HUMAN NATURE AS THE INHERITANCE OF THE SON


THE TRANSFIGURATION OF THE LORD 

Dan 7:9-10,13-14; Ps 97:1-2,5-6,9; Lk 9:28-36

The Revelation of the Glory of the Son

In our reading from Numbers yesterday, God testified to Moses being at home in the house of God. We understood and explained this to mean that Moses dwelt in God's presence. In other words, he truly conformed to listening to the word of God and doing his will. We recall that the Son is the one to build a house for God. The house of God is human nature, which the Son assumed to make it truly habitable for the word of God. Moses’ profound humility and obedience to the word of God made him at home in the house of God, the human nature that belongs to the Son by inheritance. All of us who share or participate in the human nature are stewards in the house that properly belongs to the Son. We are faithful stewards if we listen to the word of God and obey by living according to the will of the Father in our bodies; we are unfaithful stewards if we live otherwise. Our understanding here conforms with our Lord’s words, when he referred to our temporary life in the flesh as a stewardship of what is not ours. “If you are unfaithful with what is not yours, who will entrust you with what is rightly your own?” We can only enter and share his inheritance with him by faithfulness to the word of God.

The first reading from Daniel describes the Son’s reception of his inheritance from the Father. “I gazed into the visions of the night. And I saw, coming on the clouds of heaven, one like a son of man. He came to the one of great age and was led into his presence. On him was conferred sovereignty, glory, and kingship, and men of all peoples, nations, and languages became his servants.” All men who live are his servants, for to be born in flesh and blood is to be admitted into the service of the word of God. The Son will judge all of us according to what we have done in the body; that is, in the house of God that belongs to the Son. The open books before the divine sovereignty are for the judgment of all peoples, nations, and languages, but the Son is the Judge because he is the Eternal Word. The Father, by giving us his word, has sent his Son to build our human nature into a dwelling place of God. The word of God must rule over our lives, or we will not be admitted into his kingdom of light. As the psalm proclaims: “The Lord is king, let earth rejoice, let all the coastlands be glad. Cloud and darkness are his raiment; his throne, justice and right.” Cloud and darkness are his raiment now because he is not visible to our senses, but only to faith. We must live by faith to be pleasing to him, as Moses and Elijah did.

The Gospel reveals these truths to us in a unique way. The transfiguration of our Lord tells the fact that the Eternal Word made his home in our nature. The glory that he radiated through his body shows that our nature belongs to him. The faithful stewards in the same house he shares with all of us, Moses and Elijah, came to bear witness to him. “Jesus took with him Peter, John, and James and went up the mountain to pray. As he prayed, the aspect of his face was changed and his clothing became brilliant as lightning. Suddenly there were two men there talking to him; they were Moses and Elijah appearing in glory, and they were speaking of his passing which he was to accomplish in Jerusalem.” His transfiguration is to aid our faith in the word of God. Our flesh and blood, as cloud and darkness, now hide the glory of the Eternal Word from us, but faith helps us to believe that he lives within us as the builder and owner of the house. Let us listen and obey the voice of the Father coming through the cloud. “This is my Son, the Chosen One. Listen to him.” By our faithful obedience, we will enter the glory that would be truly ours with him as Moses and Elijah did.

Let us pray: O God, who in the glorious Transfiguration of your Only Begotten Son confirmed the mysteries of faith by the witness of the Fathers and wonderfully prefigured our full adoption to sonship, grant, we pray, to your servants, that, listening to the voice of your beloved Son, we may merit to become coheirs with him. Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.    

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