The Deal of an Eternal Lifetime: Sunday Reflection

This morning’s Gospel reading is Luke 9:28b–36:

Jesus took Peter, John, and James and went up the mountain to pray. While he was praying, his face changed in appearance and his clothing became dazzling white. And behold, two men were conversing with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his exodus that he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem. Peter and his companions had been overcome by sleep, but becoming fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men standing with him. 

As they were about to part from him, Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good that we are here; let us make three tents, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” But he did not know what he was saying. While he was still speaking, a cloud came and cast a shadow over them, and they became frightened when they entered the cloud. Then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my chosen Son; listen to him.” After the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. They fell silent and did not at that time tell anyone what they had seen. 

How much does the Lord love us? 

Most of us spend our lives wondering that, even those who do not spend much time on faith or religious practice. We also wonder at why the Lord loves us, and perhaps there are no full answers to either question. We know from the scriptures, prophets, and the Gospel that the Lord loves us fully in the self-sacrificing love He calls us to adopt toward each other. But we also know that we fall far, far short of that standard, and fall into sin and defiance too often.

One has to wonder whether Peter, John, and James had this same feeling of unworthiness at the Transfiguration. In one instant, they see Christ’s true nature revealed to them, as well as the living prophets Moses and Elijah present before them as well in their perfected forms. Peter suggests that they should perform service to the three, which the Gospel passage from Luke suggests is a nervous babble that comes from feeling out of one’s element. As if this were not enough, the disciples then experience a full theophany when the Father declares — again — that Jesus is His beloved Son, and their Lord. 

And in truth, we are unworthy of that theophany, and of that perfected eternity, because we cannot bring ourselves to divinity on our own. As beings of both spiritual and material natures, we lose our way on the latter even while trying to remain focused on the former even at the best of times.  We cannot sacrifice enough to atone and redeem ourselves in order to enter into the Trinitarian presence for eternity; we choose defiance and our own appetites too often to form ourselves to fit fully within the Lord’s caritas love in Heaven. 

However, as John writes in his most famous Gospel passage, “God so loved the world that He gave His one and only son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” The Transfiguration provided us a glimpse of that communion of saints in eternity, a tantalizing reminder of the beauty and love that could await us. But how can we be worthy to enter into that covenant if we can never atone and redeem ourselves? That is the mystery that can confound us into despair.

Our first reading today offers us the answer, or at least a part of the answer. We have discussed Genesis 15 in other reflections. but this is so critical to understanding the covenant the Lord offered us and why we must persevere even through our own iniquities. 

In this chapter, the Lord promises Abram — so to be Abraham — that he will become the father of nations, and all will be redeemed in the end. He also promises Abram a land for his people, at which Abram asks the Lord to explain how he will possess it:

He then said to him, “I am the LORD who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land as a possession.” “O Lord GOD,” he asked, “how am I to know that I shall possess it?” He answered him, “Bring me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old she-goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” Abram brought him all these, split them in two, and placed each half opposite the other; but the birds he did not cut up. Birds of prey swooped down on the carcasses, but Abram stayed with them. As the sun was about to set, a trance fell upon Abram, and a deep, terrifying darkness enveloped him.

When the sun had set and it was dark, there appeared a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch, which passed between those pieces. It was on that occasion that the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying: “To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi of Egypt to the Great River, the Euphrates.”

The key to understanding this passage is in the nature of the covenant. Blood covenants were more common in those days, and the rite is explained in the passage. A failure to abide by blood covenants required blood for atonement in order to restore the relationship. A failure to atone by blood would break the bonds and estrange the parties of the covenant forever.

However, both parties have to pass through the sacrifices to conclude a blood covenant. Whichever party violated the covenant would then have that blood on them, and would have to pay in blood for atonement. The Lord absolved Abram from that responsibility by passing through on His own. Even if Abram and his descendants violate the covenant, the Lord created it so that He has to provide the blood sacrifice for atonement.

In short, it’s a deal that cannot be broken. And it is a deal to which the Lord remains faithful. To satisfy the terms of that covenant, the Lord sent His only beloved Son to pay the blood price for our sins because that is the only way He could ensure the covenant remained in effect. 

That is how much the Lord loves us — and why Jesus’ sacrifice applies to all those who will profess Him as their Lord. We still have to deal with the consequences of our sins, especially in this life, and we still have to recognize them so that we may atone for our transgressions. Through that process, we form ourselves to prepare to enter the communion of saints we glimpse in the Transfiguration. But we are not saved because of our atonements, nor of our sorrow, or by our formation entirely; we are saved because we put our faith in Christ as our Lord, and enter into His blood sacrifice for our sins. 

The Lord loves us with all His heart. And through that, we must learn to love Him in the same way, because He has bled for us to have that opportunity.  And that is the deal of an eternal lifetime.

Previous reflections on these readings:

The front page image is “The Transfiguration of Christ” by Peter Paul Rubens, 1605. On display at the Museum of Fine Arts of Nancy. Via Wikimedia Commons. 

“Sunday Reflection” is a regular feature that looks at the specific readings used in today’s Mass in Catholic parishes around the world. The reflection represents only my own point of view, intended to help prepare myself for the Lord’s day and perhaps spark a meaningful discussion. Previous Sunday Reflections from the main page can be found here.