Transfiguration Day

(Written for Thursday 6th Aug 2020; can be read on the same date annually)

Today (6th Aug) is what Orthodox Christians (viz. Catholic, Eastern, Anglican) celebrate as the Feast of the Transfiguration or simply Transfiguration Day.

This Christian festival is a commemoration dedicated to the narrative within the New Testament Gospels where Christ/Messiah ascends Mount Tabor with three of his followers – Peter, James & John – and they witness Jesus’ transfiguration into the Christ.
(Matthew 17:1-13)

The transfiguration is where the human presence of Jesus changed to the Divine Presence of Christ/Messiah in the eyes of His followers:

“… He was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun and His clothes became as white as the light.”

Matthew 17:2

It is an encounter with God’s presence alluded to in the prophetic visions of both Daniel and Ezekiel who preceded Him (See Daniel 7:9-14 & Ezekiel 1:25-28). Also, this encounter with God’s presence is coupled with the presence of two of Jesus’ precursor prophets: Moses & Elijah.

“… Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with Him.” 

Matthew 17:3

Both of these prophets are significant in this story of ascension and transfiguration, because of their own individual ascensions and transfiguration due to the influence of Divine Presence (i.e. the rise and change of their own prophetic presence by God).

In regard to Moses, there was a literal transfiguration preceding Jesus’ transfiguration, where his face shone with the light of God to the extent where his people were hesitant to be around him and could not even directly look at him when he spoke to them in this state (Read Exodus 34: 27-35):

“… when Moses came down from Mount Sinai […] Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone while he talked with Him. So when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him.”

Exodus 34:29-30

In regard to Elijah, there was a psychological transfiguration where he was not gripped by fear and the prospect of death as he once was at the threat of his enemies (Compare 1 Kings 19 to 2 Kings 1):

“But [Elijah] himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a broom tree, and he prayed that he might die, and said, ‘It is enough! Now, LORD, take my life for I am no better than my fathers!”

“And [Elijah] said, ‘I have been very zealous for the LORD God of hosts, because the children of Israel have forsaken your covenant, torn down Your alters, and killed Your prophets with the sword, I alone am left; and they seek to take my life.’ “

1 Kings 19: 4 & 14

” […] Elijah answered and said to the captain of fifty, ‘If I am a man of God, then let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty men.’ And fire came down from heaven and consumed him and his fifty.”

2 Kings 1:10

What these prophets have in common is their proximity to God and their resultant change from this proximity. God calls all human beings to rise up and draw close to Him, but not everyone is willing to answer. When we hear the call, the spiritual exercise of fasting enables us to rise above and draw close to God for ourselves.

Although Transfiguration is a feast day for Orthodox Christians, it falls within a 14-day period of autumn fasting called the Dormition Fast (1st -14th August N.S.), which involves abstinence from meat, fish, dairy, eggs, wine and oil throughout this period. Immediately, some will read this, see this as extreme and be put off, but consider the significance before rejecting the call. The way in which these biblical figures were able to transfigure was through intense spiritual exercise (Forty Day Fasts) through which they were able to rise above and draw close to God for themselves:

“So [Moses] was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he neither ate bread nor drank water. And He wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.”

(Exodus 34:27-28)

“So [Elijah] arose, and ate and drank; and he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights as far as Horeb, the mountain of God.”

(1 Kings 19:5-8)

This matches Jesus’ assertion, made six days prior to His transfiguration, that His followers would have to deny themselves, carry their own burden and follow Him (Read Matthew 16:24-27):

“Then Jesus said to His disciples, If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.”

Matthew 16:24

We can adopt a similar approach to the prophets and adhere to the words of Christ in our relationship with God by asking ourselves what it is that we feed on that may be holding us back from rising above our situation; we can ask what it is that we eat that is weighing us down from ascending to God (e.g. meat, fish, dairy, eggs, sugar & alcohol); we can ask what it is that we digest that distracts us and draws us away from gaining proximity to the Most High (e.g. drug and online addictions).

After we ask ourselves, then we can then choose for ourselves whether to stay the same or to transfigure.

Bibliography

(n.d.) “The Dormition Fast”, Orthodox Christianity, Translated 14 August 2012, [Online] Available at: http://orthochristian.com/38700.html [Accessed 06/08/2020]

Holy Bible. New King James Version. 1982. Thomas Nelson, Inc. Tennessee.

Richert, Scott P. “When Is the Transfiguration of Our Lord?” Learn Religions, Feb. 11, 2020, [Online] learnreligions.com/when-is-the-transfiguration-of-our-lord-4046365 [Accessed 06/08/2020].