’s mind to the ears of the people Israel. And from this tradition of prophets, Elijah was considered to be the greatest. Indeed, it was thought that he himself might return one day, either heralding the Messiah, or possibly even in the form of the Messiah.
Thus for Jesus to appear alongside these two individuals was to send a clear message that Jesus counted as among the greatest individuals in religious history. But more, it indicated that Jesus was complementary with both the Law—remember, he frequently was depicted as at odds with the Pharisees, who clung to the Law as the end-all, be-all of Jewish life—and the prophets, who brought God’s message to the people. When Peter suggests that they build a tent for the three of them, his excitement gets the best of him. Peter is implying that Jesus (and his teachings) will remain with the people, as a guide, much the same way that the Law and Prophets, epitomized by Moses and Elijah, remain with the people to guide them.
But Jesus is not merely one in a line of great figures; he is the one who will fulfill all else. As he says elsewhere in Matthew, “I have not come to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it.” Thus, Moses and Elijah disappear, but Jesus remains. The teaching and person of Jesus will stand by itself as a fulfillment of the Law and Prophets that preceded it.
In the Lukan account, Jesus converses with Moses and Elijah, and what he discusses is of enormous significance—his impending passion in Jerusalem, which he describes as an “Exodus.” Obviously this word is of immense import to the Jews who understand the Exodus to be a time of deliverance—the time when God rescued the people from the clutch of their Egyptian masters and led them safely to the Promised Land. Thus, for Jesus to refer to his coming agony—his betrayal, suffering, death, and resurrection—as an “Exodus” is very clearly to draw an analogy with the Exodus of the Hebrew Scriptures. It is to say that, much as the focus of the Exodus was not the time spent wandering around in the desert, so neither is the focus of the passion to be the suffering on the Cross. Rather, the focus is the deliverance—the focus is the process that leads to the ARRIVAL in the Promised Land.
The comparison is unmistakable—just as God delivered the people Israel from the slavery of the Egyptians and brought them to the Promised Land through the person of Moses, so God now was about to bring the deliver His people from the slavery of death, through the Exodus of the Passion, and into the Promised Land of new life, of eternal salvation. All through the person of Jesus. And all of this is foreshadowed by Jesus’ Transfiguration on the Mountain with his disciples.
Reflection Questions
1. Have you ever experienced anything that felt like God revealing something to you in a particular way? What did this more direct encounter with God or God’s plan feel like?
2. Moses and Elijah are considered the two greatest figures in Jewish history, insofar as they represented the Law and the Prophets. Who from our own tradition stand out as figures embodying particular dimensions of Christianity? Whom do you look to as among the exemplars that continue to guide us?
3. The Gospel writers depict Jesus as describing his impending Passion as “an Exodus.” How do you conceive of the Passion? Where does the suffering, death, and Resurrection fit into your larger picture of this person, Jesus?
