As we continue our Lenten journey this second Sunday of Lent, again, we have a reading that is always on the Second Sunday of Lent – the Transfiguration of Jesus. This year, we hear Luke’s version, and it is situated shortly after the Baptism of Jesus in Luke’s Gospel. Early on in Luke’s Gospel, the apostles are still trying to grasp the extent of who Jesus is, and this experience of transcendence at Jesus’s Transfiguration is one way they come to understand Jesus’ connection to God and adhere to God’s words to “listen to Him” throughout Jesus’s ministry. This experience allows them a glimpse into Jesus’ glory and the memory of this will help carry them through difficult times of following Jesus during His life and after His death.

Our first reading is also a story of getting to know God as it is towards the beginning of Abram’s introduction to God. God promised Abram a land and descendants to number the stars, and Abram trusts God, but also wants to know a few more details, “how am I to know that I am to possess it?” God does not chastise Abram for wanting some reassurance, and God does not abandon Abram for a more faithful and trusting servant, but instead, God allows time for Abram to come to trust in God’s promises. God and Abram participate in a covenant ceremony, familiar to Abram; yet it takes time and patience on Abram’s part to await God’s presence in the covenant. It is clear in this story at the beginning of our salvation history, that God chooses to be in relationship with His people. God’s revelation to Abram, the heart of many faiths, shows God to be connected, concerned and desiring a relationship with us. God’s willingness to enter into a covenant with Abram, in a form familiar to Abram, is a sign that indeed, this God comes to meet us where we are.

In both passages, before the glory of God in the first reading and Jesus in the Gospel is revealed, there is a time of darkness and confusion. There is also quite a bit of time that passes before God appears in the covenant ceremony in our Genesis reading and that Jesus’s true glory is eventually revealed to the disciples in our Gospel.  Perhaps that is something we can sit with this second week of Lent.   Wanting reassurance from God in these readings is not a sign of a lack of faith, but there is a great deal of patience, perseverance in times of darkness, and trust needed to make it to the true moments of revelation. As we continue our fasting, prayer and almsgiving this Lenten season, may we be reassured that God comes to meet us where we are and that, indeed, God chooses to be ever so close to us in ways that we can grasp.