Walking with Jesus: Second Sunday of Lent C

For Sunday, March 16, 2025

Genesis 15:5-12, 17-18; Philippians 3:17-4:1; Luke 9:28-36


What was the closest experience in your life where you got a sense of God, the Almighty? A moving experience which was filled with so much but could be reduced to a moment of being with ... understanding ... the height and depth of beauty — love itself? Think on this! How long did it last? Was it so fleeting that it came and was gone in a moment? Yet that “moment” was so special that you still can describe every amazing part in detail. So many have shared these moments. I had a young girl tell me she was at her dying grandmother’s bedside and saw her pain and prayed to God to take it away. She felt bad asking God to let her die, but then there was a peace that flowed through her. I told her that was God, to which she replied, “I know.”

Sadness to peace.

Three ladies on a Holy Land Pilgrimage were on the platform at Transfiguration Mountain and put their hands through a trap door to touch the rock below, and their faces went white. “Touch it, father,” they told me. I did. They exclaimed how it was a burning sensation, yet not hot, as each one touched it in turn. It was God. When I touched it, it was a cold — really cold.

A husband picked up his first child and his face, like his wife’s, was glowing. Both knew this one would live and was from God. Over the years they had had a few miscarriages and little ones who died within hours.

What have been your mountaintop experiences? A graduation, the birth of a child, a long-awaited goal you accomplished? Hearing “yes, I will marry you?” A doctor saying the cancer is gone? Life-changing … life-fulfilling … being a part of something bigger than yourself, and you know it’s a special moment given especially to you — and you can say, “This was God” — and you said, “I know.”

We wonder: “Where is God — will He help?” Abraham had trust and faith in God [Genesis 12:1-9 & 15:1-9]. God initiated a covenant. Today’s ritual of cutting up the larger animals and walking through their split carcasses to validate the covenant emphasizes the seriousness with which covenant obligations were taken in the ancient New East — for one who breaks the covenant will suffer the same fate as the animals. Fire is the imagery so often associated with theophanies (the temporary appearance or manifestation of a divine being in a form that can be perceived by human senses). Today God commits to upholding the promises made to Abraham: Abraham will have a multitude of descendants and a vast expanse of land … and then Abraham experiences the same kind of trance that came on Adam when God built Eve from one of his ribs. [Genesis 2:21] The Promised Land continues by Jesus’ promise of eternal happiness for all in heaven if we have faith and live the commandments of God and Jesus’ law of love. How am I doing today? This is God’s plan!

Psalm 27's response, “The Lord is my light and my salvation,” is a prayer of profound confidence in God — that God hears the prayer always, and always responds — not necessarily the way we want Him to, but always according to His plan.

Paul compares the fate of those who oppose the Commandments — the teachings and law of the love of Jesus — with that of true believers. Paul is acting as a wisdom figure in the following contrasts:

They're enemies of the cross of Christ < > They're faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ
Their end is destruction < > They await the coming of the Savior
Their god is their stomach < > Their lowly body is transformed
Their glory is their shame < > They share in Christ’s glory    
They're occupied with earthly matters < > Their citizenship is in heaven

Paul says while they still live in this life, they are to live as citizens of heaven. Do I?

Luke shares his account of the Transfiguration. Did it happen? Yes. Where did it happen? Uncertain; some say closer to the north in the snowcapped mountain range. (My tour guide, Nasser Elias, believes this.) What happened there? Luke tells us, “They saw His glory.” [Luke 9:32] Peter doesn’t want it to end. He offers to build three tents for the glorified men. Why does he view Jesus equal with Moses and Elijah? They are taken into a cloud, and a voice from that cloud proclaims Jesus’ divine identity. The cloud and the glorified visitors vanish, and only Jesus remains. Does this event prepare their minds and hearts for Jesus’ coming crucifixion, death and resurrection? I believe so — but take a moment and reflect upon your “moving experience,” and place it next to the events in the readings. They're similar in many ways — most importantly: This is God and God is present to you and me. Thank You, Lord!       

So I reflect on:

• What might God have been saying to you during your moving, mountaintop experience?
• What is the meaning of “your experience” in your own Christian journey?         

Sacred Space 2025 states:

“St. Luke tells us about Jesus at prayer more than any of the other evangelists. Here, these three apostles are given this extraordinary experience of Jesus transfigured to strengthen them in the face of His coming suffering and death. Years later St. Peter recalls in a letter this experience on the mountain. It highlights for us how the divinity of Jesus was hidden in His humanity. We pray for a deeper understanding of the Incarnation.

“In our praying it is always the risen Lord we encounter and we can truly say, ‘Master it is good for us to be here.’ Let us have the Father say to us, ‘This is My Son, My Chosen; listen to Him!’ And let us pray like Samuel, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’”