Vigils Reading – 2nd Sunday of Lent

DIVINE GLORY

From a commentary by St Ephrem1

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Jesus took the three apostles up to the mountain for three reasons: first,

to show them the glory of his divinity, then to declare himself Israel’s redeemer

as he had already foretold by the prophets; and thirdly to prevent the apostles’

being scandalized at seeing him soon afterwards enduring those human

sufferings which he had freely accepted for our sake. The apostles knew that

Jesus was a man; they did not know that he was God. To their knowledge he

was the son of Mary, a man who shared their daily life in this world. On the

mountain he revealed to them that he was the Son of God, that he was in fact

God himself. Peter, James, and John were familiar with the sight of their

master eating and drinking, working and taking rest, growing tired and falling

asleep, experiencing fear and breaking out in sweat. All these things were

natural to his humanity not to his divinity. He therefore took them up onto the

mountain so that they could hear his Father’s voice calling his Son, and he could

show them that he was truly the Son of God and was himself divine.

He took them up unto the mountain in order to show them his kingship

before they witnessed his passion, to let them see his mighty power before they

watched his death, to reveal his glory to them before they beheld his

humiliation. Then when the Jews took him captive and condemned him to the

cross, the apostles would understand that it was not for any lack of power on his

part that Jesus allowed himself to be crucified by his enemies, but because he

had freely chosen to suffer in that way for the world’s salvation. He took them

up onto the mountain before his resurrection and showed them the glory of his

divinity, so that when he rose from the dead in that same divine glory they

would realize that this was not something given him as a reward for his labor,

as if he were previously without it. That glory has been his with the Father from

all eternity, as is clear from his words on approaching his freely chosen passion,

“Father, glorify me now with the glory I had with you before the world was

made”.

1 Journey with the Fathers – Year B – New City Press – NY -1993.3