The good news is God is for us
The season of Lent is here. And in many Christian churches, the Scripture readings this weekend will be from the Gospel of Mark on the story of the Transfiguration of our Lord.
“This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.” And while the three men hearing this, understandably were almost certainly filled with awe and wonder and confusion and probably fear, God didn’t want them to remain all caught up in that. Rather, he wanted to “ground” them, make sure that they realized that the most important thing would be what Jesus said and taught and did.
In other words, this Jesus, this friend of theirs, would have something important to say to them, ask of them, expect of them. And he has important things to say to us too.
For Peter, James, and John and for us two thousand years later, we have a person we can look to and learn from and listen to — the person of Jesus who is God in the flesh. And sometimes we might try to reduce the message of Jesus to simply, be nice. However, we know in our hearts that it is much more than that. Jesus is saying to us some pretty tough things, challenging things, things that demand our all —— our complete selves. Think about it. Radical mercy. Radical generosity. Radical forgiveness. Radical compassion. Radical love. That’s what Jesus is saying to each of us.
God wants us to listen to him and do our best to do whatever he asks of us — no matter what, no matter how difficult, no matter what it costs. But why should we? Why listen to him? Why not just do what we want to do? Why not take the easy way out? Maybe that’s a question you’ve never asked before.
But seriously, why go to all the trouble of listening to God?
The answer, I believe, can be found in the Second Reading from Paul’s Letter to the Romans: If God is for us, who can be against us? This, in a sense, provides us with the reason, the motivation for striving to do God’s will as best we know how. In modern terms — God is on our side. And I don’t mean on our side as Catholics, or Christians, or any other category we can think of. The God we believe in — the God we believe broke into our world in the person of Jesus, the God who laid down his life for us, the God who continues to live within us through his Spirit — is a God of LOVE.
And so, as we continue on our Lenten journey, let’s do what we can to be better listeners, do what we can to open ourselves up to whatever God is asking of us. And when we hear that voice, when we come to some sort of understanding in our hearts, when we feel our God tugging us to do a certain thing or head in a certain direction — let’s not hesitate because God loves us and we should want nothing more than to return that love.
God is for us! That’s really good news. The only thing that could make that better is if we found a way to be for God just as much. May this Lent help us do precisely that.