Gospel Reflection for Sunday February 28th 2021 The Second Sunday of Lent
On the mountain with Jesus
We often use the phrase ‘peak moments’ to talk about and describe important or significant experiences. The gospel today is one of those ‘peak moments’ for Jesus and those who are with him.
Jesus takes his three of his friends, Peter, James and John away from the market place and brings them on hike up a mountain. The symbol of the mountain in scripture is very important. The mountain is the place where God is revealed. The mountain is the place where God is encountered and experienced. We recall Moses meeting God on Mount Sinai, Jesus preaching the Sermon on the Mount and Jesus being crucified on Mount Calvary. In the gospel today, Jesus is changed, transfigured on the mountain.
While on the mountain with Jesus, something out of the ordinary happens to Peter, James and John. They experience Jesus in a profound and powerful way. They see and hear something that probably both disturbed and encouraged them in equal measure. (Jesus) was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such has no one earth could bleach them… then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him.’ This bears an uncanny similarity to what happened when Jesus was baptised. When he emerged from the water, a voice was heard to say, ‘This is my Son, the beloved, my favour rests on him.’ Both experiences give those with Jesus and us today a brief glimpse of Jesus from God’s point of view. God reveals to us and unveils for us Jesus’ true identity and the power of God’s Kingdom that he is about usher in through his life, death and resurrection.
Perhaps when we started Lent on Ash Wednesday, we did so with great energy and optimism. We made promises and pledges that we would change; we would try just to be nicer to those around us and to be a more committed follower of Jesus. The sign of the cross with ashes which we received that day is long gone, but how are those promises going at this stage of Lent? I like to believe that The Transfiguration gives us a flickering moment of revelation of who Jesus will be and how we will look after the Resurrection. Truly then, he will be transfigured for all time. This moment of Transfiguration when we experience and encounter Jesus in all his glory as God’s Son is offered so as to encourage and strengthen us at this stage of journey through Lent. It offers us an ever so brief glimpse of what awaits us when Easter finally arrives. We too will stand with Jesus in all his glory.
But we have a few more weeks left before we can celebrate, and sing ‘alleluia, the Lord is risen.’ As much as this gospel is about Jesus being changed, Lent is also about you and I being changed and transformed. As St. Paul says to us when we writes to us; ‘You are to put aside your old self, which belongs to your old way of life…. you were renewed in the Spirit, so that you could become a new person who has been created by in God’s image.’ (Eph. 4.24)
This week I pray that I will have the courage and humility to listen Jesus, the Beloved Son of God. I ask the Lord to be with me as I repent and believe the Good News. May I try my best to change those parts of my life that prevent from loving those around me and from following Jesus.
– Br Michael Moore OMI
This is my Son, the BelovedJesus took with him Peter and James and John and led them up a high mountain where they could be alone by themselves. There in their presence he was transfigured: his clothes became dazzlingly white, whiter than any earthly bleacher could make them. Elijah appeared to them with Moses; and they were talking with Jesus. Then Peter spoke to Jesus: ‘Rabbi,’ he said ‘it is wonderful for us to be here; so let us make three tents, one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.’ He did not know what to say; they were so frightened. And a cloud came, covering them in shadow; and there came a voice from the cloud, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved. Listen to him.’ Then suddenly, when they looked round, they saw no one with them any more but only Jesus.
As they came down from the mountain he warned them to tell no one what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead. They observed the warning faithfully, though among themselves they discussed what ‘rising from the dead’ could mean.
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