Lent II 2023
Transfiguration
Gn 12:1-4
2 Tim 1:8b-10
Mt 17:1-9
The Sundays in Lent all tend to Easter. Last Sunday, Temptation Sunday, manifested the dark side of the Paschal Mystery: the fight again the Evil One. This Sunday, Transfiguration Sunday, stresses the luminous side of Easter: Christ bringing our humanity into the full light of God.
From the Mount of the Temptation to the Mount of the Transfiguration Jesus has not changed. He is the Son of God and recognised as such. On the lips of the Adversary, this title is a challenge and a derision. The voice of the Father pronounces it as an expression of love.
The relationship between Jesus and His Father is at the heart of Easter. The Son manifests the Father. He reveals Him. He makes Him known. According to St John, Jesus’ main mission is to reveal the Name of the Father. In turn, the Father reveals and manifests His Son: in the full light of the Transfiguration; in the power of the Resurrection; and, in between, as it were, also on the Cross, in the mystery of the Passion.
“This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; listen to him”.
These words of the Father express who Jesus is. In Biblical terms, Jesus is the ‘beloved Son’, the new Isaac to be offered in sacrifice on the Mount of Calvary. He is the ‘Prophet’ announced by Moses, whom the people of God was invited to listen to. Above all, He is the ‘Servant of God’, prophesied by Isaiah, whom God loves and sends as a messenger of reconciliation.
Moses and Elijah, the Law and the Prophets, give witness to Him and share in His light. But the cloud suddenly overshadows Him and signals a higher testimony: the one of the Father Himself. With Him, Jesus enjoys such a unique relationship that “the Son” becomes, in a sense, Jesus’ proper name. By all that He is, Jesus points to the Father, manifests the Father, glorifies the Father. The glory which the Son receives from the Father enables Him to glorify His Father in return.
“This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; listen to him”.
These two words, “the Father” and “the Son”, convey the most profound revelation of the mystery of God’s identity. Who is God? We can say that He is light and darkness, word and silence, and this puts us in the direction of His mysterious being. What is more decisive, though, is the manifestation of the relationship between the Father and the Son. God reveals Himself in the light on top of the mountain, but also, and with the same power, in the simplicity of Jesus alone, in His bare human appearance. Our faith confesses that this man is the Son: the one who understands Himself and can be understood only in relationship with the one He calls His Father.
God is Father and Son in an exchange of glory which is their common Spirit of Love. God is Trinity of love.
“This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; listen to him”.
Easter is all about this relationship between the Father and the Son. At Gethsemane, the Son accepts the cup of suffering out of obedience to the will of the Father: “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt” (Mt 26:39). On the Cross, while the Father keeps silence, the Son entrusts Himself to Him with utter confidence: “Father, into Thy hands I commit my spirit” (Lk 23:46). On the day of His resurrection, Jesus tells Mary Magdalene: “I am ascending to my Father and your Father” (Jn 20:17).
It is the glory of the Son to glorify the Father and He does so by dying for us, thus enabling us to become children of God, sons and daughters of His Father and our Father. Jesus is glorified in us when we listen to the voice of the Son and believe in Him. In the power of His Spirit, we dare to say: ‘Abba! Father’. Then we hear the Easter voice raising us from the death of our sins and telling us: ‘You are my beloved daughter, You are my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.’