 |
Christ with Elijah and Moses, upper part of the Transfiguration, murals in oil paint on gypsum plaster by Saint Sophrony and members of his community. Monastery of St John the Baptist, east wall, mid 1980s.[44] Image: ©The Stavropegic Monastery of Saint John the Baptist, Essex.
The Jewish people looked for the coming of
the Messiah who when he was come would tell them ‘all things’ (John 4.25). Come
and live among us, that we may know Thee, was the constant cry of the ancient Hebrews.
Hence the name ‘Emmanuel being interpreted is, God with us’ (Is. 7.14; Matt.
1.23).
So for us Christians the focal point of the universe and the ultimate meaning of the entire history of the world is the coming of Jesus Christ, Who did not repudiate the archetypes of the Old Testament but vindicated them, unfolding to us their real significance and bringing new dimensions to all things — infinite, eternal dimensions. Christ’s new covenant announces the beginning of a fresh period in the history of mankind. Now the Divine sphere was reflected in the searchless grandeur of the love and humility of God, our Father. With the coming of Christ all was changed: the new revelation affected the destiny of the whole created world.
It was given to Moses to know that
Absolute Primordial Being is not some general entity, some impersonal cosmic
process or supra-personal, all-transcending ‘Non-Being’. It was proved to him
that this Being had a personal character and was a living and life-giving God.
Moses, however, did not receive a clear vision: he did not see God in light as
the apostles saw Him on Mount Tabor — ‘Moses drew near unto the thick darkness
where God was’ (Exos. 20.21). This can be interpreted variously but the stress
lies on the incognisable character of God, though in what sense and in what
connection we cannot be certain. Was Moses concerned with the impossibility of
knowing the Essence of the Divine Being? Did he think that if God is Person,
then He cannot be eternally single in Himself, for how could there be eternal
metaphysical solitude? Here was this God ready to lead them but lead them where
and for what purpose? What sort of immortality did He offer? Having reached the
frontier of the Promised Land, Moses died. And so He appeared, He to Whom the
world owed its creation; and with rare exceptions ‘the world knew him not’
(John 1.10). The event was immeasurably beyond the ordinary man’s grasp. The
first to recognise Him was John the Baptist, for which reason he was rightly
termed the greatest ‘among them that are born of women’ and the last of the law
and the prophets (cf. Matt. 11.9-13).
Moses, as a man, needed obvious tokens of
the power and authority bestowed on him, if he were to impress the Israelites,
still prone to idol-worship, and compel them to heed his teaching. But it is
impossible for us Christians to read the first books of the Old Testament
without being appalled. In the Name of Jehovah all those who resisted Moses
suffered fearful retribution and often death. Mount Sinai ‘burned with fire’,
and the people were brought ‘unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest’, to
‘the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words, which… they could not endure’
(Heb. 12.18-20).
 |
| Saint Sophrony the Athonite. |
It is the opposite with Christ. He came in utter meekness, the poorest of the poor with nowhere to lay His head. He had no authority, neither in the State nor even in the Synagogue founded on revelation from on High. He did not fight those who spurned Him. And it has been given to us to identify Him as the Pantocrator precisely because He ‘made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant’ (Phil. 2.7), submitting finally to duress and execution. As the Creator and true Master of all that exists, He had no need of force, no need to display the power to punish opposition. He came ‘to save the world’ (John 12.47), to tell us of the One True God. He discovered to us the Name of Father. He gave us the word which He Himself had received from the Father. He revealed God to us as Light in Whom is no darkness at all (cf. 1 John 1,5).
The world continues to flounder in the
vicious circle of its material problems — economic, class, nationalistic, and
the like — because people refuse to follow Christ. We have no wish to become
like Him in all things: to become His brethren and through Him the beloved
children of the Father and the chosen habitation of the Holy Spirit. In God’s
pre-eternal Providence for man we are meant to participate in His Being — to be
like unto Him in all things. By its very essence this design on God’s part for
us excludes the slightest possibility of compulsion or predestination. And we
as Christians must never renounce our goal lest we lose the inspiration to
storm the kingdom of heaven. Experience shows all too clearly that once we
Christians start reducing the scope of the revelation given to us by Christ and
the Holy Spirit, we gradually cease to be attracted by the Light made manifest
to us. If we are to preserve our saving hope, we must be bold. Christ said: ‘Be
of good cheer; I have overcome the world’ (John, 16.33). He had overcome the
world in this instance not so much as God but as Man for He did in truth become
man.
Genuine Christian life is lived ‘in spirit
and in truth’ (John 4.23), and so can be continued in all places and at all
times since the divine commandments of Christ possess an absolute character. In
other words, there are and can be no circumstances anywhere on earth which
could make observance of the commandments impossible.
In its eternal essence Christian life is
divine spirit and truth and therefore transcends all outward forms. But man
comes into this world as tabula rasa, to ‘grow, wax strong in spirit, be filled
with wisdom’ (cf. Luke 2.40), and so the necessity arises for some kind of
organisation to discipline and co-ordinate the corporate life of human beings
still far from perfect morally, intellectually and, more important,
spiritually. Our fathers in the Church and the apostles who taught us to honour
the true God were well aware that, though the life of the Divine Spirit excels
all earthy institutions, this same Spirit still constructs for Himself a
dwelling-place of a tangible nature to serve as a vessel for the preservation
of His gifts. This habitation of the Holy Spirit is the Church, which through
centuries of tempest and violence has watched over the precious treasure of
Truth as revealed by God. (We need not be concerned at this point with zealots
who value framework rather that content). ‘The Lord is that Spirit: and where
the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty… Beholding… the glory of the Lord,
we are changed into the same image from glory to glory (2 Cor. 3.17-18)’. The
Church’s function is to lead the faithful to the luminous sphere of Divine
Being. The Church is the spiritual centre of our world, encompassing the whole
history of man. Those who through long ascetic struggle to abide in the Gospel
precepts have become conscious of their liberty as sons of God no longer feel
impeded by formal traditions — they can take general customs and ordinances in
their stride. They have the example of Christ Who kept His Father’s
commandments without transgressing the law of Moses with all its ‘burdens
grievous to be borne’ (Luke 11.46).
In Christ and the coming of the Holy
Spirit God gave us the full and final revelation of Himself. His Being now for
us is the First Reality, incomparably more evident than all the transient
phenomena of this world. We sense His divine presence both within us and
without: in the supreme majesty of the universe, in the human face, in the lightning
flash of thought. He opens our eyes that we may behold and delight in the
beauty of His creation. He fills our souls with love towards all mankind. His
indescribably gentle touch pierces our heart. And in the hours when His
imperishable Light illumines our heart we know that we shall not die. We know
this with knowledge impossible to prove in the ordinary way but which for us
requires no proof, since the Spirit Himself bears witness within us.
Reference:
His Life Is Mine. Archimandrite Sophrony.
Saint Vladimir Seminary press. 2001.