What do we hope for in a friend? Many redeeming qualities, no doubt. Among them, it seems appropriate and much appreciated that a friend be one who empathizes with our weaknesses and is willing and able to relate to what we have experienced or suffered.
Last week, in listening to how Jesus was tempted by the devil in the desert, we see him exemplifying that aspect of true friendship. By being tempted himself, Jesus demonstrated that he was no stranger to what is a universal human struggle, that of facing temptations. The Letter to the Hebrews sums it up for us about Jesus, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has similarly been tested in every way, yet without sin” (4: 15).¹
In the Temptations narrative, we see Jesus experiencing our humanity by not running away from being tempted, but facing down hunger, ambition and doubts and redeeming them from within. Jesus entered into and united himself with our humanity, and the temptations were surely to come sooner or later. It was all part of his embrace of our condition.
What else might a true friend offer us? Another characteristic of a friend is one who expands our horizons, moves us to see life in a new way. Again, there we find Jesus.
Last week, we heard about Jesus entering into and experiencing our world. In the account of the Transfiguration given us today in chapter nine of the Gospel according to St. Luke, Jesus opens the door for Peter, John and James and all of us to get a glimpse of His world, to see his heavenly glory. He allows us to witness an aspect of himself that is beyond our normal horizon and experience.
It seems the Lord Jesus is either trying to enter our world or have us enter his. But, isn’t that so much like him? God is never content to save us from afar, but in Christ embraces our struggle and, at the same time, shows us the heights to which we can aspire and reach. Such is the dynamic of Incarnation, Redemption and Resurrection.
Pope Benedict XVI writes that in the Agony in the Garden, the night before his crucifixion, we see the “counterimage” to the Transfiguration.² In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus invites those same three apostles into his world, his grief and pain. Those three privileged ones are reluctant to do so. Physical exhaustion and apparent indifference overcome them. Still, the invitation remains. Christ never ceases to invite and beckon us to union with him.
In the Transfiguration, a glimpse of Christ’s glory is given directly to Peter, John and James. However, not only are they blinded by the glorious light and then overshadowed by the cloud shrouding the heavenly majesty, their reaction oscillates between ignorance of the event’s significance and fright from being so close to divine mystery. As always, such typical human responses do not dissuade the Lord Jesus from revealing his fullness to us.
In both moments, the dynamic of our salvation is at work. God in Christ Jesus redeems our sin and pain by fully embracing those difficult aspects of humanity we consider as too far beneath him. God in Christ reveals to us his glory because he wants us to always place our hope in him as our eternal destiny.
May we come to trust even more that He who was tempted is also He who was transfigured. For the Lord Jesus, it’s all in a life’s work. He has entered into the world and our very lives to embrace the pain and give us true joy.
Christ invites the three apostles and all of us into His world. He not only shows us the way, but he is the way. Are we willing to follow?
The dynamic of the Transfiguration continues. In the Eucharist, the glory of his goodness and mercy is able to enter into us. Christ desires to become a part of us so that we may always be in relationship, “through him, with him and in him.”
Peace be with you! Fr. Charles Johnson, O.P.
Notes:
¹ Hebrews, CHAPTER 4 | USCCB ² Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth, From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration (New York: Doubleday, 2007), 308.