First Sunday of Lent C                                                                         

Feb. 20-21, 2010

Luke 4:1-13

Last Wednesday, we meditated on three means for helping us to live Lent in truth—through almsgiving, prayer and fasting.  Jesus’ experience with the devil at the beginning of his public ministry helps us to imitate Christ more closely.  Lent is a time of intense preparation for the lovely celebration of Easter. But above all, Lent all is a time for instruction which will impact the entire liturgical year. Lent offers a powerful stimulus and real training for the spiritual battles which we will face throughout life. And it is not a coincidence that it opens with the account of Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness.  The account in the Gospel of Luke is like following a path; it gives us a way to see the life and the mission of Jesus as a battle against the forces of evil personified by the devil.  It is a difficult and painful path, full of struggle, which ends, not in death, but in the resurrection. It is a journey and a struggle which gives meaning to our Christian life.

The three temptations recounted here are inspired by the long walk through the wilderness in the Exodus. During this long journey, the Hebrew people experienced the same temptations and, unfortunately, they succumbed. Jesus will conquer them. But which temptations does this struggle concern? Always the same ones--the temptations experienced by every man and every woman from the beginning of time.  They are: the temptation of having and gaining power over things and people, and the temptation of seeking domination over people in a sensational way.   The book of Genesis tells us that man and woman fell under the same temptation from the beginning. There the serpent announces: "You will be like gods, knowing good and evil.” And it works! Adam and Eve want to take ownership of what was offered to them at the beginning. 

It is the same temptation which assails Christ.  He has just been baptized.  He heard his father call him “His beloved son.”  So what does the devil do?  He uses the same words to begin his temptation: "If you are the son of God..." he says.  Actually, it would be easy for the son of God to “be sensational.” He could change the stones into bread and he could glide down from the temple without falling.

The great temptation is defined by the word "If".  The “if” is the systematic doubt which worms its way into our reason and into our spirit. Our job is to move from the devil’s opening line:  “If you are the son of God...” to “Because.” “Because you are the son of God."  This statement is a certainty, we know it through faith and its basis is in the truth which gives meaning to our existence. In this amazing dialogue without witnesses between Jesus and the devil, it was normal for the “father of lies,” to begin his sentences with "If". He unveils his trick.  He wants to destabilize Jesus. It is an open provocation, a challenge: "Show me who you are!  Show me that you are God!"  

Here we find again the continuous message of the Gospel: the question of Jesus’ identity.  Who is he? For us, the question is always:  who is Jesus?  Here Jesus is put to the test on three classical levels of human power. He will respond to these three temptations without artifice, without special effects and without sensational. He answers with the only weapons available to him: the word of God his Father. This attitude applies to everyone who has been baptized into this spiritual struggle which is the Christian life.  In that struggle, we can count on the sure support of the word of life and the Holy Spirit, the advocate who keeps himself close to us in order to tell us what is best to do. This immersion in the word of God is at the same time the best way for us to know and love Christ.

The story of Jesus’ temptation, which follows the story of his baptism, inaugurates his public life. The dilemma is there: Will Jesus give in to power and prestige? Will he let himself be taken in by the popular enthusiasm of his supporters, who want to put him in power? Jesus refuses this way of looking at the problem. In the account of the temptations, he leans on the book of Deuteronomy. His obedience should be the obedience of a son. Thus when he is called "The Son of God" Jesus wants only to retain the word "Son". A son should be obedient, even though he is the son "of God!" How many times in the Gospels, will we hear in Christ’s mouth the words "It is necessary".  At Gethsemane the temptation is still there.  As he faces the Passion, Jesus asks his father: "if it is possible, let this cup pass from me." Then he puts himself together and says to his father: "yet not as  I will, but as you will."

Put to the test himself, Jesus refuses to put God to the test.  He does not require from God an immediate proof of his love, a magical solution that would remove his own responsibility. His response demonstrates a mature belief, a deep trust in the mystery of the true God. In our tests and our difficulties, in the painful choices which mark the turning points of our lives, the same temptation can arise.  At the beginning of this Lenten season, we are questioned:  in which God have we put our trust? What do we ask of him? What image do I have of God?  What needs to be cleaned, to be replaced, so that I can remain faithful to my human condition and to the living God? And to what kind of courage is God calling me? How can I go on to the very end, without running away……..?

When we begin Lent, we begin a personal and collective walk of Christians with Christ, the journey toward Easter. If we live in a superficial way, the days will succeed one another, identical in their banality. If we make of these forty days a fight with Christ against daily temptations, we will grow in love.  We enter Lent in order to renew ourselves. Lent is a time of conversion, a call to become a Christian, to re-become a Christian. Lent is the acceptable time to test the authenticity of our Christian life, to submit it to the test and the evangelical critics. It is an invitation to begin, to start over and to continue the difficult steps we have in following Jesus. Where this will lead us?  Where should we begin?  Are we willing to take risks and make choices that could hurt a little? We will not be spared from suffering. God does not sell Risk Insurance! Jesus himself will not escape the cross.

Our Lent begins with the image of a human life--with highs and lows, joy and pain, sin and victory. It always includes temptation. Christ’s temptation was the same.  And it had the same remedy: filial confidence in the One who conquers evil. For each of us, on the day of our baptism, God says: "You are my beloved". We will have a good journey toward Easter; we will have a Good Lenten season.

Second Sunday of Lent C, 2010

Feb. 27 and 28, 2010

Deut. 26:16-19; Romans 12:14, 17, 20;13:8; Matt. 5:43-48

Lent is not only a time for moral effort-- That is, for each one of us to try a little harder and to get a little closer to his ideal self; it is also the place where the profound meaning of Christian existence emerges--an existence marked by the sign of the cross, and of the absolute love of God for each of us. It is an existence inhabited and lifted up by the breath of the Spirit of God. To put it another way, Lent is an opportunity to let ourselves be entirely created by God again, because God will drag us away from our darkness and transfigure us in the Passover of his son. This is the battle which Christ won for us when he was tempted in the desert.  Today, we begin to see the light of Easter as we climb towards the light. The Transfiguration, which is rich in lessons, will teach us what we need to know.

 The Transfiguration comes at a time when Jesus questions the disciples on his identity and announces his voluntary passion: "Who do you say that I am?" Jesus asked the disciples.  This question resounds in our hearts, and with Simon Peter, we recognize Jesus, as "the Messiah of God." This is a Messiah who will be delivered up to the executioners, who will be killed on Golgotha, and who will rise on the third day.   This Messiah invites us today to his Exodus and his Passover. Today, like Peter, James and John, we stand in front of the icon of the Transfiguration so that we will be comforted and assured that the night before Easter is coming.  The transfiguration and God’s assurance are given us, so that we believe that we are chosen to be beloved sons in the Son of God, called to participate in the divine nature.

 For the story to speak to us, it must be tied to our personal experience.  There is in human beings a desire to go beyond the limits of physical laws and time. This desire leads some to self-destruction, others to run away.  It can lead to excess and self-fulfillment in a false transfiguration which only imitates the final resurrection. We see this kind of self-destruction in drugs--from simple stimulants to alcohol, and then in cocaine and heroin. We see it in the philosophy of the New Age. Where the world is what we imagine it to be.  But there is also another experience which goes beyond our mundane life and which cannot be called “madness” or “perversion.” Today’s Gospel is the guarantee.  There are sudden and unexpected conversions, along with tears and abandonment of self and also there are visions which confirm a sensed call. These experiences are of such intensity that the subject is "turned upside down." He is marked by God in his own history, and he has the feeling of having become different.

 Such an experience is given; it is not humanly forced on us.  It is primarily a surprise, and is in no way the result of training or the result of a magic formula, or the effects of a drug. It concerns the glips of a meeting which should extend in communion.  Everything is lived in relationship to the father, and everything from the Father is given.  It is impossible to freeze it, to get your hands on it, to install on it.   Peter confuses the experience of God and the person of God; the joy of emotional love and love which is lived. In the spiritual life, just as in teenage love, there may be "love of being in love."  This is not yet true love. The transfiguration is only a moment, but God is love, and his love is the impetus for all other love.  The transfigured one knows that he will be soon be disfigured. Therefore He gives up his appearance and his personal identity.  Jesus receives his identity from the father who sends him; he radiates the trust and life which gives him his identity. The transfiguration occurs when Jesus meditated on his journey back to the Father.  He meditates on the moment when he will experience death, and will have a different body.  This experience is not a magical illusion.  We would love to be there, like Peter, and build three temples to commemorate this moment in time. But we need to see this moment in truth.  Jesus radiates life at the precise moment when he accepts his death, a horrible death.  We also need to know this fact, whether we like it or not, our human condition doesn’t end in a transfiguration.

 My friends, we would love to be there. We would love to participate in this extraordinary experience, feel the presence of the father, hear his voice, be wrapped in the cloud of tenderness, meet the major witnesses and hear them talk with the One who fulfills all.  We would love to have the experience of the Trinity... We would love to be there but we need to understand that we are there right now through the testimony of Peter, James and John. We are there also when we live our own transfigurations.  Spiritual experience exists! In spite of the fact that there are charlatans and counterfeits, there are real spiritual experiences.  Mystic experience expresses itself as it can, always within a given context.  There was an Exodus and there was a guiding cloud. But these experiences are not reduced simply to a story in the Bible.  It is not only about a high degree of “mental consciousness.”  It goes much further than a mental event. Since the word is made flesh, the flesh becomes a revelation! God became man to make human beings into God and human life goes beyond what we experience here. 

 The Transfiguration also shows the grandeur of the human body.  We tend to oppose body and soul, “appearance" and “inner spiritual life.  ” But it is bad to think of the body as a “negligible appendix.” Man does not have a body, he is a body.  Biblical man is dazzled by the human body: The Prodigal “comes to himself" and recognizes the surprising being that he is.  “You are the One who wove me within my mother’s womb.   “Your works are amazing!” (PS 139). The body is designed to share the same glory as the soul for eternity. Charles Péguy once said: “Body and soul will be two hands joined together in worship for eternity." For those who suffer when they see the "disfiguration" of their own body or the body of a loved one, the Transfiguration is a comforting message.   "He will transform our poor body into the likeness of his glorious body." Bodies which have been humiliated in disease and death will be redeemed.

 The baptismal liturgy speaks of the birth of our future glorious body. We know that since God is the luminous source of our being, every gesture of mercy, of sharing, of tenderness is a celebration of the human transfiguration. Each time that man finds the truth and comes to the light, it is a human transfiguration. We also know that the path of our transfiguration can also take us to the Cross.  There we share with Christ’s death and rise with him in brilliant light. What God said to Jesus on the day of the Transfiguration, he says to all of the baptized who are "his beloved sons, his chosen ones.” Of course, he will not spare us from suffering, pain, and death. All this is part of our human condition. But he tells us that we can rely on him, that we can count on his eternal love. And that we can say again with St Paul: "If God is for us, who can be against us?"

Is this truth capable of "transfiguring" our faces? I often wonder about this when I see children who show their feelings on their faces--the happiness of being loved and the pain of being neglected. We often wear masks which hide our true feelings. Yet we are like electrical bulbs. As long as the bulb is not lit up, it is a common thing.  But when the bulb is plugged into the power outlet its light shines out.  It is the same for Christians: if they are "connected" to the love of God, their faces would reveal the love which they know. Olivier Clement once said that:  "Christianity is the religion of faces."  Let us know how to show, first of all on our faces, that we are followers of the Transfigured.

 The Transfiguration shows us the future of humanity.  Jesus faced failure and death.  His face was an injured face, a face without a mask, a deprived and bloody face.  In the Transfiguration, this face becomes the face which is transfigured into meaning and hope.

This second Sunday of lent reminds us that Easter Sunday cannot exist without Good Friday, but Good Friday cannot exist without Easter Sunday. The brilliance of Mt. Tabor lights up the darkness of Calvary.  The cross and the empty tomb are in the same garden.