2nd Sunday of Lent 17.2.08 Transfiguration.
Sometimes I think of being in heaven, and how good it would be to look back on this life with all its troubles, and say, Well, I’m glad that’s over. We cope with present troubles by looking forward to a better time.
The Transfiguration was meant to fill the apostles with hope; and since it was to be recorded in the Gospels it was meant to give hope to the Church in every generation.
The Transfiguration gives us a way of bringing the future into the present. Not only has Christ risen, but He knew before His crucifixion that He would rise. This is very important because it is exactly how we are meant to understand our present position.
We are sharing in the victory of Christ which is operative even before the final result. He knew He would rise; which was as good as actually rising.
Think how Moses must have felt standing on the edge of the Red Sea with the Egyptians storming up behind and an impassable sea in front. (caught between the devil and the deep red sea)
And God says: No problem, just lift your staff and the sea will part. Did Moses doubt? There is no mention of it. We do not doubt either because that story is in the past, and we don’t have any trouble believing past events, but we have a lot of trouble believing future ones.
No trouble believing that God used to work miracles, but trouble believing He will still work them now.
Yet it is all one to Him – past, present, future. The same God, undiminished in power, and unchanged in purpose.
Do you believe in Him at such a point? The Transfiguration says you can and should. Our Lord Himself says you should. He knew He would rise, and He knows He will raise us.
It is just like the movies where we are the hero/heroine up against all the odds, and we know if it is a film that everything is going to be alright and it is. We call that fiction, but it is actually true, because that is what happens to us. Everything is going to be alright.
We may not be able to do the physical feats of Luke Skywalker and Robin Hood and all the other heroes, but we will achieve glory. We will get from this mudpit to the eternal shores of peace and joy.
And the same principle applies to our communal identity as the Church as to our individual position.
We might believe that God can rescue me from this or that problem, but we must also believe He can rescue the whole Church from persecution, division, and every danger.
He can bring the Church home just like any one of us. Size is no problem for God. He is victory in action. No job too small or too large for Him.
As the Church also we must believe and hope. We see the glorious beginnings we had at Easter and Pentecost, but now we see ourselves racked by every possible difficulty.
Can we still believe? How can we not, if we have the Risen and Transfigured Lord standing in our midst?
Hope is a gift; a very practical gift to those still on the way to the final state. To believe before things happen is the ultimate act of trust, and this is what hope enables.
Resurrection is the victory over sin and death, the final victory. Transfiguration is the victory of hope over despair, the interim, ongoing victory.
We are transfigured in hope, preparing us to be transfigured in actual fact when the time comes.
