On our Lenten exodus

ALÁLAONG BAGÁ

FollowIng his clear-cut “god first” standoff with the devil in the desert, the second sunday of lent follows up with the transfiguration of Jesus on the mountain (Luke 9:28-36) wherein His glory summons us to obedience and fidelity. Jesus’ irrepressible glory

EVEN as Jesus was on His way to Jerusalem, the place of His final struggles and pains, His glorious majesty could not be completely kept under wraps. While praying and in the company of His disciples, as it would be in Gethsemane, Jesus was transfigured in glory and witnessed by His awakened followers. His imminent passion has occupied their minds; He has informed them that He “must first endure many sufferings, be rejected...and be put to death” (Luke 9:18-22). And now there He is, all resplendent, talking with Moses and Elijah. They are speaking of the “exodus” that Jesus is going to fulfill in Jerusalem, referring to His “passage” and “passing over” from death to life, from suffering to glory.

The traditional word describing the passage of ancient Israel from Egypt into the joy of the Promised Land is here employed by the evangelist to indicate the momentous exodus of Jesus through the crucible of the cross to the glory of God’s Son.

The two great figures from the Old Testament, Moses and Elijah, seen with Jesus then disappearing, verifies that the messianic era with which they had been popularly associated in Jewish tradition as some sort of precursors is now at hand with Jesus. His exodus would be its seal. In Jesus would be fulfilled the expectation of the Old Testament, as safeguarded by the law (Moses) and proclaimed by the prophets (Elijah). At the end with Jesus standing there alone, it is His saving exodus that would make the difference and to Him alone would man’s wholehearted faith be given.

Listen to Him!

PETER’S enthusiastic reaction to the manifestation of Jesus’ glory was a spontaneous proposal to build three tents for the three magnificent men. That would enable them to linger longer on that mountaintop in that unusual experience of heavenly glory. To prolong the consolation would not be bad, but heaven has something else in the program. Jesus, glorious not only in spite of his approaching passion and death but in fact due to His self-sacrifice, has not been through this intended transfiguration just for cosmetic purposes. The affirmation of heaven that Jesus is the Son and the Chosen One brings to focus the entire event. As the Son He alone knows the Father; we should listen to Him. As the Chosen One He is empowered to lead all to salvation. He is our teacher whose word we must listen to and according to which we need to act.

Jesus in his own earlier announcement about His passion and death also explained its implications to His disciples. “Whoever wishes to be my follower, must deny His very self, take up His cross each day and follow in my steps” (Luke 9:23). If Jesus is the Messiah, then His word is vital for us, and His example normative to us. If Jesus is the Son of the heavenly Father, then His way will have to be our way. Each of us will have to undergo our own passage or exodus from death to life, through self-sacrifice to glory.

Alálaong bagá, our Lenten season is our passage of discipleship toward our participation in the glory of the Risen Lord. It is the resoluteness to pass up self-interest and opportunism, and to reject superficiality. It is a day-to-day dying to our hunger for the bread and the flesh the world offers. It entails our detachment from the intoxicating power promised by the influencebrokers of the Earth. It consists essentially of our living faith in God whom we would never tempt in any way and in whom we have our assurance that after death there is life, after suffering, glory. For so many of us, this imperative of “exodus” in discipleship still remains to be internalized, daily passing over from our weaknesses and failures to the new life of discipline and fidelity to Jesus, especially during the season of Lent.

Join me in meditating on the Word of God every Sunday, from 5 to 6 a.m. on DWIZ 882, or by audio streaming on www.dwiz882.com.