Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament in Lent

Fr. Edward Mazuski offered this homily for the 2nd Sunday of Lent, March 16, 2025.

We have reached the Second Sunday of Lent. The Gospel for the Second Sunday is always the Transfiguration, one of the key turning points of Jesus’ ministry, when he goes up a mountain with Peter, James and John, and his divinity is revealed before them. I’d like to focus today specifically on Peter and his reaction to these events. It is striking how similar he is to Abram in his reaction to the Covenant he forms with God during today’s first reading.

Before today’s readings, both Peter and Abram were in a similar position to the mystery that they are taking part in. Just before today’s Gospel passage, Peter, one of the first followers of Jesus, made a confession of faith: he recognized in Jesus the Messiah, the anointed one who had come to redeem the people of Israel. This faith, however, remained incomplete. When Jesus followed up by telling the Apostles about His crucifixion and resurrection, Peter could not yet understand why Jesus would let himself be killed. Peter has made an act of faith, but does not yet understand what it implies: his faith is incomplete because it lacks the Cross. 2000 years earlier, Abram, who had not yet been given the name Abraham, is in a similar position. He had made an act of faith: he left behind most of his family and goods, and traveled to a land God showed him: a land that would be given to his descendants. This had happened about ten years before the events in today’s reading, and Abram is now in his mid-80s. He still doesn’t know how it is that God will accomplish all the things that he has been promised: what can it possibly mean for a childless man, who has no heir, to be given this land? Abram asks God: how can he know that he will inherit this land? Abram has faith but he still does not know what that implies about what God will do for him. Both Abram and Peter then take part in a mysterious and miraculous event: God reveals himself to them and tells them what His plan is.

Peter joins James and John, and they go up a high mountain with Jesus. While there, Jesus is transfigured: his face changes in appearance, and his clothing becomes dazzling white. Elijah and Moses join them, appearing in glory, and talk with Jesus about his Exodus, which he was to accomplish in Jerusalem. They point towards Jesus’ mission: they confirm what Jesus had told Peter and the other Apostles about just a few verses earlier: Jesus is going to suffer greatly, be killed, and rise on the third day. Peter is stunned by what he sees, and tries to think of a practical way to help: he can make tents for Jesus, Elijah and Moses on the mountain. Luke comments that Peter did not know what he was saying. Clouds come and cast a shadow above them, covering them. A voice speaks to them: “This is my chosen Son, listen to Him.” Then everything returns to normal, and Jesus and the apostles depart. God points Peter to the cross, and to his power in using Jesus’ death as a way to deliver us from our sins and bring us to him.

Abram is given the confirmation he requests for the promise that God makes to him. God tells him to prepare sacrifices: a heifer, a she-goat, a ram, a turtledove and a pigeon, and then cut the animals in half. Abram stays with the sacrifices to make sure that the vultures will not devour them. As the cloud overshadowed Jesus, Moses, Elijah and his Apostles, darkness envelops Abram and he falls into a trance. A smoking fire pot and a flaming torch, representing God, pass between the pieces of the animals. This was a common ritual used for solemnly sealing treaties or covenants at the time. God is sealing a Covenant, making a binding agreement with Abram that he will have descendants, and that those descendants will inherit this land. God tells him exactly what land that is: from the Wadi of Egypt to the Great River, the Euphrates.

Abram and Peter witness miraculous and mysterious events explicitly confirming God’s promises, but neither of them understand what God has shown them. Peter fails to understand the cross, and Abram fails to understand God’s power to bring about his promises. They recognize the miraculous nature of the visions, but they continue to think of God’s promises in human terms. The next chapter of Genesis starts with Sarai, Abram’s wife, giving her maid Hagar to Abram, and Hagar bears a son for him named Ishmael. However, God’s designs go deeper than this attempt to use human means to make them happen: even though Sarai has been barren and is well past the age of childbearing, God’s promise will be inherited by a son of Abram and his wife Sarai.

After they complete their descent from the mountain, Jesus continues to prophecy his death. He tells the apostles that he will be handed over to men. However, the apostles fail to understand what he is saying, and are afraid to ask him about it. Peter fails to really listen to him. The apostles still think of Jesus as a Messiah in human terms: a political savior who would change the social order, as opposed to the Word made Flesh who would open a path to God for us through his blood. We see Peter’s continuing failure to understand the Cross later in the Gospel. When Jesus is arrested, Peter attacks the high priest’s servant. After following the crowd to Jesus’ trial, Peter denies knowing Jesus. Peter and Abram remain unchanged by the miracles they have seen and participated in.

During these forty days of Lent, we may find ourselves in a similar position. We know what God intends for us: to convert ourselves to him so that we may have eternal life through his Son. We have some faith: we wouldn’t be here if we didn’t. Like Peter and Abram, we see great miracles if we allow the Holy Spirit to overshadow us and envelop us: Jesus Christ comes down to us and we become participants in his crucifixion and resurrection. His body, blood, soul and divinity are made present for us on the altar. And yet, all too often, our souls remain unchanged and untransformed. We trade in the Lord and Savior who wants to transform us through his death and resurrection for a God formed in our image: the “God without wrath who brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross,” as theologian Richard Niebuhr said – we create a God that exists only in our imaginations. We live in the way St. Paul warns against, acting as enemies of the Cross of Christ: our God is our stomach, our glory is in our shame, our minds are occupied with earthly things. But this does not have to be the end.

It took a long time for Abram and Peter, but both eventually understood and become active participants in God’s plan: Abram was renamed Abraham. He had a son, named Isaac, with his wife, renamed Sarah. Abraham developed such a deep trust in God that, even though he knows Isaac is the son through whom God will keep his promise, he is even willing to sacrifice Isaac when God told him to, secure in the knowledge God would not abandon his plan and his son would not perish. Abraham’s faith points us to the cross. Peter receives the Holy Spirit fifty days after Christ’s Exodus and becomes the leader of the apostles. He proclaims Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection to free us from sin and death everywhere he goes. This is further emphasized through his death – according to tradition, he was crucified upside down.

This transformation is what Lent is about: preparing for Easter by conforming our lives more fully to the Cross of Christ, as Abram and Peter eventually did. Only through the cross can we truly be transfigured ourselves. If we cooperate with his grace, and truly turn ourselves towards Christ, he will change our lowly body to conform with his glorified body. We will become like Christ, and receive a share of the eternal joy that is only found in living under God’s sight.

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