The scriptures are filed with examples from the lives of others who had their faith tested. In today’s first reading, we see the example of Abraham. God asked him: take your son, your only son ... whom you love ... and offer him as a burnt offering (Gn 22:2). How difficult it must have been for Abraham to do that! No parent should ever have to witness the suffering and death of his or her child, and yet God was asking him to sacrifice his child. God tested Abraham that day and found that although He was asking for something that broke his heart, Abraham would have been willing to endure the suffering.
What about us? Perhaps there are some here among us who have known the pain of watching a spouse or a child of ours who has suffered and perhaps even returned to the Father’s house. There is a part of us – the human part – that suffers deeply when we must watch someone else in pain. We would give anything if we could to take their suffering upon ourselves. Some who have experienced such pain find themselves distanced from God because they remain stuck at the level where they find it difficult to accept the fact that God has caused or allowed such suffering.
The truth of the matter is that God does not cause the suffering; rather he uses such occasions – which appear in the sight of human beings as tests of our faith – in order to prove to us that he is indeed very close to us, especially when we are suffering.
Jesus knew that his disciples would suffer deeply when the time came for him to go home to the Father. Saint Mark tells us in today’s gospel that before that time arrived, Jesus took ... Peter and James and John and led them up a high mountain by themselves. There, he was transfigured before them (Mk 9:2). Archbishop Joseph Cassidy (1933-2013) used to say that Jesus allowed these three apostles to experience his transfiguration so that when the time came for him to suffer and die, they would be able to encourage the other disciples to understand that physical suffering and death is nothing but a doorway that leads into the glory of the Father’s house.
I have a feeling that Peter, James and John forgot their experience of the transfiguration as they witnessed Jesus’ arrest, trial, persecution, suffering and crucifixion. Even after his body had been placed in the tomb, they were probably too much in shock to remember what they had witnessed at the top of that mountain, but later on, when the women came running from the tomb on Easter morning to tell them that the stone had been rolled away, perhaps they remembered the day when Peter had wanted to make three dwellings on the top of that mountain (cf Mk 9:5) so that they could stay there forever.
The experience of the transfiguration is also meant to encourage our hearts so that when we have to endure trials that test our faith, we too can find the strength to believe that our ultimate destiny is the fullness of life, love and happiness in the Father’s house. If we believe this, we will be able to echo the words written by Saint Paul to the early Christians living in Rome: Who will separate us from the love of Christ (Rom 8:35)? No matter what hardship we may have to endure, we can always believe in the love that God has for us.
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