Many of you are yourselves parents and grandparents, and some of you I am quite sure, have suffered through the illness or even the death of a child. So in no uncertain terms, today’s first reading should absolutely confuse, and disturb, even anger us.
We know the story from Genesis: we know how Abraham was seventy-five when God appeared to him, made a covenant with him, and promised that he would be the father of a great nation. We know that Abraham was one hundred years old when Sarah finally bore their son Isaac, and we can easily relate to how much Abraham must have loved Isaac.
And so, when God tells Abraham in today’s first reading, to go to the land of Moriah and there to sacrifice his only beloved son, we have every right to be confused and disturbed.
But Jesus takes His disciples back down the mountain – down to Jerusalem, where the Son of Man is to be arrested, tortured and killed – in order to rise again in three days. God so loved the world; Jesus so loved the Father, that they refused to forego the Cross, that leads to glory.
I’ve recently been harping on the fact that in our own Baptism we hear God the Father say to us, what He said to Jesus at His Baptism, and again, today, at His transfiguration: “You are my beloved child.”
Tonight, they will all be presented at the Cathedral to Bishop Steiner. Like Abraham, our father in faith, they will declare their trust in a God who loves us so much, He sent His only Son as our Redeemer. They will accept a share in Christ’s cross, trusting that through the cross we reach the glory of the Transfiguration.
As we sen these catechumens and candidates for election, Lent invites us all to recommit to our Baptismal faith – faith in a God who loves us so much, He did not spare His only Son. Through prayer and penance we train ourselves to rely solely on Him, to need only Him – and to trust in His love even when we are given a cross to carry.
When we do these things we share more deeply in the Church’s mission to transfigure the world – and we bring the divine life we share in Baptism, to a world so broken, so desperately in need of His love and salvation.
And so, when God tells Abraham in today’s first reading, to go to the land of Moriah and there to sacrifice his only beloved son, we have every right to be confused and disturbed.
Is God so ruthless and brutal that He could actually have wanted Abraham to sacrifice his only son? And even if He didn’t, even if – as the reading says – God was only putting Abraham to the test, does that mean that God is that arbitrary and capricious, playing with us and testing us through torment?
Friends, the entirety of the Scriptures clearly try to show us that this is not at all how God treats us – but it often feels like that, and so we’re left to figure out just what this reading means – just how we are to understand this rather fearsome scene?
The entire story of Abraham’s life, and especially this story of the sacrifice of Isaac, is in its essence a story of faith. Throughout the Book of Genesis, God is constantly asking Abraham to have faith – to trust, not so much in the promise God has made, but in God Himself.
Last week the story of Noah and the flood made clear that all creation belongs solely to God who created it. Everything we have, including everyone and everything we love, we have as a gift from God – they are not really ours, they are God’s.
The harsh reality of life in this passing world is that whenever and however it happens, everything we have, even the good things we love, will be taken away from us. No thing, no one, in this world will last forever.
Faith, therefore, is knowing, at our deepest level of being, that this is true: that all things belong to God; and it means having the wisdom to let all things go, to offer back to God even that which we love most.
Faith is trusting, not in God’s promise as we understand it, or as we would choose to have it fulfilled, but trusting in the one who made the promise – trusting in God Himself.
This is the faith that Abraham shows when he is willing to offer as a sacrifice even the son he loves above all else. Abraham gives back to God, if only symbolically, the son he knows belongs more to God than to himself.
Abraham trusts, not in how he thinks God should fulfill the promise of many heirs – but in God’s trustworthiness, in God’s ability and desire to fulfill His promise, no matter how it might sometimes seem to us.
The lesson of the spiritual life is that it is precisely in giving back to God that which is really His in the first place, we are in fact opened to receive the abundance of life that God really wants to give us.
And so, when God’s angel stops the hand of Abraham he announces: “I know now how devoted you are to God – your descendants will indeed be as countless as the stars of the sky and the sands of the seashore.” This is less a reward from God, and more the necessary precondition of seeing the fullness of God’s promise take hold in our lives.
I think St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans, which we heard as our second reading tonight, confirms this understanding of Abraham’s story and serves as a bridge to our Gospel about Jesus’ Transfiguration.
St. Paul says, “if God is for us, who can be against us?” If God, who didn’t spare His only beloved Son, but sacrificed Him, saw Him tortured and killed so that we might all be saved – if He is on our side, if He loves us that much, what “hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword” could possibly do us harm? None. “In all these things we are more than conquerors” because of God who loves us so much He refused to deny us even His Son.
And so in our Gospel reading we are once again on the top of a mountain – and we are once more in the presence of a Father, and the Son he calls “beloved.” Only this time, the Son will indeed be sacrificed.
When Jesus is Transfigured before them, when they see the glory that Jesus shares with the Father in heaven, the Apostles long to build three tents on the mountaintop –they long to remain in the peace, and beauty, and calm of that moment of Divine transcendence. We’ve all had moments of that kind of certainty and wished never again to have to face suffering or doubt.
Friends, the entirety of the Scriptures clearly try to show us that this is not at all how God treats us – but it often feels like that, and so we’re left to figure out just what this reading means – just how we are to understand this rather fearsome scene?
The entire story of Abraham’s life, and especially this story of the sacrifice of Isaac, is in its essence a story of faith. Throughout the Book of Genesis, God is constantly asking Abraham to have faith – to trust, not so much in the promise God has made, but in God Himself.
Last week the story of Noah and the flood made clear that all creation belongs solely to God who created it. Everything we have, including everyone and everything we love, we have as a gift from God – they are not really ours, they are God’s.
The harsh reality of life in this passing world is that whenever and however it happens, everything we have, even the good things we love, will be taken away from us. No thing, no one, in this world will last forever.
Faith, therefore, is knowing, at our deepest level of being, that this is true: that all things belong to God; and it means having the wisdom to let all things go, to offer back to God even that which we love most.
Faith is trusting, not in God’s promise as we understand it, or as we would choose to have it fulfilled, but trusting in the one who made the promise – trusting in God Himself.
This is the faith that Abraham shows when he is willing to offer as a sacrifice even the son he loves above all else. Abraham gives back to God, if only symbolically, the son he knows belongs more to God than to himself.
Abraham trusts, not in how he thinks God should fulfill the promise of many heirs – but in God’s trustworthiness, in God’s ability and desire to fulfill His promise, no matter how it might sometimes seem to us.
The lesson of the spiritual life is that it is precisely in giving back to God that which is really His in the first place, we are in fact opened to receive the abundance of life that God really wants to give us.
And so, when God’s angel stops the hand of Abraham he announces: “I know now how devoted you are to God – your descendants will indeed be as countless as the stars of the sky and the sands of the seashore.” This is less a reward from God, and more the necessary precondition of seeing the fullness of God’s promise take hold in our lives.
I think St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans, which we heard as our second reading tonight, confirms this understanding of Abraham’s story and serves as a bridge to our Gospel about Jesus’ Transfiguration.
St. Paul says, “if God is for us, who can be against us?” If God, who didn’t spare His only beloved Son, but sacrificed Him, saw Him tortured and killed so that we might all be saved – if He is on our side, if He loves us that much, what “hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword” could possibly do us harm? None. “In all these things we are more than conquerors” because of God who loves us so much He refused to deny us even His Son.
And so in our Gospel reading we are once again on the top of a mountain – and we are once more in the presence of a Father, and the Son he calls “beloved.” Only this time, the Son will indeed be sacrificed.
When Jesus is Transfigured before them, when they see the glory that Jesus shares with the Father in heaven, the Apostles long to build three tents on the mountaintop –they long to remain in the peace, and beauty, and calm of that moment of Divine transcendence. We’ve all had moments of that kind of certainty and wished never again to have to face suffering or doubt.
But Jesus takes His disciples back down the mountain – down to Jerusalem, where the Son of Man is to be arrested, tortured and killed – in order to rise again in three days. God so loved the world; Jesus so loved the Father, that they refused to forego the Cross, that leads to glory.
I’ve recently been harping on the fact that in our own Baptism we hear God the Father say to us, what He said to Jesus at His Baptism, and again, today, at His transfiguration: “You are my beloved child.”
And so Jesus’ Transfiguration isn’t just proof of His Divine glory – it’s proof that we too are destined to share the Divine life - - but in order to do that, and in order to bring the glory of Divine life to this suffering world, we like Christ must embrace the Cross we have been given.
We have journeying with us this Lent a group of catechumens who long to have a share in Divine life through Baptism. We have too, a group of Christians who already share with us in Divine life by Baptism, but who now long to share more deeply in the Church’s mission of transfiguring the world.
We have journeying with us this Lent a group of catechumens who long to have a share in Divine life through Baptism. We have too, a group of Christians who already share with us in Divine life by Baptism, but who now long to share more deeply in the Church’s mission of transfiguring the world.
Tonight, they will all be presented at the Cathedral to Bishop Steiner. Like Abraham, our father in faith, they will declare their trust in a God who loves us so much, He sent His only Son as our Redeemer. They will accept a share in Christ’s cross, trusting that through the cross we reach the glory of the Transfiguration.
As we sen these catechumens and candidates for election, Lent invites us all to recommit to our Baptismal faith – faith in a God who loves us so much, He did not spare His only Son. Through prayer and penance we train ourselves to rely solely on Him, to need only Him – and to trust in His love even when we are given a cross to carry.
When we do these things we share more deeply in the Church’s mission to transfigure the world – and we bring the divine life we share in Baptism, to a world so broken, so desperately in need of His love and salvation.
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