I'm going to approach today's readings elliptically. This approach seems fitting to me for two reasons. First, each of these three integrated passages lends themselves nicely to the practice of lectio divina. Second, I am too tired to attempt something that requires a great deal of integration.
From the reading from Genesis, this clause stood out:
"a trance fell upon Abram" (Gen 15:12):
The translation in the Lectionary is quite misleading. A better translation of this can be found in virtually any English version of the Bible. For example, the New American Bible Revised Edition (NABRE), which features an updated translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, rather than "a trance fell upon Abram," reads- "a great, dark dread descended upon him." Robert Alter, in his noteworthy translation, renders this: "and now [after he had fallen asleep] a great dark dread came falling upon him." To encounter the living God is no easy thing, even if "only" in a dream. Of course, what God promises Abram is exodus from Ur of the Chaldees to the promised land.
From Paul's Letter to the Philippians:
"He will change our lowly body" (Phil 3:21):
Transfiguration isn't only a way for Jesus to give his closest disciples of preview of his resurrected glory. The point and purpose of the Christian life, the point and purpose of Lent, which calls us back to the path of following Jesus, is to allow Christ, by the power of his Holy Spirit, to conform our lowly bodies to his glorified body. More specifically, our participation in the Eucharist is aimed at making us his true body, his verum corpus, conformed to his glorified body. You are then sent forth to glorify him by your life. If our lives are not transformed/transfigured by our partaking of Christ's body and blood, there hardly seems any point or purpose in it. It becomes a largely unconvincing magic trick, ex opere operato notwithstanding.
Jesus Alone Engraving by Unknown, 1907
From our Gospel reading, which is Luke's account of Jesus' Transfiguration, there are several things that stood out to me.
"spoke of his exodus" (Luke 9:31):
Jesus' "exodus" didn't have Jerusalem, the holy city, as its destination but as its point of departure. The exodus of his passion, death, and resurrection began in Jerusalem and moved out from there not only to the whole world but to the entire cosmos. "Dying you destroyed our death; rising you restored our life. Lord Jesus, come in glory!" This is the true exodus, the one prefigured by Abram's call out of Ur and also the one to which the exodus of Israel out of Egypt points.
"Peter and his companions had been overcome by sleep" (Luke 9:32):
Like Abram, Peter, John, and James fell asleep. Unlike Abram, their sleep was not revelatory. It was only upon awakening that the saw and heard Jesus speaking with Moses and Elijah. It was only after they were fully awake that they heard the voice of the Father confirming Jesus' divine Sonship. For the most part, in Christian terms, certainly in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) to be asleep is to be blind to what God is doing right in front of your face. In light of this, how often do you "sleepwalk" through your days, utterly oblivious to what God is doing?
"he did not know what he was saying" (Luke 9:33):
Baffled by what he has just seen and heard, Peter makes a feeble proposal to "memorialize" the event of Jesus' Transfiguration. But this event does not require a memorial. It demands transformation on the part of the one who has seen or heard. As noted in my commentary on the clause from our reading Genesis, encountering the living God is terrific/terrible awful/awesome thing.
"This is my chosen Son; listen to him" (Luke 9:35):
Like Abram, their father in faith, the three disciples were frightened when they found themselves in the immediate presence of "God, the Father almighty, Creator of heaven and earth."
In John 2:5, which occurs during the Wedding Feast at Cana and, for John, marks the beginning of Jesus' public ministry, Mary, Jesus' mother, after requesting her Son do something about the fact that the party had run out of wine, speaking to the servants who are in the room with the sixth large water jars, tells them "Do whatever he tells you." In short, "listen to him." This episode is the second Luminous mystery of Our Lady's Rosary. The Transfiguration is the fourth Luminous mystery. There is a parallel between the two: Jesus' mother exhorting us to listen to her Son and Jesus' Father also directing us to listen to His Son. The fruit of the second Luminous mystery is To Jesus through Mary. While the fruit of the fourth is Desire for holiness (i.e., desire for transfiguration/transformation/conversion). My point in bringing the Rosary in this is that, far from being some pious little prayer for beginners or for those who don't really want to pray, the Most Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary provides us a most useful means for contemplating the Paschal Mystery.
"Jesus was found alone" (Luke 9:36):
Seeing him conversing with Moses and Elijah, the latter of whom is considered the greatest Hebrew prophet and who, rather than dying, ascended above in a chariot of fire, about the "exodus he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem," shows that Jesus "alone" is the fulfillment, the full realization, of the Law and the Prophets. After being momentarily "transfigured," at least in the eyes of Peter, John, and James (for a fleeting moment the scales fell from their eyes, as it were, and they saw Jesus as he really is/was/and always has been) and conversing with Israel's two major figures, they hear the voice of the Father indicating that Jesus is his Son and, therefore, they should listen to and heed him.
When it was all said and done, when Moses and Elijah had disappeared and the frightening cloud of God's all-enveloping presence lifted, "Jesus was found alone."
I can't keep from sharing the lovely song "Christ Alone."
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