"Transfiguration: An Encounter with God"

Today's Mass Readings

If each of us looks back at our lives, most likely there are certain core experiences that have shaped us. Marriage, separation, childbirth, loss of a child, death of a loved one, a major success or failure, illness, a powerful encounter will the poor or a saintly person – these can transform us. Take for example, Stephen Kazmierczak who went into his classroom and shot down five people yesterday at the Northern Illinois University; there must be on experience that led him to become who he has become – a killer. Experiences have the power to transform us. I would like to add another kind of experience to the mix – God-experience. Let me give you an example from my own life. It is not uncommon for me to ask myself, “Why do I continue to be a priest?” I was telling one of my friends the other day, “If I did not have a passion for the things that I do; if somehow God did not grip my life the way God did, it would so easy to give it all up.” But I can look back to when I was about nineteen years old and that first experience of God’s all- consuming love. Life has not been the same. I am not saying that I have been immune from bad decisions, failures, mistakes, and sins; but that one single God-experience has colored all my other experiences. On this the second Sunday in Lent, the scriptures familiarize us to two powerful God experiences: one from the Old Testament and one from the New. In the first reading, Abraham is so gripped by his encounter with God that he embraces the insecurity of a foreign land, of a new beginning, of gross uncertainty in his obedience to God. The blessing promised to Abraham was so remote that his willingness to lose his country, his security for uncertainty and insecurity almost seems foolish. But then, that is what any God experience will do. It grips a person, it challenges a person, it transforms a person and it leads the person to a total surrender of his or her life to God. We see this explained in greater detail in the gospel reading. I would like to think about the transfiguration not as Jesus, the Son of God taking his three disciples and climbing up the mountain, but rather, Jesus as a human person climbing the mountain for prayer. In most cultures the mountain-top is a sacred place. In the Old Testament, the mountain-top is a place for God’s revelation. During the transfiguration, Jesus is not merely transfigured, but as a human person, Jesus himself has an “Abba- Experience.” He must have tremendously comforted and loved to hear the words, “This is my beloved Son.” The disciples too are caught up in a God-experience. Unlike Jesus, though, they were afraid and all they could do was fall prostrate. And then, Jesus came and touched them – not as the same human person who went up but as one who had conversed with God and who was God. That touch of God, that experience of the divine, that encounter with God in Jesus is what will stay with the disciples right through the passion, crucifixion, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Jesus’ “Abba Experience” will give him the strength to climb another mountain – mount Calvary.

This is my point – God-experience is the most crucial experience that a human being can have. It led Abraham to leave his nation and become the father in faith; It led Moses from the dessert to Pharaoh; it led Isaiah from being a shepherd to being a prophet; it led Mary to say yes to God; it led Jesus to offer his life as a ransom for a sinful human kind; it led St. St. Thomas to India; it led Peter to martyrdom; it led Mother Teresa to give her life to the poor. As I said earlier, God-experience grips a person, it challenges a person, it transforms a person and it leads the person to a total surrender of his or her life to God.

Let me offer three practical implications:

1. How do we explain “God-experience?” It is an experience of the very life of God. Jesus, on the mountain, as a human person was invited to experience the life he had with God before he came to earth. The disciples too were drawn in the life of the divine Jesus. A God-experience is an experience of being consumed by the love of God. God-experience is a taste of heaven. Life without a God-experience is like food without salt, chocolate chip cookie without chocolate chips, ice-cream without cream, soda without fizz, pizza without cheese. God- experience is the salt, chocolate, cream, fizz, cheese, in other words, the very meaning of our existence. How we can have a God-Experience? The disciples had to climb the mountain with Jesus. Are we prepared to climb the mountain with Jesus? God-experience is God’s free gift, but we must climb the top of the mountain. The mountain is the mountain of prayer. This lent, our challenge is to find quiet time on top of the mountain. We must genuinely seek the touch of God.

2. Today’s readings open our eyes to another very important fact of life – that insecurity, uncertainty, meaninglessness, suffering, and death are an integral part of our life as it was for Abraham, Jesus, and for the disciples. When life became tough the only stable power they could turn to was their experience of God. Every other power in our lives, our beloved ones, wealth, power, and social status are all finite realities. It is our God-experience that keeps us faithful to God. It is our God experience that keeps us faithful to one another. It is our God-experience that can help us remain focused. It is our God experience that can keep us from giving up. It is our God-experience that we can fall back on when life is tough and when it is immensely satisfying. It is our God-experience that can take away every fear.

3. God-experience, even though a very personal experience has more than just a personal meaning. It is more than a personal tool for us to live a meaningful life. God experience always leads us to the world. Abraham was led to a new nation, Moses was led to the enslaved, Mary was led to Elizabeth, Jesus became our salvation. There is someone out there whose meaning of life, whose salvation depends on our God-experience. If today, our life has no meaning beyond our immediate family, then, we are only partly living our Christian call. We must answer a very crucial question this lent – where is my God-experience leading me to? Who is my God-experience leading me to?

For those who truly seek God’s touch, every Eucharist is a transfiguration experience, a God-experience. Like Peter, James, and John, let us fall prostrate before the Lord and allow the Lord to come to us and touch us. Amen.

- Fr. Satish Joseph