Reflection for the Vigil of the Second Sunday in Lent

Tonight’s Gospel takes us up a mountain with Jesus. There, in a moment of radiant light, Moses and Elijah appear beside him.  These two figures are important.  Moses met God on the mountain and came back transformed. On a mountain, Elijah encounters God’s voice in a gentle wind and returns to anoint kings and his successor.  Moses represents the law; Elijah, the prophets. By standing with Jesus, they show that the law and the prophets point to him. Jesus fulfills the promise spoken long ago to Moses: “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. (Deuteronomy 18:15).” 

We shift the focus now to what happened to Peter, James and John. At first, they are caught up in the glory of the moment, in the revelation of Jesus as another great prophet. Amazed by what he is seeing, Peter immediately wants to commemorate the moment with shrines to the three prophets before him. His mind focuses on what he envisions doing. Before he finishes speaking, however, a bright cloud interrupts him, overshadowing them, and a voice proclaims,

“This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased.” 

The voice is telling the three apostles that Jesus is more than the other two prophets. He is God’s son. These words parallel a previous event, Jesus’s baptism, when the same words were spoken. Now, however, the voice adds three important words, “Listen to him.”  What is it that they are to listen to? Just six days before this, Peter had proclaimed Jesus as Christ, the son of the living God. Shortly after that when Jesus was talking to the apostles about his suffering and death, Peter cuts Jesus off saying that would never happen. Jesus, admonishing him, says, “Get behind me, Satan.” Peter refuses to hear Jesus’s words since he is focused on what he wants to hear. God is reminding him again to listen to Jesus’s earlier words. He must listen to all Jesus’ words, including those that are confusing or painful.

It would be nice to stay in this moment, to be overwhelmed by the feeling of this revelation, but the voice is reminding them that Jesus is God, but he is also human. As a human, he can suffer and die. This revelation causes them to fall back in fear. At this point, Jesus, realizing their fear, reaches out to them in compassion and says,

“Rise and be not afraid.”

He leads them down the mountain to continue their journey to Jerusalem. From the light of God’s presence, they move toward darkness, from the promise of life, to the reality of Jesus’s impending suffering and death. 

These same three men would later be the ones chosen to accompany Jesus to his agony in the garden, to see, to listen and to feel his pain. They will carry in their body the death of Jesus. For a time after coming down from their mountain experience, they seem to understand and to accept what they heard. Jesus is heading to his death, but in the garden, they forgot Jesus’s words on the mountain, “Do not be afraid,” as they flee in fear.

Today we, too, encounter glorious moments when we are in the presence of God. Moments when we hear God’s voice in those around us and see his presence in events we encounter. Do we listen to what is said or to what is happening, or are we busy formulating our own response? When those moments are gone, will we remember to take time to reflect on the experience or even remember what we have heard or seen? Pope Leo has named listening as a key virtue to work on this Lent. This includes listening to God, to others, to events around us, and to ourselves. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has also called us to ecological conversion by listening to the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor. Are we truly ready to listen and not be afraid of what we hear?