Recently during a Saint Vincent De Paul home visit, a young lady shared how she was struggling to make ends meet in order to pay her bills. She shared how after having been incarcerated, she was reunited with her two children, and now was trying to rekindle the relationship with her children, seeking out ways to better provide for her family and herself. She talked about how she was intentionally entering into conversations with her mother, to find out more of her mother’s upbringing, as a way to possibly understand some of the life situations she was encountering herself. She expressed both fear and hope at the same time as she attempted to follow where she felt she was called to go at this time in her life.

On that same day, while my father and I were waiting to see his doctor on a follow-up visit for recent surgery he had, those around us in the waiting room struck up a conversation. One person shared how he had put off having surgery on his arm since the 1970’s because he just couldn’t find the time to have it done. Another younger person shared after 8 unsuccessful knee surgeries, he was not willing to have another surgery. An older man in the group, blithely answered the younger man’s comment with, “just wait until you get older. That’s when the real fun starts.” Looking at my Dad, the other elder in the group, the man asked him “Isn’t that right?” To which my Dad replied with a wry smile, “I haven’t found that out yet.” Everyone chuckled.

Without warning, the conversation took a big turn, when the man who had talked about not having the needed arm surgery suddenly shared that years ago he had died on the side of a road and was brought back to life. He shared how he had actually seen himself lying on the side of the road as the emergency team worked on him to bring him back to life. He told us that he had been ‘clean’ from drug and alcohol addiction for several years as a result of this. “It changed my life. I know there’s something on the other side. And I’m not scared,” he told us. After a short pause, my Dad looked up at him and with confident hope replied, “there’s nothing to be afraid of, and it’s going to happen to all of us.”

In our lives, things do not work out the way we expect them to so many times. The unexpected ‘twists of fate’ can be experienced as discouraging, frustrating, and maddening. Unexpected events can also serve to give us pleasure, excitement, and empowerment. Many times we become comfortable in familiar surroundings and patterns of living, and something happens that disrupts this, or even more devastatingly, ruptures this. Sometimes the very patterns of our lives account for the disruptions. In each of these experiences, we may be left with unanswered questions, concern and fear, sometimes resentment, but also we can experience a strange sense of unexplained mystery that calls forth of all things hope into the possibilities of the unknown. We can be transformed in a way that is not just a re-formation of the familiar past but an outlook or perspective that can even welcome the unknown newness just beyond the known horizon.

Is this what we are hearing in the scriptures for the Second Sunday of Lent. In Genesis (Gn 12:1-4a), we hear:

The LORD said to Abram:
“Go forth from the land of your kinsfolk
and from your father’s house to a land that I will show you…
Abram went as the LORD directed him.

Abram was called from everything that he was familiar with, called to trust this mysterious yet seductive Voice and go somewhere totally unknown. The promise given was that he would be ‘blessed,’ but it was not clear exactly what this might mean.

In the Gospel (Mt 17:1-9) we hear: Jesus took Peter, James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. Once there, we hear how Jesus was brilliantly transfigured before their eyes. After Moses and Elijah show up on the scene, Peter in his excitement exclaims:

“Lord, it is good that we are here.”

And then, another big turn in the story…

a bright cloud cast a shadow over them,
then from the cloud came a voice that said,
“This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.”
When the disciples heard this, they fell prostrate and were very much afraid.

So, for the three disciples, first there was this vision of brilliant glory that seemed to mesh with their whole past, confirming it in its familiarity (Moses and Elijah) and then… a BIG shadow of mystery overtakes them. From a bright cloud a shadow came over them. To say that they did not know what to make of this is quite an understatement. They were downright frightened.

But Jesus came and touched them, saying,
“Rise, and do not be afraid.”

Where does this reassurance come from? What issues in this new hope, or maybe more to the point, this hope in newness? Sometimes it may seem clear, but other times, and maybe more often than not, it is a mystery. And part of that mystery is darkness, the unknown, and many times suffering – Death! The bright cloud casts a shadow and the Divine voice issues forth. And then “rise and do not be afraid.” Both from above and below, we are called along into the mysterious and glorious Christ journey. We are called to rise up into the dark mystery’s horizon with outlines of hope!

Like the woman freed from incarceration, and Abram called from his homeland, and the man called back from the dead, and the disciples blinded by the brilliant shadow of the bright cloud – we are called into unknown newness. Interestingly, what lights up this unknown newness in the Christ presence is a Divine Shadow – an unforeseeable freedom that we are drawn into!

We are not always freed by something we know. In fact, I would say that we are liberated by something totally unexpected and surprising – sometimes shocking! Anxiety and pain seem to be part of the mix so many times. And this freedom is not granted on account of something we do, but something we allow – in hope! It’s a leaning INTO! Leaning into the shadows and the deaths of our own lives, bearing the brightness of the bright divine cloud that is always overshadowing us and calling us to rise up!

Paul explains it to Timothy (2 Tm 1:8b-10) this way:
He saved us and called us to a holy life,
not according to our works
but according to his own design
and the grace bestowed on us in Christ Jesus before time began…

The call to be holy can come in unexpected ways and very painful circumstances. The loss of control, the thwarting of our efforts, and disruption of our planned lives are divine invitations to listen, just as the voice from the cloud in the Gospel tells the disciples. The Divine shadow is not meant to frighten us but instead it is a call to rise up! Wherever we are and whoever we are!

Hope is born right at the edge of darkness many times – just on the edge of the shadows. We don’t like to look at our shadows, but sometimes we can only see the divine distinctions in our lives, by looking at our shadows in the face of death, and allowing the Divine Shadow of Christ, to illuminate and transform them for us! In this Divine Shadow we have the capacity to be changed, raised, and transformed in the hope of Newness.