1st Reading – Genesis 22:1b-2, 9a, 10-13, 15-18
Today as we enter the 2nd Sunday of Lent, a time in which we concentrate on building our faith through penance and sacrifice (what have you offered up for Lent?), we hear of Abraham’s faith and the test to which God put that faith. This story is the tenth and greatest trial of Abraham’s trials; the number 10 in Hebrew numerology being the number of testimony (law and responsibility). It is the trial of offering his son as sacrifice. Recall that the 10th trial of the pharaoh and Egypt was also the offering of the first born as sacrifice.
This story shows that God is Lord whose demands are absolute, whose will is inscrutable, and whose final word is grace. Abraham shows the moral grandeur of the founder of Israel, facing God, willing to obey God’s word in all its mysterious harshness. The father’s very life is bound up with that of his son and heir; Abraham entrusts his life and his future unconditionally to the God who calls him. Rather than just the selected verses for today’s reading, we will read the entire story.
2nd Reading – Romans 8:31b-34
Our second reading today is a hymn-like passage telling about the love of God which was made manifest in Christ.
Gospel – Mark 9:2-10
Today’s gospel reading is the familiar account of the transfiguration – an event which is reported in all three synoptic gospels (Matthew 17:1-13; Mark 9:2-13; Luke 9:28-36) and is alluded to in John (1:14).
The time is a little less than one year before Jesus’ sacrifice on the altar of the cross. He has fed the five thousand and the four thousand and Peter has made what is called his “confession of faith” (erroneously, I believe, as faith is little involved – divine revelation is).
