Second Sunday of Lent
If you were here for mass last week, you know how uncomfortable I was with the rather hurried up mass. We had to do this because of the Rite of Election but I remember a few years back a man met me at the parish festival. He introduced himself to me and told me that at one time, he used to be a parishioner at this parish. So I asked him what I could go for him. He said, “Give me a shorter mass!” I asked him to continue to go worship wherever he wanted to, because he was not going to get what he wanted at Immaculate Conception. What makes somebody ask something like that? It also makes me ask myself, “Why do I do what I continue to do?” I was telling one of my friends the other day, “If somehow God did not grip my life the way God did, it would so easy to not put my heart and soul into the things I do.” 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 defined the rest of my life.
On this the second Sunday in Lent, the scriptures familiarize us to two powerful God-experiences. In the first reading, Abraham is so gripped by his encounter with God that he freely embraces the insecurity of a foreign land, the dangers of a new beginning, and the possibility of losing everything he had. The blessing promised to Abraham was so remote that his willingness to move away from a stable existence 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 an experience of Jesus the Son of God, but rather, the human Jesus going up the mountain with his disciple for prayer. 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 has an “Abba- Experience.” It was an experience of being God’s beloved Son. This “Abba Experience” would give him the strength to climb another mountain – mount Calvary.
The transfiguration was also a turning point for Peter, James, and John. Before the transfiguration, Jesus had just spoken to the disciples about his impending suffering and death (Mt 16:21-23). The disciples were shocked and Peter began to rebuke Jesus. Jesus on the other hand said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan.” After the transfiguration, as they were coming down the mountain, Jesus once again speaks to them about his death and rising. This time there is no protest from the disciples. Instead, they began to understand the mysteries of salvation (Mt 17:13). The God-experience of the transfiguration, the touch of God at the transfiguration, will carry and sustain them through the suffering and death of Jesus.
Let me offer three practical implications:
1. How do we define “God-experience?” A God-experience is an experience of the very life of God. The transfiguration was such an experience for Jesus. 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 what gives our existence any meaning. But the question is, how we can have a God-experience? IN the gospel, the disciples had to climb the mountain with Jesus. If we want to have a genuine God-experience we must be prepared to climb the mountain with Jesus. God-experience is a 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 life 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 life 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