Reflection on the Second Sunday of Lent

_{Genesis 12:1-4a 2 Timothy 1:8b-10 Matthew 17:1-9}

Jesus took Peter, James and John up the mountain. I sort of got stuck right here.  Going up a mountain is a struggle.  It takes time and lots of effort.  The top of the mountain has its own reward – a sense of accomplishment, magnificent breath-taking views  and an experience beyond words.  But is that what the three disciples experienced? Or was there more?

The disciples were tired and fell asleep. They thought they were dreaming as they experienced the brilliant light and heard a voice saying, “This is my beloved Son, Listen to Him.” Enthusiastic Peter wanted to erect a monument of sorts, but that  wasn’t the message. Jesus even admonished them not to say anything until He had risen from the dead. It was only after reflection and time did they understand what they had experienced.

Have you ever had an experience that you tried to describe and ended with, “but you had to be there?” What is your going-up-the-mountain experience?  What crevices, what valleys were there along the way? Maybe you were facing a life transition, a life changing medical issue,  or maybe not so serious, but a significant time in your life when you were awestruck by the experience.    

How many times in our lives are we challenged to go down into the valleys and up a mountain?  Sometimes just when we think that things are going well or turning around, we’ll hit a bump in the road. Or, to continue with the mountain image, we encounter a crevice or a canyon that comes between us and our hopes and dreams. Sometimes it even comes between us and what we think God wants us to do. Sometimes it makes no sense. And yet we can’t avoid the mountains. But, oh the reward of finally getting to the top.  What words can describe this? 

One such time for me was when my niece, Jenny, was struggling with her grief following a tragic accident. Her 3-year-old son Zach had accidentally caused the death of his 1-year-old brother Luke. How do you console a mother in that situation? My brother Fred, Jenny’s dad, and I spent the weekend with her. Early on Easter Sunday morning we went with her up the mountain in Mesa Verde National Park. We settled ourselves on an outcropping of rock.

 As the sun began to peak over the eastern horizon the only response was silent awe and a unique feeling of moving toward  healing.

Jesus took three close friends to share his experience. Through this Jesus showed us the value of relationships and the need to have friends in the difficult times.  We, too, rely on our friends as we struggle through the hard times and to share with us those awesome moments of celebrating — awesome silence or alleluia in the transformed, risen Christ of Easter Sunday morning. This is my Beloved Son.  Listen to Him. Listen to Him as He accompanies us through the valleys to the mountain tops on our life’s journeys. 

As a foretaste of his death and resurrection, Jesus’ Transfiguration is a call to us to allow our own lives to be enlightened and transformed and infused with a new hope, illumined by new light, and isn’t that what Lent is all about? Lent is a season of prayer and transformation, a time for us to consciously make room for God in our hearts and in our lives, so that we can be changed from within. It is a time when we are empowered to accept the totality of our lives with both its crosses as well as its joys — because we know that the cross is never the final word, and that the Resurrection is a promise we can count on.