2nd Sunday of Lent
By Fr. Chinnappan Pelavendran
God’s call is personal; it is an invitation to enter into his holiness with an attitude of faith and total trust in God. As we enter the second week of Lent, our task is to continue to examine our hearts and change ourselves to be worthy of his glorious paschal mystery. As human beings, we do not like to change and we resist any change as much as we can. However, change is a part of our life. We know that we are pilgrims on a journey to a more permanent dwelling place. A place of total union with our God.
In Genesis 12, God tested Abraham to leave his father’s land for an unknown land. Abraham through his obedience demonstrated that he loved God more than his father’s land. In the first reading as we saw today, God tested Abraham again to see how convinced and strong his faith was by asking him to sacrifice the son of promise. Abraham was a man of great faith and his faith led him to the mountaintop, a place of great encounter with God. It took Abraham three days to journey to the mountaintop at Moriah for the sacrifice and within this period Abraham never changed his mind for his faith remained firm.
God wants you to make the first step with determination and he will come and take control. Remember not to entertain distractions and discouragements in your journey to the mountain-top, Abraham had to leave his servants at the foot of the mountain while he climbed with Isaac alone to avoid distractions. When we keep our faith strong in God and we are ready to make enormous sacrifices towards meeting Him at the mountaintop, then we can be sure that God will be on our side and as the second reading says if God is on our side nobody can be against us. Even when we make mistakes as humans, God would still forgive us since Christ has died to spare us and he stands at God’s right hand interceding for us.
In the Gospel reading, Jesus leads his disciples up a high mountain to witness his transfiguration. Elijah and Moses appear and this demonstrates that Jesus is the fulfillment of the prophets and the law. God speaks from heaven and this gives the disciples clarity in their vocations. Peter wants to stay in the moment. Peter wants to build monuments and to stay. Soon after the events at Mount Tabor, however, Jesus begins to lead his disciples to Jerusalem and the cross. You see, Jesus leads his disciples to another mountain, Golgotha, where all of humanity is transfigured through his passion, death, and resurrection. For Abraham, the undiscovered country seems to be a stretch of land that God would give to him and his descendants. For the disciples of Jesus, the undiscovered country is our salvation, the promise of resurrection and everlasting life.
As we make our way with Jesus from our Mount Tabors to our Good Fridays, we are invited to never lose sight of where Jesus is ultimately leading us. Our destination is our Easter hope. To get there, we need to know who we are, and where we are going, and recommit ourselves to following Jesus who is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
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