Readings: Second Sunday of Lent | USCCB

All four gospels are unique and distinct, each having its own way of portraying the life of Christ. However, in Matthew, Mark, and Luke the Transfiguration belongs to a consistent sequence: (1) Jesus makes his first prediction of his coming death, (2) he explains that his followers must “take up their cross daily” (Lk 9:23), (3) and Jesus is transfigured on a mountaintop, becoming a brilliant figure while Moses and Elijah flank him. The Transfiguration seems to play a reassuring role following the passion prediction and the message of discipleship. 

Of the three accounts of the Transfiguration, why did the Church choose Luke’s account for a Lenten reading? Most likely because of the mention of the “exodus” or “departure” that Jesus “was about to accomplish at Jerusalem” (Lk 9:31). The use of this word connects Jesus’ coming death with the rescue of the slaves from Egypt, showing that Jesus’ death, too, will be a great, saving event. Also, the term evokes the forty years during which the escaped Hebrew wandered in the desert. This was a time of trial, just as Jesus’s forty days in the desert, were a time of trial, and just as today’s forty days of Lent are meant to be a time of growth and self-denial. 

It is also instructive to reflect on the Transfiguration in the context of Mark’s gospel. Shortly after this event, James and John, apparently inspired by having seen Moses and Elijah flanking Jesus, ask Jesus for the honor of sitting at his left and right hands when he comes into glory. Jesus reprimands them by saying that “among the Gentiles” the rulers “lord it over them and their great ones are tyrants over them.” Among Jesus’s disciples, however, “whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be the slave of all” (Mk 10:42–44). When is Christianity, in our society, about exalting oneself and seeking advantages for one’s group, and when is it about being a friend and servant to all? 

Dr. Ted Ulrich
Theology Department