The question “What kind of God is that?” resonates angrily with the prevailing “offended” sensibilities we have. How can a good God actually tolerate evil, let alone, command it? Even the Catechism acknowledges this inconsistency (CCC309): “If God the Father almighty, the Creator of the ordered and good world, cares for all his creatures, why does evil exist?”.
But, setting aside this baffling mystery of God’s apparent indulgence of evil, we take a second look at the 1st Reading.
Firstly, the so-called sacrifice of Isaac comes across like an unreasonable God asking for proof of faith and obedience. Last week, I mentioned about the phenomenon of the “self-made” person. Instead of a capricious test of trust and submission, perhaps our contemporary captivation with achievement or accomplishment could possibly be applied to Abraham. What if Abraham wanted to give back to God something which befits His Divine Majesty?
The narrative might not support this interpretation but consider this. Human quest for excellence demands that we give our guests the best. Can you imagine yourself serving your most esteem visitor in mediocrity? “Cincai bocai” (thoughtlessness or apathy) flies in the face of who we are. The more important the visitor, the warmer will our reception be. Likewise, the tradition of dressing our best for Sunday worship is a reflexion of this principle at work. We want to give our best to God.[1]
Granted that the neighbouring cultures in Palestine practised human sacrifice, it might not be absurd to view that Abraham may have been influenced. For example, Chinese are used to “angpows”. Now we have “ch’aypows” (Green as in Islam) for Hari Raya Puasa and “kiopows” (Purple or Lavender as in Hinduism) for Deepavali. In other words, Abraham wanted to give back to God and the only thing which was most valuable to him was his son, Isaac—fruit of his old age. In his mind, Abraham thought that God would have been pleased by this kind of sacrifice—like the believers of the surrounding religions. This episode of the Abrahamic sacrifice of Isaac is supposed to be the repudiation by God Himself of senseless human sacrifice. So, on top of the mountain, in place of a human holocaust, God ordered the oblation of the ram caught in the briar.
Abraham’s journey of faith and obedience symbolises man’s attempt to render the best to God. Human holocaust merely signifies man’s desire to return to God that which befits God’s dignity. However, it is a poor sacrifice simply because nothing of what we have can offer to Him can ever equal God’s status. It is actually the other way around in that God has been actively seeking us out. This brings us to the 2nd Reading and the Gospel.
In St Paul, we get a clearer picture of who God is. We do not have Shylock for a God who demands His pound of flesh. Au contraire, our God is the reverse. He goes out of His way to engage us where we are in order to redeem us to the point that this God sacrifices His Son for us to be saved. As we reflect on Abraham’s struggle to be faithful to God, we get to see that God is actually the more faithful partner in terms of His salvific will.[2] In this human-Divine exchange, God is the one who bridges the chasm between Him and us. Thus, the Transfiguration must be seen in the light of Jesus Christ preparing Himself for the task of saving mankind.
The context of salvation is located in the conversation that took place before today’s Gospel. Jesus asked the Apostles whom they thought Him to be. After establishing His identity, that is, the Apostles now know that He is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, Jesus tells them in no uncertain terms what kind of Messiah He will be and what is to be expected of Him.
Even though the ascent to Mount Tabor gives us a dazzling display of divinity, we are reminded that salvation is to be found in obedience to Jesus Christ.[3] Thus, God’s faithfulness to us is written in the language of our obedience: “Listen to Him”. In fact, the root of the word “obedience” is found in the word “to listen”. Obey comes from “ob” (to, toward) and “oedio” (hear/listen). To be saved is to listen to Christ the Son.
Sadly, we are living under a dictatorship of noise and it might be hard to hear Jesus speaking to us. In fact, Abraham’s experience could also be said to be one of hearing. He could have been so caught up with “obeying” what he felt was God’s desire for him that he missed out hearing what God was truly asking.
From John’s Gospel, we hear that before the Incarnation, Jesus was the Word of the Father from eternity. In the Word becoming flesh, it means that speech defines man. Yet, the Word must have come from silence. According to Cardinal Sarah, “although speech characterises man, silence is what defines him, because speech acquires sense only in terms of this silence”. Hence, Lent requires that we have to listen to Jesus Christ if we ever want to be saved and, like Abraham, to offer God the best. This best of who we are is symbolised by self-abnegation, the very example seen through Jesus’ life. This explains the quintessential Catholic practice of self-denial which achieves two objectives—a training for the moment that we will be called to give ourselves totally to God and also teaching us to tune out some of the voices we hear so that we can pay closer attention to the One voice that matters. There is only One voice that saves. It is the One voice of the Shepherd.
[1] Otherwise, who is He? By our utter lack of deference, we have somewhat irreverently reduced God to a nobody.
[2] The Transfiguration is actually God’s answer to Man’s quest for the Divine, our longing for the Saviour. Ever since Babel, man has been finding ways of accessing salvation.
[3] In the Transfiguration, there, in the midst of Jesus’ display of His divinity, we discover the answer to how we can reach up to God. Firstly, we can stand before the Father through the one oblation that can stand up to God’s scrutiny. Secondly, our dignity before God is to be found in Jesus Christ who through His self-sacrifice is the best offering of all.
