LENT SUNDAY II “B”
MARCH 7/8, 2009
Mountains have always been special places. Towering over the valley below, their tops appear to be touching the sky, and when enveloped by clouds seem even to have pierced the heavens. In the history of world religions mountains have held a special place in peoples’ spiritual journey and in cultic practice. Mountains have been seen and experienced as places of divine encounter; places where sacrifices are offered; places where shrines and temples have been built. In today’s scripture readings mountains play a prominent role.
Today’s first reading of the story of Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac on the mountain is, one if not, the most troubling story in the Bible. It paints an awful picture of God. What kind of God would demand such a thing from someone he claims to love and with whom he has entered into a covenant relationship promising Abraham land and descendants, and now demanding Abraham to immolate the very source of a line of physical descendants? To see this story solely in these terms is to experience it only at its literal level. While not denying the facts of the story, something deeper is being revealed here. In asking Abraham to sacrifice Isaac God discovered just how deep Abraham’s faith and hope was, how strong his commitment to the covenant between them, how far Abraham was prepared to go in following him. In the act of offering Isaac to God Abraham demonstrated the totality of his faith, hope and love in God. As St. Paul would later express it, “hoping against hope, Abraham believed.” Abraham was willing to let go of Isaac who was his security, his future, excruciatingly painful as this request was, because deep in his heart Abraham had come to know and believe in God’s presence and love for him. Trusting in that love, Abraham believed that God even in the face of this terrible loss would still remain faithful to his covenant promise even though Abraham could not, at the present, see it. And so, even with his doubts and fears Abraham prepares to carry out his sacrifice. We know from our reading how God in the end stayed Abraham’s hand, and how God fulfilled his covenant promise to Abraham through Isaac and his descendants. Today, Abraham is hailed as the “father of faith” of the three great monotheistic religions of the world, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
The story of Abraham and his sacrifice of Isaac has great relevance for our own life of covenant relationship with God begun in baptism through faith. While none of us would ever be asked to literally sacrifice our own flesh and blood, life’s journey brings us some few, or many, Abraham moments when our faith in God and God’s promises to us are put to the test, when we must make the choice to either believe in God or to abandon all hope in him. For example, every day the news about the economic security of our country and our family and personal financial resources grows more and more ominous. Home foreclosures, the real possibility of unemployment, the steep decline of personal financial securities and retirement funds weigh heavily on many of us. The sudden diagnosis of a serious or even terminal illness literally changes life in an instant. Divorce or death can send our lives into a tailspin. Like the author of the book of Lamentations such situations can cause us to say, “my soul is deprived of peace, I have forgotten what happiness is, I tell myself my future is lost.” It is then that, like Abraham, we are confronted with the question: Can I still believe in God? Does God really care? Does God really love me? Where is God in all of this?”
St. Paul in today’s second reading offers us answers to these questions in our Abraham trials. He tells us that “if God is for us, who can be against us.” If faith in God at times confronts us with excruciating choices in the midst of confusion, pain, suffering and death, faith also assures us that even, and perhaps especially then, God is with us. While God did not demand the death of Abraham’s son Isaac, Jesus the Son of God freely offered himself even to the point of death out of love for God. In his human nature Jesus shared fully in all that is human—our joys, hopes, dreams, but also, and especially, our struggles, doubts, trials, pain, suffering and death. Nothing, as St. Paul also reminds us, can separate us from the love of God in Jesus. This is hope offered us especially in the Abraham moments of life when we are faced with the sacrifice, the immolation of all that means security for us.
Today’s gospel story of the Transfiguration scripture scholars tell us was placed by St. Mark in the middle of his gospel for an important reason so that his listeners would remember it as they confronted the testimony of Jesus suffering and death on the cross. On the mountain of the Transfiguration we see the other side of Abraham’s and particularly Jesus’ sacrifice. The Transfiguration prefigures the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead and ultimately our own glorification. May it be our hope and strengthen our faith as we encounter the mountains of our life.