When we first moved to Austin, I went from doing ministry with adults in a parish setting to campus ministry in a high school setting.  I remember distinctly the moment I realized the need to adapt my approach to the psychological needs of the adolescent.  I was sitting in a circle in the chapel with the seven students who were going to accompany me on a service trip to McAllen, TX for a week. This was our first gathering to get to know one another and find out what work we would be doing.  I gave what I thought was an inspirational pep talk about the transforming power of the service experience – one I had given to adults many times, “You will never be the same after we get back. You will see the world differently.”  They all looked at me with trepidation at the least, and with horror at the most.  I was not too well versed in adolescent psychology, and at a time when they were coming to define and know themselves, I can now see what a terrifying prospect that might be.  After further reflection, I can now admit that really for all of us, at whatever stage we are in, it is pretty terrifying to change our lives or to see the world differently, even when that change needs to happen.

This week in the Gospel, we jump to just past midpoint in Mark’s Gospel as we hear his account of the Transfiguration of Jesus.  Every Second Sunday of Lent, we hear one of the Gospel writers’ passages on the Transfiguration of Jesus, but unlike the other passages in Mark we have been reflecting on, this passage is almost completely similar in Matthew, Mark and Luke’s Gospels, though the placement of this story differs. 

The disciples’ experience of Jesus is also changing in the Gospel today, and therefore their own identity as close followers of Him. In Mark, Jesus takes Peter, James and John up the mountain right after what is His first passion prediction – that He must be killed and suffer greatly before He returns to His Father. And it is terrifying for them. They get a whole new perspective on life.

Jesus is transfigured before them in dazzling white clothes and appears with Moses and Elijah, conversing with them.  (Two of the great people in Jewish history, the one who led them to freedom and saw God face to face and the prophet Elijah whom they await his return.)  The disciples “hardly know what to say they were so terrified.”  Then, confirmation comes from the voice in the cloud, “This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.” The very voice of God!  The Transfiguration of Jesus in Mark’s Gospel is a mountaintop experience that was both terrifying and exhilarating for the close disciples of Jesus, and when times get rough, and they are about to, they can rely on their memory and experience of Christ in His glory to get them through what is to come.

This Second Sunday of Lent, this reading impels us to sit with some uncomfortable things.  As the mission of Jesus gets revealed more and more to His close disciples, they must reconcile what they wanted Jesus to be with who He really is, especially when it means that they will need to continue following Jesus even when He is going to be put to death. 

I suspect we need to be open to our image of Jesus changing as more and more is revealed to us in our life of prayer and sacrament.  How is Jesus being Transfigured for us and what is both terrifying and exhilarating about that?  The disciples are being prepared to follow Jesus even in his suffering and death. How are we being prepared this Lent to come fully to the celebration of Jesus’ life, death, and Resurrection at the Holy Triduum?  When we hear the call of Jesus to change our lives and to see the world differently, how do we respond?  Does our understanding of the Resurrection of Jesus help us get through Lent? And how do we go forward, even when we are terrified?