Save as PDFIn the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit!
Today is the Great Twelve Feast – the Transfiguration of the Lord. The Gospel of Matthew tells us about this wonderful event (Mt. 17: 1-6)
Thinking over this Gospel text we ask a question: what happened on Mount Tabor? What kind of the Divine radiance was it? What event took place six days before the Tabor Transfiguration? This event was wonderful: the Lord openly told His disciples that He must suffer (Mt. 16:21) and finished his address to them with the following words: “there are some of those who are standing here who shall not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His Kingdom”. (Mt. 16:28). According to the commentaries of St. Gregory Palamas, archbishop of Thessalonica, the Transfiguration of the Lord was the appearance of the Kingdom of God – the Kingdom to which Christ belonged by His Divine Nature The Divine Light on Mount Tabor wasn’t of physical nature, the reflection of the Sun – it was the Divine Light; and the Apostles saw the light not with their physical eyes, because they saw something more than only the light. How did the Apostles know that near the Saviour were Moses and Elijah? The thing is that there were no pictures, no description of their appearance. However, the Apostle Peter correctly defines that here were Moses and Elijah. The Apostles see something different than ordinary human reality – they see different world and see it with spiritual eyes which opened at once. The light they see is not the light which went down to Mount Tabor for a moment and then disappeared; it’s the light which was constantly with Christ, it’s the light of the Kingdom of God, it’s the light of eternity.
St. Gregory Palamas affirms that the vision of the glory of the Transfiguration is the vision of the glory of the eighth day of the creation. It is known that the world was created for six days and on the seventh day the Lord rested after all His work of creating. The eight day is the day of the Transfiguration of the whole world which according to Gregory Palamas will come when the physical world is destroyed by sin. Then there will come the eighth day of the Kingdom of God. But how important is the revelation given to the disciples on Mount Tabor? The eighth day won’t come after the history of mankind, it already exists now. It’s the parallel world; it’s the world of the Kingdom of God which we don’t see with physical eyes, which we can’t touch because our eyes are closed by the sin; but the reality of the Divine world doesn’t become less and isn’t gloomed by anything. This world exists and each of us, like the Apostles is given a chance to touch this world already in this life. When we take the Sacrament, when we cleanse our soul by penance, when our heart beats joyfully during the Divine Liturgy, we touch the eighth day of creation, the Kingdom of God not by physical eyes and hands but by our hearts. That’s why the first exclamation of the Liturgy reminds us about the Kingdom, “Blessed is the Kingdom of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”. Through the Church, through the Liturgy we become participants of this Kingdom, and thus participants of the Transfiguration. What we will see after our death is opened to us, of course, not to a full extent but as the Apostle Paul says “ in a mirror dimply” (1 Cor.13:12)
In the troparion of the feast of the Transfiguration one can see the following idea: the Lord transfigured Himself before His disciples as much as they could perceive this Transfiguration. And the Lord transfigured Himself before the disciples to strengthen their faith, so that when they see Him crucified, they will remember this glory of the transfigured Saviour on Mount Tabor. So, here on the earth we are given great happiness to touch different Divine World so that we can find faith and strength to live according to God’s law. Amen.