| The “Exaposteilarion” hymn of Matins on the Great Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord, reads: “O You Word, Untransformable Light, the Light uncreated, by this light which has shown today on Tabor, we have seen the Father’s light and the Spirit’s light, lighting the whole of creation”. There is precious little doubt, that the Transfiguration is the Great Feast of light. In fact, it is often referred to as the feast of Taboric Light, from the holy place where the startling splendor of Christ’s light was revealed to Peter, James and John. It was in that mystic moment that Divinity touched the world once again as it did in the Holy Nativity.
These are days when we need the light. A global pandemic has laid siege to the world and our country teeters between hopelessness and confusion. Millions are unemployed and walk in the darkness of mounting bills, hunger, homelessness, and the haunting fear that “the center has given way” and there is no longer certainty or meaning. Light in this dark time is more than essential than ever. In the celebration of the Lord’s Transfiguration, we see and experience that Light. – light for the world, light for us as individuals, light for the anawim Yahweh – the destitute and wretched of the earth. Blessed Seraphim of Platina phrased it this way: “In the foreshadowing of future glory which is celebrated in this Feast, in that Divine Light, the Holy Church comforts her children by showing them that after the temporary sorrows and deprivations with which this earthly life is filled, the glory of eternal blessedness will shine forth; and in it even the body of the righteous will participate.” Taboric light renews life. It changes us deep within and it is that inner transformation that forms the basis of our Orthodox spirituality. It was that momentary “vision” of God which the three Apostles experienced that was the reason the early Greek Fathers gave this feast the title – metamorphosis – a total change, a redefinition of the self, a re-making of that which had become tired, and burdened, and perhaps even spiritually numb. The Divine Light not only revealed a change in Christ from His normal appearance, it effected a change in the three and, in fact, can effect the same change in us. Our holy father St. John Chrysostom wrote: “Thus, this Light is not a light of the senses, and those contemplating it do not simply see with the eyes of the body, but rather, they are changed by the power of the Divine Spirit. They were transformed, and only in this way did they see the transformation taking place amidst their very vulnerability and perishability. This deification (theosis) occurred in them through union with the Word of God in the power of the Holy Spirit. There it is! There is the secret of the Taboric light – in it and through it we can become, by the power of the Holy Spirit, ourselves “divine” – that which God is by His very nature and we become by grace. It is that deification than can move us from despair to hope, from being victims of the world’s randomness to genuine meaning, from darkness to God’s marvelous light! The Prophet Jeremiah anticipated this great Christic coming when he wrote: “”One will come who is like Tabor among the mountains, like Carmel by the sea” (Jeremiah 46.18) God’s voice at Creation – “Let there be light!”—was yet another precursor of the advent of Christ-Light into our history and our flesh. He who became changed for us, changes us completely – if we, like those three stunned Apostles, bend in reverential awe and see, if but for a fraction of a second, the very face of God. Moses could not see it on Sinai. The other nine Apostles were not blessed to see it in their day to day walking with Jesus. Yet you and I can experience it with the eyes of our soul if we engage in the labor of the soul. Yet what precisely is this deification (theosis)? What is the spiritual, soul-work, we need to do? Long before the Holy Church even began to celebrate the Transfiguration of the Lord in Jerusalem in the 7th century, and throughout most of the Byzantine Empire by the 9th, the Apostle Paul intimated it in his First Epistle to the Corinthians: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man, what things God has prepared for those who love Him. But to us God has revealed them through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God” (1 Cor 2:9-10). For those who love Him…this is the key to deification (theosis) – love. St. Sophrony of Essex, spiritual child of St. Silouan of Mt. Athos, wrote of this light that changes us: “This Light penetrates us with the power of God, we become ‘without beginning’––not through our origin but by the gift of Grace: life without beginning is communicated to us. And there is no limit to the outpouring of the Father’s love for us. It is that love by which a person becomes identical with God – not in God’s essence but in His loving energies that are in us and visit the world through us.” This is the process of deification – coming closer everyday to God and His unending love. It means changing (metamorphosis) our attitudes, priorities, and lifestyle in accord with His plan for our lives. This was what Jesus wished the three Apostles to know and experience – God’s face, His closeness, His approachability and to feel His power to make them new again. What does this Taboric Light mean for you and me? It means that we must be willing and ready to change – putting the Transfigured Lord at the center of our individual lives, how we speak, how and what we think. It means living from the inside out, being soul-based, rather than the outside in where the world and its principalities seek to master and control us. It means replacing our ego and self-centeredness with the tenderness and humility of the One born in a bleak manger. It requires us to extricate our Orthodox faith from the sterility of our heads and return to our hearts where the light lives, and moves, and has its being. This reminds us of the words of Dostoevsky: “He who desires to see the living God face to face should seek him not in the empty firmament of the mind, but in human love.” We have the spiritual tools to get this work of deification done by the power of the Holy Spirit – attendance at the Divine Mysteries, regular Confession, daily and constant prayer, fasting when directed, daily reading of God’s Holy Word in Scripture, the study of the Orthodox faith and her Saints and other holy ones, doing the works of love and compassion at home and for others, and taking good care of the church, our faith community. These are pathways to the light, roads to our inner selves. They are not easy but they are certain, if followed, to bring us to that “peace which the world cannot give.” These are not new insights for you, but are they insights that you faithfully practice in your daily lives? There is no one who enters the blessed Kingdom of the Father because of their cleverness, their degrees, or their status in the world. They enter only if they have personally accepted the light of love and revealed it on this side of the grave. The Great Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord reveals precisely that – “love Divine, all loves excelling.” (Charles Wesley) On this blessed feast, I leave you with the words of our holy father, St. Symeon the New Theologian, taken from one of his hymns. Read them prayerfully. Place yourself in his words and everyday search for the Light! “He Himself is discovered within me, resplendent inside my wretched heart, enlightening me from all sides with His immortal splendor, shining on all of my members with His rays. Entirely intertwined with me, He embraces me entirely. He gives Himself totally to me, the unworthy one, and I am filled with His love and beauty. I am sated with pleasure and Divine tenderness. I share in the Light. I participate also in the glory. My face shines like that of my beloved and all my members become bearers of Light.” Faithfully in the Transfigured Lord, |
