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| Raphael's Transfiguration |
Last Sunday, we were in the wilderness, in the presence of Jesus and the tempter. This Sunday we are on a mountaintop contemplating Jesus and his transfiguration.
But first, the word of God takes us back almost four thousand years. Because Abraham trusted God completely, he set out for an unknown land. Many of us can relate to this: going to a new place? A new job? You may have been anxious. I’m sure Abraham was. Yet he trusted in God's unconditional love. God calls us to be people of faith, as we journey through happy days and uncertain days to our heavenly dwelling place.
Paul’s letter to Timothy speaks about God’s tremendous love for us. God became one of us in Jesus so that we could become like God. Paul urges us to live a holy life now. Yes, “Let us go forth to love and serve God.”
In the Gospel according to Matthew, the disciples experienced the unique and awesome presence of God in Jesus. As described, Jesus’s face became as dazzling as the sun, his clothes as white as light, an allusion to the tunic early Christians wore after they were baptized. The disciples glimpsed the “glorious” Jesus beyond the flesh and blood Jesus they knew. They also saw their own future in the transfigured Jesus.
Jesus lived by faith, completely trusting in God's unconditional love for him. That faith made Jesus a transformative person, ushering in the kingdom of God. That faith was tested to the breaking point on the cross. Jesus surrendered himself unconditionally. He died as he lived: with faith in his heavenly Father, with hope of life forever. In the mystery of death God transfigured Jesus into a new kind of spiritual embodiment.
And just as Jesus became a transformative person ushering in the kingdom of God, Jesus calls us to become transformative people. As co-workers with God, we have to do our best to transform injustice and prejudice into fairness and tolerance; to transform hate into peace, indifference into compassion, sorrow into joy and despair into hope. Yes, we have to transform self-centeredness into other-centeredness so that God, like the risen Christ, can transfigure us into a new spiritual embodiment.
Notre Dame coach Lou Holtz recognized that attitude determines how well one performs any task. One of his many pointers: “Set goals at every stage in life and work hard to achieve them. When negative thoughts arise, start thinking, ‘I can.’ It works better than ‘I can't.’ "
Surely that can-do attitude helps the Grand Prix race drivers in St. Petersburg this coming weekend.
For Lent, let us be transformative: forgiving those it’s hard to forgive; exercising compassion and mercy; making peace; caring for those in need; carrying our crosses; persevering when we are exhausted; and loving when the last thing we can muster is love. Amen.
