Homily, March 16, 2025
From The Pastor
Notice how God draws Abram into a deep awareness of the divine through his own spiritual nature. Abram may have never pondered or considered himself a spiritual being, yet in his encounter with God he is awakened to an undeniable inner knowing. In our post-modern world, driven by split second information and overdrive stimulation, we can be greatly blest by a renewed awareness of the same divine reality in ourselves.
“Look up at the sky and count the stars if you can. Just so, shall you descendants be.” Human beings are naturally drawn to the beauty of a golden sunrise or crimson sunset. The beauty touches the soul with a sense of the immensity of the universe of which we are intimately a part. Stargazing stirs the same interior sense of the immensity of God in whom we dwell.
In the time of Abram, living in a desert climate, the dark of night was darker than the dark of night we experience today. People, especially those with a cottage, have long valued quiet moments awed by the expanse of a starry night. It is often a transcendent experience. We are lifted out of ourselves in the awareness of the Divine. One intuitively knows God is present.
The experience of Abram, later to become Abraham, was God’s call to a life of faith with maturing trust in the presence and action of God in his life. Abram is deeply moved by the experience. He believes in God and follows the call of his heart. The purpose of the encounter is to establish a covenant with Abram and his people to become the people of God. This is an early beginning to the story of our salvation through the offering of sacrifice in covenant-making that is fulfilled in the final sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross.
The transcendent experience of Abram is paired with the Transfiguration of Jesus in the revelation of Divine glory. Both experiences are essential in the process of faith development that instills in human beings the virtue of spiritual hope. Spiritual hope is not created, it is given by God as an essence of faith driven by our nature to love. Faith, hope, and love are theological virtues because God gives them. Hope is not made by human initiative.
I recently was given an example of this by a speaker concerned with youth suicide, loneliness, and a loss of meaning in life. Statistics show that most young people are unchurched and not religiously motivated. Growing up in an age of technology, the internet, and iPhones, many of our youth as well as a widening segment of our culture, have lost any sense of transcendence. What does this mean?
Disengaged from things of faith, the unchurched and unbelieving find little meaning beyond themselves. They have become the highest mark of their own truth. This creates a sense of meaninglessness in life. When things go well, life is okay. When things are hard, disappointing, or harsh there is little hope to draw them out of their distress. Transcendence awakens us to reach beyond ourselves to seek meaning and identity in relationships, encounters, and experiences with others that lead to movements of love, goodness, and belonging. Greater self-awareness is realized in a truth beyond myself. Life in love pulls us beyond ourselves for the good of others. This deepens our awareness of God as it sows bonds of love in culture and society.
This is the experience of the Transfiguration. Jesus knows himself in the full awareness of his communion with the Father’s love. Jesus is the revelation of the Father’s love Incarnate, God in the Flesh. Jesus is the image of self-giving love. He knows his crucifixion and death are coming. He wants to give hope to the disciples who will encounter his violent death. The Transfiguration transforms Peter, James, and John in their understanding of who Jesus is and what his life means.
They are terrified of this mystery because they are drawn beyond them self in ways they have never thought of or could understand. They are awakened to the nature of Jesus as the Messiah. They do not have to understand, they are called to believe. Their hearts are filled with an unnamed yet undeniable hope that Jesus is the Son of the Divine. Only after the death and Resurrection of Jesus will they more fully understand the identity and meaning of their lives.
Lent is a time to reach beyond ourselves to the mystery of God’s love for us through the life, death, and Resurrection of Jesus. Religiously we pray, fast, and give alms. Spiritually, we are called to look deeply into ourselves to find the faith, hope, and love that gives us meaning and purpose. Our hope is eternal life, through faith in Jesus, and the love we receive from God. We participate in Christ when we share the love we have received with others. You are in Christ and Christ is in you. Hope is the fabric of your being realized in faith animated by love. Your inner nature is to love and be for others as they are to love and be for you. Make it simple. Be good. Do good. In Jesus’ name.
Father John Esper
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