Sunday Reflection with Canon Robin Gibbons: 5th March 2023

The Tranfiguration, St Catherine's Monastery

Second Sunday in Lent

Encountering Christ in the Transfiguration

Whatever others might say, I find that the event of the Transfiguration of Jesus on the mountain has always been an encounter I respond to both emotionally and intellectually through scriptural word, prayer and liturgy. It reaches into my very being, but by meditating on it and celebrating the liturgical feast connected to it, I now understand it as an attested event and not some myth. This is more than comforting, for immersing in the transfiguration brings me to a place in my own faith where I confess the need and love for Christ, recognise the authentic testimony the Spirit speaking in the depths, and accept the truthfulness of witnesses in their encounter, which for me by them is all made abundantly manifest. In the second letter of Peter, the writer alludes to the simple but important fact, that he and others were actually present at the transfiguration of Jesus on the holy mountain, not only by seeing that encounter of Christ transfused and brilliant in light, but also hearing the voice of the Father both indicating a deep infinite relationship between Christ and the Father. More than that I, like you, can also be a witness to this; our Gospel this second Sunday in Lent takes us there, journeying during prayer and liturgy far beyond our time to that meeting-place of God's time, where we too are now-but can only like Peter glimpse and wonder, and yet hope and know that the fullness of this encounter will be fully revealed and present to us in the Kingdom.

Peter's Attestation

Here is the attestation of Peter: "16 For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. 17 For when he received honour and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, "This is my beloved Son,1 with whom I am well pleased," 18 we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain'. (2 Peter 1:16-21)

During this Lent, with Peter we too can say; 'Lord it is good for us to be here' and like him not yet fully comprehend what great and divine mystery plays around and about us. In an age when we seem to be either too simplistically gullible or intellectually cynical about religion, our encounters with the Holy One need very careful handling. The transfiguration is much more than the sensational visions and apparitions people chat about on social media. Its message and encounter with the Divine is not one of countdown to Armageddon, nor does it carry an implicit passive aggressive threat about God being displeased or Christ hurt by our behaviour. No, if anything this Sunday's gospel takes us to two points of reference, both of which are directly rooted in the relationship Christ(and we) has with the Triune and Holy God.

The Transfiguration and our Lenten journey

In order to discern those two points we need to ask ourselves why does this particular gospel appear in Lent? Firstly because it is an anticipation of what is to come. The transfiguration revealed Christ's glory prior to the crucifixion but points us to the resurrection and ascension, and so as we move through this period leading up to the Triduum, those great and high holy days culminating in Holy Pascha, the liturgy and our celebrations complete the themes of epiphany or revelations into the person and work of Christ Jesus.

Secondly it reminds us more forcibly of our destiny as Christians, especially when we link Lent to the catechumenal preparation of Baptism and our own renewal of baptismal promises. To what as faithful Christians we too are becoming and will be; that is the glorification of our human nature in Christ. It's a tall order to take all this on board at once, but my own suggestion is that you might think and ponder over this and two further points.

Two Points to Ponder

Firstly what does this journey of Lent mean to you in terms of your faith-road, that camino royale which began with your Baptism, Communion and Confirmation, perhaps received long ago? How do you think your own faith and example will help those seeking baptism this Easter, or bring back those hurt and estranged by the Church? That I leave with you to mull over.

The second point takes us further and deeper still. Can you reach into memory and prayer and gather your own transfigurations, for they will have taken place! Those odd encounters we are puzzled about, perhaps cannot even share with anybody, when you were lifted a little out of yourself, to become as children, realising something is out there, and were caught in a wonder and delight of something you love and know, but cannot see or yet hold in your hands? Christ our true God does not leave us orphans, there are moments, really there are, when if we but be like Peter there present on the mountain, Christ appears in our lives, known but unknown, found in the likenesses of all those we love and ever have loved, with the many we do not yet know in that Communion of the Saints who love us.

Christ our Morning Star that never sets.

But there is one thing more to share, this gospel makes it abundantly clear that Christ is never found alone, the voice heard by Peter tells us too that the unseen Father loves us through his Son, in whom He is well pleased. That Son who is our brother and Saviour who with the Holy Spirit draws us into eternal light and love. We cannot always be up high on the mountain of love and wonder, the valleys draw us back to more mundane tasks, but the whisper of that voice, the light of that Christ never leaves us, for in those moments we too see our own resurrection-when transfigured in Him, we meet for ever all those who have been our moments and likenesses of Christ and all we belong to through the ages. We have no need to be afraid, the certainty of Christ our light, our true morning star, is there for us forever. Peter tells us again:

'And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, 20 knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. 21 For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit'.( 2 Peter 1:19-21)

May it ever be so! Amen!

Lectio

From St Bede

From his Homily on Revelation

Christ is the Morning Star,
who, when the night of this world is past,
gives to his saints the promise of the light of life,
and opens everlasting day.

Prayer of Bede

O Christ, our Morning Star,
Splendour of Light Eternal,
shining with the glory of the rainbow,
come and waken us
from the greyness of our apathy,
and renew in us your gift of hope.
Amen.

Extract: Andrew Harvey on the Teaching of the Cosmic Christ of Fr Bede Griffiths

In 1993, when he was eighty-six, I met Father Bede Griffiths, and that brought everything that I had hitherto experienced together… and he was destined to break my heart, and to break my heart open, and to teach me by his presence three things.

The first thing he taught me was that the true Christ path is terrifyingly humble. He would never claim enlightenment. He would never claim to be a master. He would never claim to be a guru. He absolutely loathed hierarchy and separation. For him, Jesus had communicated in the tenderness of ecstatic friendship, and that was the way this great truth of the divinity of human beings was to be exchanged.

The second thing that he communicated to me was that the relationship with Jesus and the Cosmic Christ-Jesus, both Jesus the being and Jesus the archetypal face of the Cosmic Christ- that relationship that Mechtild of Magdeburg ecstasized over, that relationship that drove the whole life of Theresa of Avila, that relationship that gave the Cure of Ars the power to go and heal day after day after day in his tiny parish, that relationship that drove Francis into the arms of a divine love that enabled him to re-experience the crucifixion-that relationship was not some poetic, tender fiction. That relationship was the relationship that was clearly transfiguring this holy man, and it was something to him more naked and more real than anything else. And so it became so for me.

And the third thing that Bede communicated to me-and this is the key of the key of the mystery that is coming through the Christ path, I believe-the third thing that Bede communicated to me was the revelation that was coming to him in his eighties of what in the Greek Orthodox tradition is called theosis. And theosis means transfiguration. And from St. Macarius onwards in the fourth century to Romanian priests(?) in our current century and to Bede himself, we have had examples that have been celebrated and noted of human beings who so adored the revelation of love and wisdom in Jesus and in the exploding vision of the Cosmic Christ, that through intense discipline and intense love they transformed their minds, they illumined their hearts, and they also progressively became so flooded in their bodies by divine light that their bodies began to be transfigured by light.

www.patheos.com/blogs/christpathseminar/2013/06/teachings-of-the-cosmic-christ-from-fr-bede-griffiths/