Transfigurations This Lent

Marcus Hodges O.P.

16 March 2003
Second Sunday of Lent (B)

fr. Marcus Hodges preaches on the Transfiguration of Christ and the transfigurations of his followers.

Can you imagine what sort of film the director Steven Spielberg would make about Jesus? With his love of special effects, we can be certain that he would make much of the miracles.

The Resurrection and Ascension would be right up his street. Above all, perhaps, the Transfiguration would surely be the most suited to Spielberg's cinematic penchant.

After all, this miracle story is stunningly dramatic: there is nothing of the quiet humility of the Christmas scene, nothing of the invisible majesty of the Resurrection. Only the Ascension surely comes close in sheer visible effect. Yet of all the episodes in Christ's life, the Transfiguration shows forth most obviously something very powerful indeed, in the transformation of Christ, in the appearance of the prophets, and wonderfully in the Voice from above.

So what a privilege this was for the disciples who were lucky enough to follow Jesus up the high mountain. For Peter, James and John there could be no doubting that something very vivid and impressive was at work in this miracle.

Yet is the purpose of the Transfiguration simply to stun the disciples into faith through a wonderful miraculous vision? Perhaps not! Indeed we need only to remember how weak the faith of the disciples remained after the Transfiguration to see that if that was its purpose, it didn't work terribly well.

Furthermore, if this were the purpose of this great miracle, we as modern disciples might feel a little bit cheated that we are expected to have a faith not strengthened by such a vision. Why can't we see Jesus transformed, for then surely would our faith be indomitable?

Well, probably not, as it happens. Indeed, Jesus himself taught, by extension and with staggering irony, that even if a man rose from the dead we would still find it hard to believe. So, to perceive the true purposes of the Transfiguration, as with all the miraculous signs of the Lord, we need to delve much deeper than the Spielberg special effects.

There is no doubt that the Gospel story of the Transfiguration is meant to teach us that the man who now turns towards his destiny in Jerusalem, his suffering and death upon the cross, is he who indeed enjoys the favour of God the Most High. In other words, whatever might follow in the story, there can be no sense in thinking that Jesus was in any way a failure.

He is after all the beloved of God himself. In this way, the miracle upon the mountain puts the story to follow, the Passion, into its proper context. And this is, no doubt, why we are given this reading in Lent, when we too are treading the path which will once more lead to our contemplation of the cross.

However, there is a further function of this great manifestation; for in the Transfiguration we see all too clearly the great power of God to transform human nature. Clearly this Transfiguration is of Jesus, who is the Second Person of the Trinity; but we do well to remember that he was and is human also. And it is his humanity, his human body, his face after all, which was transfigured.

So if Jesus, through the power of God which is his by nature, can be transformed in this way, so too can we by adoption. And I believe that such transfigurations are taking place around us all the time.

Every day ordinary men and women are dramatically changed and transformed by the power of God. Of course, Spielberg might find it harder to make a film about these every day transfigurations, but that does not mean that they are any less real or any less exciting.

And Lent provides us all with a great opportunity to allow the grace of God to enter and transform us. In our Lenten disciplines, in prayer and almsgiving, in our fasting and self-denial, God, who is always closer to us than we are to ourselves, mysteriously draws even nearer.

So in this Lent we must allow ourselves to be transfigured by God, to hear Him say of us, his sons and daughters in Jesus Christ, "You, too, are my beloved children."

fr. Marcus Hodges OP is a Catholic Chaplain the Royal Air Force.

Keep up-to-date with our new sermons: Click here to sign up...

© Text 2003 Marcus Hodges O.P.
© Web Presentation 2008 The English Province of the Order of Preachers
Please see our copyright page for details.