Genesis 15:5-12, 17-18; Philippians 3:17 - 4:1; Luke 9:28-36
Jesus took these three apostles, Peter, James and John with Him up to that mountain top, setting them apart from the rest in order to experience this dazzling revelation of His inner reality. At another time they were the ones to go with Him into the room of the girl He raised from the dead. Do you remember the story? A young girl had died and everyone was making a great din with their wailing and crying out. Jesus took Peter and James and John with Him into her room, and there He raised her from the dead in front of their very eyes. That same threesome, Peter, James and John, were selected by Jesus to accompany Him into the Garden of Gethsemani where He sweat blood and suffered His terrible agony.
Today we find them with our Blessed Lord on top of the Mount of Transfiguration. He wanted them to be with Him when He started to change - to change from being the Jesus from Nazareth into the Risen Christ of Glory. "Come with me," He tells them. "Come with me to share in this mountaintop experience. I want to share with you something that's really special – my destiny.”
They followed Him into a world of another dimension. Moses and Elijah, the great experts on change and development, were there. Moses, the great exponent of change, had led God's people out of their Egyptian slavery to the mountaintop experience of Mount. Sinai. Elijah had led those same people from their slop-tough of sin into the glory of being God's people as they had never been before. Both Moses and Elijah had been agents of total and complete transformation. And here they were on this mountain as Jesus was moving from being the Jesus in our human brokenness into being the Christ of risen glory. They were all there on the cusp Christ’s entrance into Jerusalem, a journey that ended with His death and resurrection into God's new creation. They were with Jesus at Gethsemani, in the garden where He entered upon His horrible suffering, passion and death. They were there and yet they SLEPT!
How could they have slept, we ask? How, given all that God had done for them, could they have slept not only in the presence of our Blessed Lord, Christ but at such a time when He so desperately needed their companionship, their comfort, and their consoling presence with Him as He entered into His agony?
Well.... how can we so easily sleep spiritually. How can we say our prayers, attend Mass in which we enter into the Holy Sacrifice of Jesus Christ, receive so many gifts from God, and still spiritually snooze and doze our way through our prayers, our Masses and, indeed, throughout our whole spiritual life? We can be baptized, catechized, sacramentalized and yet never be wide awake, never fully aware and alive to the presence of Jesus all around us and even within us. We can say our prayers, perform our religious duties and rituals… and be on autopilot throughout it all.
The world would have it that way, you know. There are forces at work in our world that want you to remain spiritually asleep. They mock the Church at every opportunity. They write snide little newspaper articles and write opinion columns sneering at the pope, mocking our Catholic beliefs, making fun of sincere (what they call "old fashioned") Catholics, and making priests appear to be either "out of it" fools, or else demonic predators of children. Celibacy is denigrated whenever possible. The pope painted with words that depict him as an old male celibate way over there in Rome who is completely out of touch with us ordinary people. Yet they fail note, and they deliberately overlook, the growing interest in our Church. Do you think you will ever see a newspaper report of the numbers of adults who will enter our Church this coming Easter?
Peter, James and John, you see, are not alone in their lack consciousness about Christ. The same Evil One who induced them into sleep is at work seducing our modern world into a state of spiritual narcosis. I use the word “narcosis” with deliberate precision. We have been duped, doped up, and hooked; we live in a state of spiritual stupor. The Evil One has been quite zealous and quite effective. Like Peter, James and John, we sleep while Christ is literally right next to us.
In our youth we were dazzled by His presence when we made our First Holy Communion. We felt His liberating, healing, and peaceful presence when we first went to confession back in those earlier days of our youthful faith. We felt the Divine Presence when we were confirmed. We, too, have had some mountaintop experiences of the Presence of God in our lives… at sunsets, at sunrises, when we’ve fallen in love, at births of babies, when parents and grandparents have passed on into the next life, when a poem, or a flower, any number of other things have put us in touch with God’s holy presence to us.
And yet we sleep. We sleep because of routine, because of boredom, because we've been over stimulated by the narcotic of this world's "buzzes". We sleep because we're exhausted, drained, and running on empty. We sleep because were bloated, sated, and gorged on this world's spiritual junk food. We sleep because.... well, just because. Any excuse will do.
Peter, James and John, you see, are not altogether different from us. They had their mountain top experience with Jesus. But we must never forget that when He came down from that mountain He left immediately to go to Jerusalem, to the Garden of Gethsemani, to suffer, and they went with Him.
And what do you suppose caused Jesus the greatest suffering of all? Don't you imagine it was the fact that these three, those seemingly the closest to Him, the most aware of who He was, went to sleep on Him?
And we do, too. I wonder if in that garden, I wonder if there in Gethsemani as He took on His horrible agony, pain, and suffering, He looked down through the centuries to our times... and saw us, too, sleeping even as we received His Body and Blood in Holy Communion, in what we think is a "holy" communion, but which is hardly any sort of communion at all with Him. I wonder if, there in His agony, in that Garden named Gethsemani, He looked into my soul here in the year 2010, and saw it for what it is?
Now I am wondering if He sees my soul at times in the future when I will be more alive and attentive to Him?
I wonder if tomorrow my soul will wake up and pay attention to Him as I enter into the day. The great mystery of it all is that only I can make that happen. He is near… He waits. He won’t force me. What He wants is for me to choose to love Him. He doesn’t want me to be a computerized robot that must love Him. He wants me to wake up and deliberately give Him my love.
Only I can shake of my sleep, my spiritual sleep. Only you, walking in the footsteps of Peter, James, and John, can make your journey from the mountaintop to the tomb and walk with Jesus throughout the whole adventure of life.
Thank God for this holy season of Lent. By God’s gift it is a time of awakening.
