A Necessary Detour (2nd Sunday of Lent)

Fr. Ernald Andal, SJ
2nd Sunday of Lent
February 25, 2018

If there’s one line that we love to say to others but hate hearing others say to us, it would probably be that phrase: “I told you so!” Somehow, even if we try to hold back, we still find it so gratuitously satisfying to say to others who failed miserably precisely because they’ve ignored our warnings those words: “I told you so.”

I bet if Peter had a chance, he would have told Jesus just before he got arrested at Gethsemane: Had we put up and stayed on those tents for you, Moses and Elijah, you wouldn’t find yourself in this mess. You didn’t listen. Well, I told you so! That fear of hearing those words can sometimes be enough for most of us to stop taking risks and simply stay within our comfort zones.

Not for our Lord. In his mind, in his heart, his mission was clear. And, I feel this trip to that high mountain was a necessary detour, a “retreat” in a way to firm up his resolve. He probably had a sense that his day of reckoning was coming, but he also knew it was also our day of redemption. To follow the will of the Father…to love us out of our sin, to love us back to life, even if that would mean, his very own passion and death.

By retreating back to His Father, by conversing with the prophets of faith, by being with his dear friends, our Lord took courage and found deep consolation in the words of our God… “this is my beloved Son.” And I suppose, those words coming from God’s voice repeated as a refrain were key to his own discernment of His mission—at peace with the will of the loving Father and not merely, or should I say fanatically imprudent and gung-ho with the task at hand.

He too discerned, I believe. Much like, I suppose how St. Ignatius would speak about the discernment of spirits: looking at the “motions of the soul…our innermost thoughts,, inclinations, desires,, repulsions, and attractions… becoming sensitive to these stirrings, pondering on them, and appreciating where they come from and where they lead us”…and gradually hearing more clearly the voice that moves us closer to our Father.

And so it probably was, for our Lord Jesus, taking his very own leap of faith towards the Father… No cross, no whip, no nails would stop him from offering His Love–God’s love for our sake. For hearing that voice he was assured of one thing, the most important thing about the mission ahead of him—His Father’s love. It is this love, after all, that will conquer evil with goodness, soothe pain with compassion, and wipe away guilt with mercy.

Indeed there was something in that brief shining moment, in his discernment, that allowed our Lord Jesus to see beyond Friday’s suffering and look ahead to the glorious promise of Easter morn.

Today, the Lord invites us as well, not to allow our internalized fears in our head to stop us from making a leap of faith and looking at the promise of Easter in our lives…not to allow doubts in our hearts to stop us from changing our sinful patterns, from reconciling our broken relations, from restoring justice and truth in our wounded lives.

An American poet and teacher once said (Stephen Levine), “We are motivated more by an aversion to the unpleasant than by a will toward truth, freedom, or healing. We are constantly attempting to escape our life, to avoid rather than enter our pain, and we wonder why it is so difficult to be fully alive.”

The Lord invites us then to live… to live daring and discerning lives…retreating as often as necessary to seek God’s will and then taking courage in fulfilling it promptly and diligently. Like the Lord who discerned his mission, let us not remain within the false safety of our tents, but carry on with our journey believing firmly in our Father’s assurance who tells us every step of the way, we are also His beloved. AMEN.