THE REVELATION OF GOD IN MAN

SUNDAY, SECOND WEEK OF LENT   

Gen 12:1-4; Ps 33:4-5,18-20,22; 2 Tim 1:8-10; Mt 17:1-9

The Transfiguration of the Son of Man

We commence the second week of Lent with our attention drawn to the word of God. The word of God is everything for us in our worship of God, for the word of God is God communicated to us. Attention paid to the word of God is the core of our religious worship and relationship with God. As we have noted, the season of Lent is a fitting time to deepen our awareness of God's revelation to us, as contained in His words as recorded in the Scriptures. Our position that God created man to be His temple rests on the fact that our whole being is well illuminated only by the Eternal Word of God. In this sense, the scripture understands Jacob or the people of Israel to be the inheritance of the Word of God. “For the Lord’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage.” Deuteronomy 32:9. Jacob became the Lord’s inheritance when he received the revelation of God’s word. Jacob here represents the entire people of Israel. The gift of the Law and the Prophets constituted the people of Israel, for God dwelt among them by the means of these revelations. God is always the God of covenants. So, the possession goes both ways. The people God owns also have God as their inheritance and home. The importance of the word of God for us rests on the fact that the word is the means of God dwelling in us as his people. Nothing must prevent us from focusing attention on the word of God daily.

To minimize the distractions from familiar places and people, God called Abraham and asked him to leave his people and father’s house for a destination he would disclose to him. By summoning Abraham and taking him away from his people and native inheritance, God commenced the structuring of a holy city of God and man. Abraham’s vocation was to found or start a new dwelling of God and man, wherein man receives God’s word in faith and lives by it, and God dwells with and within man through his word. Abraham was the first to receive such a vocation in history; hence, he is the father of the faithful. “The Lord said to Abraham, ‘Leave your country, your family, and your father’s house, for the land I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name so famous that it will be used as a blessing.” If the word of God contains God, then we contain God when we contain the word of God. This is how Abraham became a blessing to all tribes, peoples, and nations. His vocation is unique as the first and pathfinder of God’s people, but each of us receives the same vocation by our common human nature. Our nature is a vocation to be a dwelling of God, which was fulfilled through the mission of the Eternal Word. The effort to contain the word of God is therefore the first duty of every human person.

As God honoured Abraham because of his faith in his word, he will honour all who believe and put their trust in God. “The Lord looks on those who revere him, on those who hope in his love, to rescue their souls from death, to keep them alive in famine.” The trajectory of faith and hope pioneered by Abraham and sustained through the people of Israel came to its fruition in the birth of the Son of Man. In Jesus Christ, the City of God and man became a reality. God is now found to live among men through His Eternal Word. In the Gospel, the revelation of this mystery was given to the three apostles: Peter, James, and John. “Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain where they could be alone. There in their presence, he was transfigured: his face shone like the sun and his clothes became as white as the light.” The transfiguration is the shining through of his divine nature for the confirmation of our faith in the real presence of God in His Word that became Incarnate.

The appearance of Moses and Elijah demonstrated the trajectory of faith and the corresponding revelation of God’s word through Moses and the Prophets that culminated in the coming of the Eternal Word in human flesh. “Suddenly Moses and Elijah appeared to them; they were talking with him.” The conversation between the three represents the fact that the Law from Moses and the prophecies of the Prophets were in accordance with what we have received in the Son of Man, who fulfils and completes them all. The Father’s voice confirmed the completeness of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ for human salvation. “He was still speaking when suddenly a bright cloud covered them with shadow, and from the cloud there came a voice which said, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; he enjoys my favour. Listen to him.’” Subsequently, the bodily presence of the Eternal Word of God signifies the presence of the kingdom of God among us. It is now within the power and will of each of us to enter into the communion of God with men. God has offered us communion through our faith in Jesus Christ. To enter the eternal kingdom and communion, we must prove ourselves faithful, as Saint Paul explains to us. “With me, bear the hardship for the sake of the Good News, relying on the power of God who has saved us and called us to be holy—not because of anything we ourselves have done but for his own purpose and by his own grace.” We have the same vocation as Abraham, with a better promise than he received. Let us believe the Good News and enter into life.

Let us pray: O God, who have commanded us to listen to your beloved Son, be pleased, we pray, to nourish us inwardly by your word, that, with spiritual sight made pure, we may rejoice to behold your glory. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.