Transfiguration

Sermon Notes 6th August 2023
Desiree Snyman

Abba Lot went to Abba Joseph and said to him, “Abba, as far as I can I say my little office, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace as far as I can, I purify my thoughts. What else can I do?” Then the old man stood up and stretched his hands towards heaven. His fingers became like ten lamps of fire, and he said to him, “If you will, you can become all flame.” 

The above tale of transfiguration from “The Sayings of the Desert Fathers” is about the total transformation that love brings about in a human person. As I have said before, spiritual evolution is less about saying prayers and more about becoming prayer. Spiritual maturity is less about doing and more about being. 

The Transfiguration celebrated on the 6th of August is the central feast day for Eastern Orthodox spirituality and epitomises the journey of what it means to be human. The transfiguration embodies the doctrine of Theosis, the journey of being made into God. Deification or apotheosis is the journey of being made into the Divine and it is a cooperation or a surrender to Great Creator Spirit. If theosis sounds a bit like blasphemy it may help to remember that the chief commanders in the fight for orthodoxy and the ones who actively fought heresy said that the point of life is the integration of our divine and human selves. Irenaeus said that the glory of God is the person fully alive, fully human, and fully divine. Athanasius said that God became what we are (human) so that we could become what God is (Divine). A common analogy to explain theosis is metal placed in fire. While remaining metal the metal placed in fire nevertheless obtains all the properties of fire namely heat and light. Another example is a drop of water in the ocean. While a drop of water is not capable of creating a tsunami, once immersed in the ocean, the droplet becomes one with the ocean. Similarly, our destiny as human beings is such utter immersion into the ocean of God’s love that we become partakers of the divine nature (II Peter 1:4). 

I agree with those who say that the Transfiguration was not so much about the transfiguration of Jesus but more about the transfiguration of the disciples. They had accessed deeper levels of their spirituality and were able to see Jesus, and themselves, from a different point of view. Jesus, like Abba Lot, had become all flame but the only reason the disciples could see it was because they themselves were all flame. 

Hold onto the idea that it is the disciples themselves that were transfigured. The inspiration for the text is of course Old Testament stories. Moses goes up a mountain and spends time alone with God face to face. Moses shone so brightly that a cloth was placed over his face because people could not look at him. Also remember the start of Moses’ spiritual evolution was his experience of the burning bush. The bush shimmered with light so bright it should have burnt to the ground. Moses experienced God, the “I am” or Yahweh through the transfiguration of nature.  

The idea of Jesus shining or Moses or the disciples or Abba Lot becoming all flame may seem too ethereal to be “real life.” The transfiguration is at best a cute metaphor or an inspiration for prayer. I too thought that the story of Abba Lot’s fingers becoming “ten lamps of fire” was magic realism; until I read Julia Baird’s book “Phosphorescence.” Julia writes that scientists have long been fascinated by the phosphorescence of creatures - fire fly plankton, glow worms, ghost mushrooms and more. Scientists now describe creatures that absorb light as having phosphorescence and those that produce their own light as having bioluminescence. A 2009 experiment explored whether we humans had bioluminescence. The researchers put five able bodied bare-chested Japanese men in darkened, sealed rooms for up to 20-minute intervals every three hours for three days. Extremely sensitive cameras found that the men glowed, especially around the face. While the intensity of light emitted by the body is one thousand times lower that the sensitivity of our eyes, the fact is, we humans glow. 

I realised that the transformation that love brings about, transfiguration, theosis or the story of Jesus or the disciples being transformed into light, is more real than I realised.  

All of you listening here today (or reading this text) already have this inner light, you already glow. You yourselves are the proof text that this transfiguration is a reality. It is precisely this inner light that has brought you to this moment carrying you through days of profoundest grief. It is precisely your bioluminescence nurtured by the love of God, nature, family, and friends, and sustained by your ability to pay attention and take notice that has carried you through wounds which are intolerable to bear. Anyone reading these words has danced in the refiner’s fire, the fire that does not consume. The presence of any doubt within you, the existence of any questions and the scars of any wounds you carry are portals to the light. As we allow our bioluminescence to shine let us receive a blessing from John O Donohue:  

You have travelled too fast over false ground.
now your soul has come to take you back.
Take refuge in your senses, open up.
to all the small miracles you rushed through.

Become inclined to watch the way of rai.
when it falls slow and free.
Imitate the habit of twilight,
taking time to open the well of colour
that fostered the brightness of day.

Draw alongside the silence of stone
until its calmness can claim you.
Be excessively gentle with yourself.

Excerpt from the blessing, 'For One Who is Exhausted,' from John's books: Benedictus (Europe) /

To Bless the Space Between Us (USA).