SECOND SUNDAY OF LENT - YEAR B

SECOND SUNDAY OF LENT – YEAR B
(Genesis 22:1-2, 9a, 10-13, 15-18; Romans 8:31b-34; Mark 9:2-10)

Theme: Let us climb to the Calvary, the Mountain of the Glory of Jesus on the Cross.

Reflection

- We have started the season of Lent. We are already in the second week. We have already made few steps forward in our Lenten journey of participating in the passion of the Lord. As the spiritual nourishment of the week, we have reflected last Sunday on our journey from the Desert to the Garden. The journey was from the desert of temptation to the garden of the resurrection. The Journey made by Jesus himself after his own baptism in the river Jordan by John. Therefore, this journey was his own task of ‘fulfilling’ his Father’s will. In this journey Jesus was always accompanied by the Spirit. It was the Spirit that had guided him into the desert to overcome the temptation with prayer and fasting. It was the same Spirit that has empowered him to overcome the suffering and death with obedience and with the acceptance of the cross. Finally it was the same Spirit that has made him enter into the glorious life of the resurrection.
- This is the same journey we are asked to make in this season of Lent. The journey from the Desert of pains and sufferings of our present life to the Garden of joy and bliss of our future life. The present and future of life is not of something of the time, now and later. It is now and here. In the Christian sense the past, the present and the future are compressed in one moment of our being with Jesus. All our tenses of time and the tensions of life are in him, Jesus, who has become our savior by giving his time and his life for us. Therefore:
o On one hand, while bearing and living the pains we move towards the joy of overcoming them: the pain leads us to joy.
o On the other hand, we are full of joy of the Christian Spirit that makes us live, easily and without blaming anybody, the sufferings we get in life: the joy that makes us to endure the pain.
- In this way, the deserted life and the gardened life go hand in hand in our Christian vocation. We are at the same time in the desert and in the garden. We are at the same time depressed and joyful. We are at the same time people of the cross and the people of empty tomb. We are at the same time people of death and the people of resurrection. It seems to be contradiction and it is contradictory life. Yes, it is true that our Christian life is a contradiction, because we are not the people who belong to the world yet we are in the world. It is true because we are the people called to the divine life yet we are ‘entangled’ in the earthly pleasures. It is true because we strive to for the heavenly bliss with our daily trials, yet we are dragged down to the desperations and discouragements. We rise up and fall down. We fall down and rise up. It is not only for us. Our God himself has underwent and won over it and has shown the way to live and confront this contradiction. Therefore, the contradiction of Christian life can be overcome with Faith in our Lord. Faith makes us accept everything even if we do not understand it. We get this faith only from the deeper meditation of the mystery of Jesus’ passion, death and resurrection. This is what we are called to do in this time of lent: to participate fully in the mystery of the life of Jesus.
Climbing the mountain: experiencing the presence and the vision of God

- Today, the second Sunday of the Lent, we are asked to make our journey to the mountain of the Lord. The journey is from the mountain of the transfiguration to the mountain of glorification. Therefore, the journey is from the mountain of Tabor to the mountain of Calvary: from the mountain of the vision of glory to the mountain of the participation in the glory of the Lord.
- What is a mountain? And how and why should be climb on it? What will be the fruit of reaching it? From the ancient times the mountains are considered to be the ‘chair of gods’. Also for us Christians the mountains have the same importance: they are the place of meeting the Lord. The better example we could indicate here is the mountain of Sinai where the presence of the Lord is seen and experienced by Moses. It is the place where God comes to meet his people and people climb to arrive to have the vision of God. Even in the life of Jesus we see this significance. Jesus has gone to the hills and mountains to pray and to be alone with God, his Father.
- The fatigue and the fruit of climbing the mountain is:
o Physically, climbing demands a tiresome and painful journey. It demands time. It demands patience. It demands concentration. Above all it demands commitment. This is only the aspect of the fatigue that one makes to climb. There is another side of it. The joyful part. The fruit of arriving to the peak: the possibility of looking into heights. Looking into heavens. Looking into God’s bosom. Looking into life with the Lord and life of the Lord.
o Spiritually also climbing has a notable significance: climbing means moving above from the place we are. It means leaving our normal platform. It means renouncing all that we were holding before. It means sacrificing of our usual life, our usual attitudes, and our usual tasks. It means striving for something unusual and something transcendental. It means following not any more our footprints but of the one who has gone before us paving the way. It means that our spirit is no more attached to the worldly thoughts and earthly interests but is raised above. It means that we are clinging onto the spiritual empowerment by which we look towards Jesus and participate in his sacrifice of love.
o The fruit of both physical and spiritual climbing is the same: experiencing the presence of the Lord, that is: Meeting the Lord and Enjoying His Vision.

Abraham on the mount of Moriah: God’s abundant blessing of offspring

- The same experience of the mountain that Abraham had in the first reading and this is the experience of Jesus in the Gospel:
o Abraham has followed the instruction of the Lord. He has no second thought. He clearly understood that it is His God himself who is asking for the sacrifice of his only and beloved son.
o He has put God’s will first. He gave importance to the design of God. He did not understand why God has asked back the son whom he has received in this old age. Yet he did not want to question God. He believed though he did not comprehend it well. He obeyed though it is very painful to give away his son.
o He started out his journey towards the place of Moriah to offer his son there on the one of the mountains that God himself will indicate (v.2). He must have experienced on the one hand, the bodily fatigue and tiresomeness and on the other hand, they mental agony of sacrificing his son. In fact, the pain of the latter would have been more. Still he did not hesitate. His only aim is to do what God willed. He did not think of the cost that he was demanded to pay. He had in mind only one thing: faith.
o Trusting God is a property of Abraham. His belief is tremendous. It is not the faith of today. At the first instance itself, when God called him to move out of his land and go to the land which he would show him, he demonstrated his faith in God silently followed his words. This faith was always a guard to him and to the people who followed him. He was tested and tested many times and in many modes. But he was victorious because of the faith. In faith and with faith Abraham has overcome every obstacle. His faith has saved him. For this he became the “father of faith”. Even today, in this particular test of God, this same faith saved him. when he was about to lift the knife to offer his son, angel of God interrupts and says: “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me” (v.12).
o One who has trusted God has never been tested beyond endurance. Abraham manifested such a faith which has gone beyond our human natural comprehension. The fruit of it is found on the mountain and during the manifestation of faith: the blessing of God - for his obedience of His voice (v.18) and the blessing is: “I will indeed bless you, and I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore” (v.16). This is the promise and the blessing that Abraham received in his mountain experience with the Lord.

Jesus on the Mount Tabor: the Transfiguration

- Jesus also had the same experience of the mount – mount Tabor. This is not the first time that Jesus has gone to mount. He often goes to the mount to pray. But this time Jesus did not go alone. He has taken his disciples with him. Not all of them but the chosen three: Peter, James and John.
- Whenever Jesus goes to the mountain he goes to be with his Father all alone. He experiences his intimacy with the Father. He discerns what his Father wills for him. He renews his mission of completing the task. In the spirit he returns to the ordinary life in order to manifest to the people God’s presence in and through his words and deeds.
- This shows that every time when Jesus is with His Father on the mountain and in prayer he is being transfigured. His transfiguration into knowing and committing himself to follow God’s will. He becomes the figure of God’s splendor and glory. It must have happened whenever he comes aside to be with His Father. The true transfiguration is participating in the glory of God and in the prayer in happens always.
- Only this time, he has shown his transfiguration to the disciples: “Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them” (v.2). This time his transfiguration has a purpose and a missionary aspect. Personal transfiguration of the glorious splendor of God is usual for Jesus in his personal prayer. But here it is another thing that “his transfiguration has something to say to his disciples”.
- His chosen disciples are called apart to have the experience of the vision that would be offered to them if only they endure their discipleship until the end. It is the mission that is placed before the three disciples in particular. Here the transfiguration has a double effect:
o Vision of the transfiguration: on the one hand, the disciples are revealed the vision of the future glory. Mystery of glory is unveiled to them. They are given the possibility of ‘foretasting’ crown of splendor. It is only a fruit for the task completed. It is the fruit that is consumed at the end of one’s life of discipleship. The eating of the fruit requires the fatigue of reaching to it. This fatigue is to be manifested in undistracted/undisturbed journey towards the climbing: both physical fatigue and spiritual sacrifice as we have already seen above.
o Mission of the transfiguration: on the other hand, the glory is not an easily achieved condition. It needs lot of sacrifice, may be sacrifice of one’s own self. It demands the unconditional faith through which one never looks back after placing his hand on the plough of the Lord, the cross. In order to put on “the garments of glory” one has to be stripped off the clothes already put on. In order to put on “the crown of glory” one has to give up his mentality and attitude and has to put on the ‘mind of Christ’ (Phil 2:5). This is the mission of transfiguration.
- Vision paves the way for the mission. Vision encourages the mission. Vision gives the joy of enduring the struggles of the mission. The vision of the transfiguration which the disciples had now will push them forward to carry on the mission of carrying the cross. This is what is indicated by the discourse of the Moses and Elijah with Jesus. Jesus in order to participate in the ultimate transfiguration – the glorification – he has to carry on the mission of the passion and death of and on the cross.
o Luke presents in the parallel account of the transfiguration that “they (Moses and Elijah) appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem” (Luke 9:31).
o John also brings about the same mission of Jesus: “his departure from this world to the other” (John 13:1 – “Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father”).
o Jesus is ready to accomplish the mission of entering into the glory. He is ready to depart towards Jerusalem in order to be ‘stripped off’ his splendor and glory in the humiliation and dishonor. All this is the mission which will lead him finally to the ‘glorification’ (Phil 2:11 – the fruit of the completion of the mission of the cross: “Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is the Lord, to the glory of God the Father”).
- This glory of the resurrection is the glory and the splendor manifested in the transfiguration. Therefore, the transfiguration of Jesus is the anticipation of the glory that will be the fruit of accomplishing the mission of suffering and death in faith and in obedience.
- The same vision and mission of transfiguration is offered to the disciples. One has the task of fulfilling the ‘climbing’ the mountain with the daily cross on the shoulders and in the foot prints that Jesus has already paved. Once he endures this difficult and arrives on the mountain the fruit is ‘prepared’ for him: the joy of resurrection, the life of glory and the splendor of God’s beatific vision.

Our Lenten journey: climbing the Calvary

- What is the mountain of the Lord for us? It is Calvary. It is Calvary because it is on this mountain that the love of God is ultimately manifested on the cross. Jesus’ entry into the world has no meaning if it is not ended here on this mount Calvary with the sacrifice of his life. This is what Paul reminds us today in the second reading: “God did not withhold his Son, but offered him on the cross for the salvation of humanity” (Roman 8:32). God has stopped Abraham and rescued his son from the sacrifice. But God did not rescue his own Son. It is his will that he himself has to reveal the unconditional love for bringing man back to his ‘original glory and splendor’. He has manifested this in his Son Jesus Christ.
- We are called to climb this mount Calvary. Lenten message and Lenten task is this. Jesus himself asks us: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it” (Mathew 16:24-25). This is the invitation that Jesus extends to us in our journey towards the Calvary:
o If only we want to be or to become his disciples: Because disciples already have the vision of glorification: they have the crown of glory awaiting them. Disciples have the participation in the master’s joy and glory. If Jesus has entered into the glory of the Father, even the disciples take part in it.
o Deny themselves: the disciples have to leave everything of their belongings. They now have no personal property. They are, by their will of following Jesus, the possession of God. This is the sacrifice that is demanded in order to climb the mountain. We have to unload our burdens. We have to free ourselves of our heavy fatigues. We have a long way to move. We have to be alighted in the Spirit. This will make our journey easy and destiny comfortable. This is what Jesus again asks us to do: “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light” (Mathew 11:28-30).
 Denying means leaving everything aside in order to embrace something more valuable and significant;
 Denying means giving up of our attachment to the things of the world in order to give priority to the things of the heaven: “first you seek the kingdom of God and the rest will be given to you” (Mathew 6:33) is the voice of Jesus that should echo in our hearts.
o Take up the cross and follow me: it is the only means of entering into the glory in the Christian faith because Jesus has done this and asked us to do it. He has carried it to the Calvary and he has revealed in the ultimate mode how God loved the world/humanity: “God so loved the world that He sent his only son so that who believe in him will not see the perdition but has eternal life”.
o Therefore, the mount Calvary is a mountain of sacrifice (mount Moriah of Abraham’s sacrifice), mountain of splendor and glory (mount Tabor of Jesus’ transfiguration) and finally mountain of ‘Life and Love’ to which we are called to climb in this Lenten season. Therefore, let us climb up to the mountain of the Lord: Mount Calvary: the true mountain of Pain and Suffering, true mountain of sacrifice and obedience, true mountain of splendor and glory.