The hidden God

Today's account of the transfiguration of Jesus on the mountain is the other side of the coin of Jesus being tempted in the wilderness in last Sunday's Gospel. The Christian life is poised between these two narratives, between the past and the future. Our journey of faith is sustained by memory on the one hand, and anticipation on the other.

The transfiguration gives just a glimpse of something more marvellous which is yet to come. There has to be more than we know to life. Paul says in today's second reading: "The Lord Jesus Christ will transfigure these wretched bodies of ours into copies of his glorious body". It's God's promise. And God is faithful.

Peter and his companions were enjoying the sight on Mount Tabor, but at the same time they were confused, "not knowing what he was saying". In our belief we get confused. There are so many things we fail to grasp and to understand. Our faith is deeply provoked by the world around us, by what comes from the depths of our own hearts, and, last but not least, by God himself who reveals Himself but who also remains a hidden God. God's promise to Abraham in the first reading was provocative: "How am I to know?" asked Abraham.

There are so many things that happen in life and experiences we go through that provoke in us that same question of Abraham over and over again. How am I to know? How can I be sure? How can I check, prove, or at least have a guarantee that all this faith-talk we do is true?

As Kierkegaard said, faith is always an exodus from a domicile. Our domiciles are our securities, what keeps us protected. Our country up to some time ago provided a domicile for us as believers. Now that is no longer the case. As believers we seem to be foreigners in our country. Lost, confused, fragmented in what we believe and in the way we believe.

That is the reason why year in year out Lent comes to make us rewind and go back again first to Egypt, through the wilderness, to all that is tempting and alienating in life, and finally to the mountain, to that momentary vision that is given but which is not visible to the naked eye. It's all imagery, yes. But very realistic. It's not just revisiting another people's history. It is a re-reading in that imagery of our own stories and lives.

The foundation of our belief is not in our reason, in knowledge, in what we see; but in God's word, in His covenant of love, in Him who is a faithful God even when we are unfaithful. Standing by what we read from the Scriptures, starting from Abraham himself down to Moses and Jeremiah and so many others, God seems also at times to stretch too far and even beyond our limits. But that's what provokes our longing to see God when in exile.

Peter in today's Gospel was enjoying the vision on the mountain. "It is wonderful for us to be here". Normally we say that with a digital camera in hand - something which Peter did not have. That's what we do whenever and wherever we are enjoying ourselves. We fall to the temptation of stopping the time, of building our tents for the sake of security. Then the vision becomes an illusion.

But soon "they went into a cloud and were afraid". It is 'the cloud of unknowing'. Literally, this is the title of a most remarkable spiritual work of the 14th century which stresses that the Christian soul meets God in a 'cloud of unknowing', a divine darkness of ignorance. Metaphorically it stands for our possible encounter with God which occurs not in the light of day but in obedience to His Word: "Listen to Him", said the voice coming from the cloud.