Transcript
There are fleeting moments in life when the curtain between us, the world, and God, present and future, is drawn back and we glimpse eternity. Today’s Transfiguration story on the second Sunday of Lent is such a moment. Transfiguration occurs right after Peter’s confession that Jesus is the long- awaited Messiah and then Jesus’s shocking response that He, Messiah, “must suffer many things, be rejected… be killed…” We’re then told that Peter, James, and John leave with Jesus to a high mountain. There, Jesus is caught up in a dazzling theophony talking with the two great figures of Judaism, Moses and Elijah. Peter blurts out, “Master, it is well that we’re here. Let us make three booths, one for each of you.” Then suddenly they see only Jesus, and hear a voice from the cloud saying, “This is my beloved Son. Listen to Him.” In this dazzling moment of recognition, it was revealed to these disciples that Jesus is son of God, Messiah, and His suffering way to the cross is in accord with God’s will. Peter wanted to fix that transfiguring, mountaintop moment in concrete for all time, but we can’t. Glimpses like that come and go. God pulls back the curtain between now and eternity only for a peak. And when such glimpses are given on a mountaintop in Judea or in a Sunday mass, cherish it. But don’t even try to capture it, for it’s a fleeting, blessed gift of revelation. And such glimpses sustain us on our Lenten journey with Jesus to the cross.