From The Transfiguration To The Cross; The Human Path Of The Son Of God And Ours – 2nd Sunday of Lent – Sermon by Father Levine

Fr. Joseph Levine; Holy Family Catholic Church and Missions, Burns, Oregon; March 16, 2025

When Jesus was transfigured before Peter, James, and John, Moses and Elijah appeared in glory, conversing with him and spoke of the exodus he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem.

Moses and Elijah are two men who embody the entire message of the Old Testament, the law and the prophets. Their presence on the mount of Transfiguration tells us that the law and the prophets bear witness to Christ. St. Paul writes: Now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. (Rm 3:21-22)

Moses and Elijah bear witness, in particular, to the “exodus” Jesus is to accomplish in Jerusalem. The word “exodus” is Greek for “departure” or “going out” but has been left untranslated precisely to make clear to us the connection to the “exodus” of Israel from Egypt. It is not only the teaching of Moses that bears witness to Christ, but the whole work of Moses, acting as God’s servant, leading the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt, across the Red Sea, into the desert, where they were joined to God in a covenant, and across the desert to the borders of the promised land.

When Israel went forth from Egypt, the house of Jacob from a people of foreign tongue, Judah became his sanctuary, Israel his dominion. (Ps 114[113]:1-2)

In Jerusalem, Jesus departs from this world, by way of the Cross and Resurrection, to go to the Father. St. John as he introduces the account of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples at the Last Supper writes: Before the feast of the Passover – which commemorated the exodus of Israel from Egypt – when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own, he loved them to the end. (Jn 13:1)

Jesus’ “exodus” in Jerusalem is also his “Passover”. It is common these days to hear of Jesus’ “Paschal mystery”, the word “paschal” means, “relative to the Passover”, so “Paschal mystery” means “Passover mystery”. The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us that “The Paschal mystery of Christ’s cross and Resurrection stands at the centre of the Good News that the apostles, and the Church following them, are to proclaim to the world. God’s saving plan was accomplished ‘once for all’ by the redemptive death of his Son Jesus Christ.” (CCC 571)

In English, when we use the word “Passover” we think of a Jewish celebration; our common word for the Christian reality is “Easter”; Easter is the celebration of the Christian Passover, the Passover of Jesus, Jesus’ “Paschal mystery”, which brings to fulfillment what was foreshadowed and prophesied in the Jewish Passover. The blood of the lamb, smeared on the doorposts of the Israelite houses in Egypt was a sign of the Lamb of God who by his blood takes away the sins of the world.

When Moses went out of Egypt he did not go alone but led the whole people of Israel out of slavery and joined them to God in a covenant. So, while we might think of Christ on the Cross, departing from this world to the Father, as being alone, he does not go alone, but rather is leading his people, those who believe in him out of slavery to sin and death so as to join them to God in the new and eternal covenant in his blood, to lead them through the desert of this life to the promised land of eternal life and the resurrection of the dead, to the Father’s house. (cf. Jn 14:3)

On the mount of the Transfiguration, where the divine light shows Jesus to be the true Son of God, Moses and Elijah were conversing with Jesus about these matters. This gives us a picture also of human path of the Son of God.

The transfiguration took place while Jesus was praying and we know that Jesus often went out into the desert or a mountaintop to be alone in prayer to his Father; we do not really know what transpired when the Son of God made man communed with his Father in prayer. We do not know the ardor of his love, the voice of his praise, his acts of surrender and of commitment. Nor do we know the specific communications that came to him from on high, yet just as the Holy Spirit led him, as a man, into the desert to be tempted by the devil, the Holy Spirit led him, as a man, in prayer and in every step of the way to the Cross, which he foresaw from the beginning. In prayer he received communications regarding his Father’s will and he embraced them and shaped his human life, his human path, in accordance with them. This is a truly human path, recognizing and freely embracing the will of God.

In Jesus’ case, this path had already been revealed, as to its essentials and many details, in the words of Scripture. When he was arrested in the garden of Gethsemane, he said that he could call upon the Father to send twelve legions of angels to deliver him but adds, How then should the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so? (Mt 26:54)

In Jesus’ conversation upon the mountaintop with Moses and Elijah we can, then, see the man Jesus orienting himself upon what has already been revealed, what has already been prescribed for him, by his Father. This pattern of Jesus’ life is expressed in the Psalm, Lo, I come; in the roll of the book – that is Scripture – it is written of me. (Ps 40[39]:7); to which he responds, I delight to do thy will, O my God; thy law is in my heart. (Ps 40[39]:8) St. Paul tells us, through this Psalm, that this is the path Jesus followed from his first entrance into the world to the Cross and that by that will we have been sanctified by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ, once for all. (He 10:10)

If, further, we consider that this conversation with Moses and Elijah, in which the Father’s will is revealed anew, takes place in the glory of his Transfiguration, we can see that Jesus’ human path leads from a decision taken anew (for it is the reaffirmation of the path he embraced from the beginning) in the glorious council of the prophets, in the blazing light of his heavenly Father, back down the mountain to the step by step path to Jerusalem, to the agony in the garden, to the condemnation and to the death on the Cross, so as to return to the glory of his Father through the resurrection and ascension.

Again, before the washing of the feet at the Last Supper, the evangelist comments, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, he rises from the table and washes the feet of his disciples. (Jn 13:3) He is very deliberate about everything he does. And in the very movement of the foot washing, from the head of the table, to the feet of his disciples, back to the head of the table, he recapitulates the whole movement of his life from the right hand of God, coming into the world, accomplishing his work of redemption, cleansing us from sin, and returning to the right hand of God. No one has ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven, the Son of man, who is in heaven. (Jn 3:13)

Jesus’ human trajectory, from the deliberate decision taken in the light of glory on the mount of Transfiguration, to the darkness of the Cross, to the glory of the resurrection, recapitulates and reveals the divine trajectory of the Son of God, by which he empties himself, becomes man, is obedient to death on the Cross, and is exalted above all things by the Father. (cf. Ph 2:5-11)

All this is quite wonderful, but all this is also “for us men and for our salvation.” St. Luke emphasizes that Jesus’ clothing became dazzling white. St. Bede the Venerable wrote: “The transfigured Savior shows the glory of his own coming, or our resurrection; who as he then appeared to his Apostles shall in like manner appear to all the elect. But the raiment of the Lord is taken for the company of his Saints, which in truth when our Lord was upon earth seemed to be despised, but when he sought the mount shines with the new whiteness; for now we are the sons of God; and it does not yet appear what we shall be. But we know that when he shall appear; we shall be like him.” (Quoted by St. Thomas Aquinas, Catena Aurea on Lk 9:28-31; Jn 3:2)

So St. Paul speaks in today’s 2^nd reading about how the Lord Jesus will change our lowly body to conform with his glorious body by the power that enables him to bring all things into subjection to himself.

If through his Transfiguration Jesus shows what we shall become, then in the path from the Transfiguration to the Cross, he shows us the path we are to follow to attain our goal. We are to follow him upon his exodus, we are to share in his Paschal mystery. This path begins when we receive the word of God in faith and prayer (that is our personal mountain of transfiguration) and by a deliberate decision orient our life upon the word of God. The path must continually be renewed in faith and prayer by which we keep our eyes on the goal, recognize and live our citizenship in heaven, renew and strengthen our commitment to follow him on the way of the Cross of daily life, offering our life through him, with him, and in him, to the glory of God, the Father.

Then, when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. (1 Jn 3:2)