Second Sunday of Lent: The Beloved Son

by the Rev. Francis T. Gignac, S.J.

he three readings today are linked by the theme of a beloved son. In the first reading (Gen 22:1-18), Abraham is asked to sacrifice his beloved son Isaac. Paul alludes to this story in the second reading (Rom 8:31-34) when he writes that God is on our side because he did not spare his own Son but handed him over for us all. And the gospel story of the transfiguration (Mark 9:2-10) gives the Christian reader the instruction from on high, "This is my beloved Son; listen to him."

For the people of Israel, Abraham was the ideal believer. Just as Adam (the Hebrew word for "man") was the symbol of humanity, so Abraham was the symbol of all who trusted in God. Abraham was called to leave his home and to settle in a land that God would show him. He was to be the father of a great nation, but for a long time he and Sarah his wife were childless. Then their son Isaac, the reward of their faith, becomes the test of that same faith. Abraham is asked to surrender his only son, his only hope for the fulfillment of God's promises. In this story, his trust is rewarded by the sudden appearance of a vicarious animal victim, a God given substitute.

The second reading is a commentary on the first. The story of Abraham being willing to sacrifice his only son struck the early Christians as a type and model of the sacrificial death of Jesus, who in their eyes was God's beloved Son. And so Paul writes, in rather legal terminology, that God is on our side because he did not spare his own Son. God the Judge has already pronounced sentence in our favor. We cannot be condemned because God's beloved Son, Christ Jesus, who died for us and was raised to glory by God, is at God's right hand interceding for us.

The gospel story of the transfiguration, this year from the version in the earliest gospel, continues the theme of the beloved Son. It is a story of revelation, addressed to the Christian reader, of who Jesus really is. The scene takes place on a mountain, the traditional place of God's revelation. It is described in stock apocalyptic imagery. It is placed just after the first prediction of the passion in the gospel tradition to give the Christian reader a foretaste of the glory that is to come after Jesus' ignominious suffering and death.

Then Moses and Elijah are pictured appearing and speaking with Jesus. When Peter speaks up and says, "Rabbi, let us make three tents, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah," this reflects an initial stage of Christian belief that Jesus was the equal of Moses, the first and greatest leader of Israel, and of Elijah, by legend the first and greatest of the prophets.

But then a cloud overshadowed them, just as a cloud (symbolic of the presence of God) led the Israelites in the desert after the Exodus, just as a cloud overshadowed the temple in Jerusalem to signify God's special presence there and overshadowed Mary as a sign that her child was God's beloved Son. When the chosen disciples looked up, the story goes, they saw no one, only Jesus. They came to realize that Jesus is not just the equal of Moses and Elijah, but that he completely surpasses them. In him all the Law and the Prophets find their fulfillment.

All three readings today speak of sacrifice and death. Glory and life come only through suffering and death. During Lent we are invited to die symbolically to selfishness and sin, so that we can live more fully for God and for others. We are invited to be conformed to the suffering and death of Jesus, whom we confess as Lord, so that we can also become conformed to the glory of his risen life.

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Revised: 27 October 1997

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