{"id":681,"date":"2012-03-04T17:02:37","date_gmt":"2012-03-04T22:02:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/?p=681"},"modified":"2012-03-04T17:02:37","modified_gmt":"2012-03-04T22:02:37","slug":"homily-for-march-4-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/homily-for-march-4-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"Homily for March 4, 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

2nd Sunday in Lent, Year B<\/a>
\nGenesis 22:1-2, 9a, 10-13, 15-18
\nRomans 8:31b-34
\nMark 9:2-10
\nMarch 4, 2012<\/p>\n

For us, it seems impossible that God would have asked Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac.\u00a0 To sacrifice any human being should seem impossible and immoral.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

To add to that Abraham and Sarah had waited a long time to have a child.\u00a0 She was well beyond child-bearing years but God had made a promise of a son to Abraham.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And after all the waiting, God now tells Abraham to sacrifice his son.\u00a0 Remarkable!<\/p>\n

What\u2019s even more remarkable is that Abraham is willing to do it!\u00a0 And if you read the whole story (which I encourage you to do because we skipped a few verses – Genesis 22<\/a>) Isaac, while not knowing ahead of time what was going to happen, seems to accept all of this.<\/p>\n

It seems Abraham\u2019s faith in God is perfect.\u00a0 A couple of things to note here.\u00a0 First of all, Abraham\u2019s faith was strong but it wasn\u2019t always perfect.\u00a0 After all, he\u00a0doubted when\u00a0God told them that Sarah, even in her advanced years, would bear a son.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Secondly, even with perfect faith the command to sacrifice Isaac should seem immoral.\u00a0 I doubt it would have been enough for Abraham just to hear these words to obey them.\u00a0 He must have felt God\u2019s divine presence very strongly in that moment to know it truly was God speaking to him.<\/p>\n

In the end, God stops Abraham before he sacrifices Isaac.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

But many centuries later, God sacrifices his own son for us.\u00a0 It has been God\u2019s plan from the beginning.\u00a0 As Paul writes to the Romans God \u201cdid not spare his own Son.\u201d\u00a0 God held nothing back.<\/p>\n

Turning to the gospel, this passage comes shortly after Jesus\u2019 identification by Peter \u201cYou are the Christ\u201d and Jesus\u2019 first prediction of his Passion.\u00a0 His disciples do not understand how it could be.\u00a0 Peter even rebukes Jesus for suggesting such a thing.<\/p>\n

Christ\u2019 Passion is difficult to understand.\u00a0 Even much of his preaching can be difficult to understand.\u00a0 Jesus knows what his disciples will have to go through.\u00a0 He knows they need assurance.<\/p>\n

So, as he prepares to go up on the mountain, he takes Peter, James, and John with him to \u201csee\u201d what happens.\u00a0 He is transfigured but transfigured to what \u2013 His divine state.\u00a0 His clothes became dazzling white, white a sign of purity, the glory of God.<\/p>\n

Then Elijah and Moses appear with him?\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 For further assurance of course!\u00a0 Elijah symbolizes the prophets and Moses symbolizes the Law.\u00a0 The appearance of Elijah and Moses signify that Jesus is the fulfillment of all that has gone before Jesus \u2013 more assurance.<\/p>\n

Peter saying, \u201cit is good that we are here\u201d recognizes that something incredible is happening.\u00a0 \u201cHe hardly knew what to say.\u201d\u00a0 That\u2019s ok.\u00a0 Sometimes people like to say that when they meet God they are going to have a lot of questions to ask.\u00a0 God will have the answers but when we stand in the divine presence of God I believe we will be so happy and full of grace that we won\u2019t care about those questions.\u00a0 So, it doesn\u2019t really matter that Peter doesn\u2019t know what to say.\u00a0 Words aren\u2019t needed in that moment.<\/p>\n

But a few words are offered by the Father.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 More assurance!\u00a0 What does the voice say?\u00a0 \u201cThis is my beloved Son, Listen to him.\u201d\u00a0 More assurance that we can trust in Jesus.<\/p>\n

All this assurance is important to help Peter, James, and John to get through the events that will follow.\u00a0 Peter has already called Jesus the Christ but without knowing what it really means.<\/p>\n

Seeing the Transfiguration is a step towards understanding what it truly means to say Jesus is the Christ.<\/p>\n

Jesus told Peter, James, and John not to tell anyone about this until he had risen from the dead.\u00a0 At that point, they didn\u2019t know what risen from the dead even meant but they remembered what had happened and when Jesus did indeed rise from the dead, they understood.<\/p>\n

We each face challenges in our own lives.\u00a0 Where do we stand in our own faith in the midst of those challenges?\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Do we hold back or do we give God our all?<\/p>\n

These are the questions that we are to ask ourselves in this season of Lent.<\/p>\n

Abraham was called to sacrifice his Son Isaac.\u00a0 God calls each of us to make sacrifices because of our love for God and love for one another.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

What sacrifice are you being called to make?\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Are you holding back?<\/p>\n

Why?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2nd Sunday in Lent, Year B Genesis 22:1-2, 9a, 10-13, 15-18 Romans 8:31b-34 Mark 9:2-10 March 4, 2012 For us, it seems impossible that God would have asked Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac.\u00a0 To sacrifice any human being should seem impossible and immoral.\u00a0\u00a0 To add to that Abraham and Sarah had waited a long …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘Homily for March 4, 2012’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[82],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMTPk-aZ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=681"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":682,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681\/revisions\/682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}