Something in our human nature leads us to think of "signs" in terms of the miraculous and the extraordinary. The Gospels point to what we should be looking for - the presence of God in our lives and in our world. At the heart of the Gospel is the conviction that our God is not absent, is not idle, but active. Through Jesus, God is working to establish a kingdom, a kingdom of justice, of peace and of love. We believe that this kingdom is being established through God’s power and through our cooperation. And we are always on the look-out to see signs of that kingdom, signs of God’s presence in our world.
But the grace of God is everywhere. In today’s Gospel Jesus takes Peter, John, and James up onto a mountain. There they see his glory. On the mountain everything is good. Jesus is bathed in light, he speaks to Moses an Elijah, and a voice from heaven proclaims him as God’s Son. It must have been quite an experience! Talk about extradordinary signs! It is no wonder that Peter wants to set up tents and stay there. But the disciples soon learn that they cannot stay on the mountain. They must come down and return to their normal lives.
Jesus invites people to have faith in Him as Son of God and Savior. His mission is always the same - to reveal the Father's love to the world. His message is always the same - to feed the hungry, help those in need, love those who hate you. His method is always the same - to give us clear and convincing signs leading us to believe in Him and His message.
And what are those signs? He preached and lived by the simple law of the love of God and the love of neighbor. He taught us how to pray. He showed us the kingdom of God in wine and wheat, in the vineyard and the fisherman's net. He reached out to the sick, the sinner, the widow and the orphan, treating ordinary people with exquisite compassion. Jesus did all of this in ordinary ways.
The truth is that every aspect of our lives has a larger meaning, a mystery, a transcendence. We need to claim it. As often as we can we need to place ourselves with Jesus on the mountain because it is there that we come closest to seeing who he really is and who we really are. We are called to be people who know the transcendent dimension of our lives because it is in that dimension that we come to understand more clearly what it means to be alive.
Lent is a very good time for us to stop concentrating on our own measly efforts and allow the power of the Spirit of Jesus to leap into the forefront. This calls for quiet and contemplative prayer time, not prayers filled with routine words, or meditations on our own sinfulness. This is a time to take a serious look at our own commitment to the Gospel message of peace, compassion and justice. This is a time to revel in the bountiful beauty of God's love for us. This is a time when we are called to deeper faith. It is time to see the extradinordinary in the ordinary.
Good things are happening all around us. God is active in all of them. Most of these signs we do not see. In order to see them we need to come down from the mountain. So this Lent, let us look closer and let us look beyond. Let us gaze again at the image of Christ crucified, finding in that image the only sign we need which will transfigure us into a newer intimacy with Him and with our brothers and sisters.
