2nd Sunday of Lent 2026
Genesis 12:1-4; 2Tim 1;8-10; Matthew 17:1-9
Did you know that the Gospel of the Transfiguration crops up twice in every year? The Feast of the Transfiguration occurs in August, and we hear of it also every Second Sunday of Lent. On the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Sundays, the Gospel varies according to the three year cycle, but on the First Sunday it is always the Temptations in the Wilderness, and on the Second Sunday always the Transfiguration.
Why should this be? The Wilderness is fairly obvious, because Lent is the time for us to enter the wilderness with Jesus and, along with Him, to resist temptation to the best of our ability, but why should we always hear about the Transfiguration?
I suspect, though I stand open to correction, that there are at least two reasons. Firstly, we receive the first hint of Jesus’ forthcoming death. Matthew’s account ends with the Lord’s command “Tell no one about the vision until the Son of Man is raised from the dead.” Secondly, that command prepares us also for the Resurrection, and indeed, the Transfiguration is a foretaste of the Resurrection, encouraging not only us, but Jesus Himself, with the promise of glory to come.
There are three more people whom that vision is intended to encourage. When will we encounter the trio of Peter, James, and John again? Give yourself two gold stars if you remember that these three are to accompany Jesus into the inner part of the Garden of Gethsemane, to be the closest witnesses of His Agony. Their role as witnesses of the Transfiguration might have nerved them to face the horror of Holy Thursday night, but it didn’t. Instead, in the garden, they were overwhelmed by dismay, and took refuge in sleep.
What else may the Transfiguration offer us? Well, what about your own Transfiguration experiences? “What do you mean?” you may ask. Have there been times in your own life when you realised that you were happy, that you were filled with joy? Perhaps it happened when you fell in love, or when you looked into the eyes of your newborn child. Suddenly, everything made sense, and you wanted to stay in that moment for ever.
For me, summer Wednesday afternoons or evenings in childhood brought those experiences. Wednesday was half day closing in our shop, and in the summer holidays Mum, Dad and I, my sister having left home by this point, would often go for long local walks, as my Dad knew Lancaster and District like the back of his hand.
I remember particularly one afternoon, when we joined the canal towpath at Deep Cutting, Scotforth; followed it to Aldcliffe, where we walked up the hill, then down to Stodday, alongside the Glasson Dock railway line to Freeman’s Wood, then through the wood to the Marsh, where we caught the bus home. Many years later, during my running days, I would follow that same route, but extend it up Abraham Heights, then down to Fairfield, through the Pad Fields, back to the canal and to Deep Cutting.
That always brought sheer joy, and I would have loved to stay in the moment for ever. We can’t though, can we? We have to allow the moment to fade, just as the three apostles had to let their Transfiguration experience fade. Peter tries to hold onto it—that is why he wants to build three tents in order that they can stay there for ever, but it cannot be.
Like Abraham before him, and like us today, he has to move on, because we are always a pilgrim people, journeying further and deeper along the way that the Lord calls us, returning from the mountain to the valley of everyday life, and perhaps to the Garden of the Agony.
When they emerge from the bright cloud, Peer, James, and john discover that Moses and Elijah have disappeared. Why should this be, and why had they been there in the first place? It is because they represent respectively the Law and the Prophets—the Old Covenant—and they are now, as it were, absorbed into Jesus, who is the fulfilment of both Law and Prophets, indicated by the Father’s voice as the One to whom we must now listen.
You and I have had and will have our Transfiguration moments. Enjoy them, rejoice in them while they last, but do not attempt to hold onto them. They must pass, but the memory of them should encourage us as we continue our journey, both our Lenten journey and our life’s journey with the Lord, sometimes to Gethsemane and Calvary, but ultimately to the Resurrection.
