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My dear
friends
A neglected August festival
As
Christians we live with two calendars. The secular calendar
is marked by the passage of the days and months. The
ecclesiastical calendar leads us through seasons - Advent,
Christmas, Lent, Easter, Trinity - which are themselves
punctuated and enlivened by festivals - the feasts of
saints, like Peter and Mary Magdalene, and other holy days.
August is something of a holiday month as far as great
festivals are concerned, but one day, 6 August, which often
passes without notice, is of great significance in the
gospel accounts of the life of Jesus. This is the feast of
the Transfiguration. Mark, our earliest gospel [c65AD],
records that ‘Jesus took with him Peter, James and John and
led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was
transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling
white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. And there
appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with
Jesus.’ [Mark 9.2-4] The account concludes with the divine
voice from heaven in which God declares Jesus to be his
beloved Son. |
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A window into the Transfiguration
Forty
years ago this summer, in June 1970, I visited the community
at Taizé for the first time, and was privileged to stay with
the brothers in their guest house. Whilst I was there, I
bought my first icon, illustrated on this page. The original
was painted by Frère Eric and, like all icons, is a window
into a divine event, in this case the Transfiguration. The
icon is in a contemporary style, but the painter has
followed, as all icon painters do, the orthodox tradition.
The radiant figure of Jesus is flanked by Elijah, with the
raven at his feet, and Moses, holding the tablets of the
commandments. The angel, with his hand pointing towards
Jesus is the visual depiction of the divine voice, whilst
three chosen disciples, Peter, James and John, strike poses
of wonder and amazement. I have often used this icon as a
window into God as I have tried to still my mind in prayer.
A date to remember
But 6
August, as well as being the Feast of the Transfiguration,
is also the anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb
on Hiroshima in 1945. One hundred and fifty thousand people
died that day and in the months which followed and nearly as
many after the second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki on 7
August. A week later, the Japanese surrendered and the
Second World War came to an end. The disfiguration of so
many human lives and of the cities in which they lived
continues to challenge us and is especially poignant
alongside our celebration of transfiguration. Mark makes
this event in the life of Jesus the turning point in his
gospel. As soon as Jesus and his disciples come down from
the mountain, they encounter a boy who is tormented by a
demon, which throws him into convulsions. We might describe
his condition in different medical terms, but that boy
stands for all that can batter and disrupt a human life. And
from this moment on, Jesus sets his face towards Jerusalem
where he will face his arrest and trial, and be crucified.
In the life of Jesus, transfiguration leads directly to
disfiguration; divine love meets evil head-on. Celebrating
this feast is a summons to all Christians to stand with
Jesus at the point at which God’s love and evil meet, to
give ourselves, in so far as we are able, to be the agents
of healing in human relationships, in the experiences of
brokenness and deprivation in society around us and in the
endless search for justice and freedom from fear and
darkness in the world at large.
Revd Canon Dr Christopher
Dent |
