Second Sunday in Lent C.  February 28, 2010.   Our Lady of Grace 5:15, 9:30, 6PM.  Genesis 15: 5-12,17-18. Philippians 3: 17 – 4: 1.  Luke 9:26b-36.

Judy Garland was a movie star almost from the time that she could walk.  She was a very cute and talented little girl.  Of course, we all know Judy Garland as Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz.  At age 17 the Wizard of Oz made her an international star.  The song Dorothy sings at the beginning of this film, before a tornado transports her into the land of OZ, became the theme song for the rest of Judy Garland’s life.  Trapped as a lonely girl on a farm in Kansas Dorothy sings:

Somewhere over the rainbow

Way up high,

There's a land that I heard of

Once in a lullaby.

Somewhere over the rainbow

Skies are blue,

And the dreams that you dare to dream

Really do come true.

Judy Garland stared in many well known moves. At the same time she was battling alcoholism and drugs and going through five husbands. At a concert in London Judy refused to sing “Somewhere over the Rainbow” - her theme song.  That night she stumbled into her hotel bathroom and died of an overdose of barbiturates, the drug that had plagued her much of her life.  She was only 47 years old.  Judy Garland was rich, famous, beautiful and very talented.  She seemed to have it all and in the end she had nothing.  What happened to her between the time that she was Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz and the tired and broken woman she had become when she took her life 30 years later?  Perhaps there was just nothing for her on the other side of the rainbow she sang about. Why are some people triumphant over life’s tragedies while other people are destroyed by life’s blessings?

“Jesus took Peter, John and James and went up the mountain to pray.”  Jesus had already spoken about his approaching death once.   Jesus said, “The Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised from the dead.” (Luke 9:22)   Having returned after facing himself in the desert and confronting the devil face to face Jesus understood the human temptation to run from the truth.  He was going to be rejected and nailed to a cross.  That was the simple and hard reality of his life.  Those were the cold facts.  The religious and political leaders of his day were not open to him or his message.  That didn’t mean that he wasn’t right or would not win in the end.  It meant that the path to success was going to be a hard one which involved being rejected by the vast crowd of the people and being nailed to a painful cross.  How does a person accept suffering and death as the only way that leads to victory and life?  A lot depends on what we see on the other side. 

As a young woman Joan of Arc got actively involved in the struggle between England and France. She said that she heard voices which told her to unite her country and put an end to the invasion of France by the English.  In the end she was sold to the English and condemned to death by a Church court for heresy and for being a witch.  She was burned at the stake for refusing to change her story about her visions and voices.  She died in the midst of the flames reaching out for a cross and shouting the name of Jesus. This all happened in 1431.  Eventually many of the English saw the virtue of this heroic woman.  The findings of the Church court were reversed and Joan of Arc was declared a Saint of the Roman Catholic Church in 1920.   Where do we find the courage to travel the hard road of our lives even when it means investing all we have and laying down our lives for what we believe?  A lot depends on what we see on the other side.

While Jesus was praying with his disciples “his face changed in appearance and his clothing became dazzling white.  And behold two men were conversing with him, Moses and Elijah,, who appeared in glory and spoke of his exodus that he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem.”  Jesus again goes to a deserted place to pray.  This time he opens his heart to understand the meaning of his life.   If his life only meant losing the battle with the religious and political leaders and being subjected to a very cruel death how could he accept it?  How could he endure it?  But Jesus saw his life as an “exodus.”   Just as the Jewish people saw freedom and a new promised land on the other side of their struggle with Pharaoh and the Egyptians, Jesus saw resurrection on the other side of his suffering and death.  He was making an exodus through the Red Sea of his blood.  It was a true journey to a promised land on the other side.   The vision of heavenly glory at the time of his Transfiguration gave the humanity of Jesus the courage and the grace to complete the great exodus of the Cross.

Without desert time we will not understand or deal well with our desires, our fears, our faults and our values. We simply will not know ourselves.  During his 40 days in the desert Jesus learned to deal with his inner self.  Jesus learned to face himself and face the God deep within himself.  On the Mountain of the Transfiguration Jesus learned to see the whole of his life.  Jesus learned to accept pain and suffering for the sake of resurrection and glory.  Jesus learned to look beyond the rough road that lay ahead of him to the Promised Land at the other end of the road of his life.  If we cannot name or understand our suffering and trials in a way which makes them a road to a heavenly place beyond we will die on the road and never reach the Promised Land. 

When Abraham was a very old man God said to him, “Look up at the sky and count the stars if you can.  Just so,” he added, “shall your descendants be.” “Abraham put his faith in the Lord, who credited it to him as an act of righteousness.”  For our faith-vision of the Promised Land on the other end of the often rough road of life we give God thanks and praise.