.webp)
Saint Sophrony of Essex speaks to us
“Behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them; and behold a voice out of the cloud, saying:
This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear Him.” (Matthew 17:5)
Today, on the occasion of this great church feast – a feast which, as our earthly journey approaches its end, not only does not diminish, but rather, ceaselessly grows in its power and significance – we will allow ourselves to speak, forgetting our weakness, about “the unapproachable and never-setting Light” that shone on Mount Tabor. I beg you, overlook my insignificance at this moment; close your eyes to my ignorance and lowliness, and, if possible, look upon me as one of the watchmen of Mount Ephraim who cried out: “Arise and go up to Zion, to the Lord your God” (Jeremiah 31:6).
God, He who made heaven and earth, is our God from our mother’s womb. After our physical birth, before we had learned to “discern our right hand from our left” (cf. Jonah 4:11) we also received, in the font of Baptism, the second birth, from above, and upon us was marked “the great and terrible name even to the heavenly Powers”, of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; and after this we received the other priceless gift, about which our soul cannot speak or think without trembling, namely the anointing in the Holy Spirit, the seal of whose sanctification was placed on all the members of our body with these words of the Mystery: “The Seal of the Gift of the Holy Spirit.” And thus we became “a dwelling place for the Most High God”, and our bodies, “a temple of the Holy Spirit” (I Corinthians 6:19).
From our childhood years we are nourished in the Church with the Divine Body and Blood of Christ. We are His children, flesh of His Flesh and blood of His Blood. From our youth we live in the atmosphere of God’s Word which opens up the boundless horizons of knowing the God without beginning, our Father, even from here, before we taste the happiness of eternal dwelling with Him and in Him. In our Church, we live daily in an unspeakable abundance of all spiritual riches, and the grateful soul bursts forth crying: “Rich indeed is our God; “being everywhere present and filling all things”, He unceasingly embraces all of us and each one individually.”
And behold, despite all these things, we find ourselves poor in spirit. Within the limits of earthly life, insatiable is the hunger and unquenchable is the thirst to know God; for our yearning is to reach the Unattainable, to see the Invisible, to know the Boundless. This yearning ceaselessly grows in every person, if the Light of the Godhead has deigned to enlighten him, even through the slightest approach of Himself, for then it is revealed to the eyes of our mind in what abyss of darkness we are. This vision astonishes the entire person, and from then on, the soul knows no rest, nor can it obtain it, until it has been freed from the darkness that holds it, until it has been satisfied with the Food of which one is never satiated, until this Light has multiplied within it, and until it has united with it, so that the Light and the soul have become one, transforming our poverty into divine glory.
If the Lord was Transfigured, we too shall be transfigured
The Transfiguration of the Lord is the firm foundation of our hope for the transfiguration of our entire life, now full of toil, pains, and fear, into incorruptible life, like God's. However, this ascent to “the high mountain” (Matthew 17:1) of the Transfiguration is accompanied by great spiritual struggle. Not infrequently, at first, weakness overwhelms us in this struggle, and despair begins to seize our soul. In hours of torment, when we are on the threshold between the unapproachable Light of the Godhead, which draws us towards It, and the terrifying „the outer darkness”, let us remember the teaching of our Fathers who followed Christ on this path and, „girding our loins”, let us strengthen ourselves with manly hope in Him who holds in His palm, without any effort, the entire creation. The remembrance that all that was accomplished in the life of the Son of Man must be repeated, similarly, in our lives, will free us from all fear and all faint-heartedness. Behold our common path, of all, according to Christ's own word: „I am the way”; and not only, but it is the only way, for „no one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6).
If the Lord was tempted (cf. Hebrews 4:15), we too must undoubtedly pass through the fire of temptation; if the Lord was persecuted and wronged, we too will be persecuted by the same powers that persecuted Christ; if Christ suffered and was crucified, neither shall we escape suffering and crucifixion − perhaps on unseen crosses −, only if we truly follow Him in the ways of our hearts. If the Lord was transfigured, we too shall be transfigured, and even here, on earth, only if we resemble Him in our inner aspirations. If the Lord died and rose again, then all who believe in Him will pass through death, will lie in tombs, and then will rise again like Him, if they have also died like Him. The faithful will rise first with the soul, and then, on the day of the common Resurrection, also in the body. If the Lord, after His Resurrection, „was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God” (Mark 16:19) in His glorified body, then we too, in the glorified bodies of our resurrection, in the power of the Holy Spirit, shall ascend to heaven and become „co-heirs with Christ and partakers of the Divine Nature” (cf. Romans 8:17; 2 Peter 1:4).
All that we have mentioned until now was accomplished with the Lord not according to His Godhead, but according to His human nature, that is, on the plane where the Lord is consubstantial with us, as the Son of Man. The Lord, the Word without beginning, by becoming incarnate, received into His Person, into His Divine Hypostasis, our human nature; not in appearance, but truly becoming like us, humans. Thus, He showed forth divine perfection in our body, leaving us a „pattern” (John 13:15) which „many prophets and righteous men desired to see” (Matthew 13:17), and which we are now obliged to realize, each in our own life, so that, by our resemblance to Christ according to the pattern of earthly life, we may become like Him also according to the pattern of divine existence.
It shall shine also on us, sinners, the Light of the Godhead
I beg you, let us not lose heart upon hearing the words of this teaching, but let us awaken in spirit and open our hearts to receive with simplicity the good news of Christ. The Lord said with His mouth: „Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). And we, undoubtedly, by the power of Christ, will overcome with this victory over the world, to become with Him partakers of the eternal Kingdom in heaven.
In order to fulfill the commandment: „Go, and stand and speak in the temple to the people all the words of this life” (Acts 5:20), I speak to you about this. For these are „the words of eternal life” (John 6:68), given by the Lord as an unshakable inheritance to the faithful; this is the preaching of the Apostles and the dogmas of the Fathers, this is our Orthodox faith and the unshakeable hope, which shall not be put to shame, for its foundation is the unfailing testimony of the Lord. And if false humility would call this an immeasurable boldness, or even madness, then let us remember the Apostle Paul who, on the one hand, casting off faint-heartedness, on the other hand, the unseemly pride of the carnal mind, says that God „was pleased, through the foolishness of the message preached, to save those who believe”, „casting off the wisdom of the wise” and „making foolish the wisdom of this world” (cf. I Corinthians 1:18-21).
Every day, human experience shows us that the wise and skillful of this age cannot follow Christ neither on Tabor, nor on Golgotha, nor on the Mount of Olives. And so, beloved, come, and in the power of faith „let us ascend to the mountain of the Lord” (Isaiah 2:3), „and standing immaterially in the city of the living God, with uplifted minds let us see the immaterial Godhead of the Father and of the Spirit shining in the Only-begotten Son”.
Let us ascend, of course, not with proud boldness, but with fear and trembling, as unworthy of this ascent and vision, but at the same time with the hope that, for the boundless mercy of the Heavenly Father, there will shine „even upon us, sinners, the eternally existing light” of the Godhead, whose unbearable splendor, on Tabor, cast down to the ground the chosen Apostles.
(to be continued)
From „The Birth into the Unshakeable Kingdom”,
Reîntregirea Publishing House, 2003