Tag: Vision of Health

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17. The Holy Transfiguration

Transfiguration Theophanes Greek (15th_c,_Tretyakov_gallery)

Jesus Christ said to His Disciples,  “I tell you truly, there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the kingdom of God” (Luke 9.27, NKJV).  Eight days later, Jesus took Peter, James, and John upon Mount Tabor to pray. As Jesus prayed, these Disciples saw His appearance change before their eyes. They saw His face radiating with Light like the sun and His clothes became white, shining with Light, like lightning. Suddenly, they found themselves witnessing a conversation between Christ and two ancient prophets, Moses and Elias, about Christ’s approaching death. As this happened, a cloud surrounded them and the Disciples heard a voice from the cloud say,  “This is My beloved Son with Whom I am well pleased. Listen to Him!” Peter, James, and John fell on their faces, but Jesus approached and touched them, saying, “Get up. Do not be afraid.” When they looked up again, they saw Jesus standing alone.

On the mountain, the Disciples Peter, James, and John, saw Christ’s body transfigured by His own Divine Glory. (This event is called the Holy Transfiguration.) The Glory did not suddenly appear in that moment, but Christ opened the hearts of His Disciples so that they could see the radiance always present, yet hidden from the sight of blind human hearts. As God, Christ is the Source of Divine Glory. His Divine Presence shined through His human body as metal in hot fire glows brightly with light. He gave Peter, James, and John the gift of seeing the Glory for a moment, at least as much as they were able to withstand.

Through His Transfiguration, Christ  showed His disciples that His suffering and death would not be imposed upon Him against His will by others, as though He were powerless, but that He willfully approached suffering and death with humility and love for the benefit of our humanity.

On Mount Tabor, Christ demonstrated His Power to heal and transform the human being. He showed Peter, James, and John what a healed human being looks like and what it means to be like Christ, united with the Divine Presence of God. Being the Son of God, Jesus Christ radiated with the brightness of His own Divine Glory. We are healed and perfected by personally participating in His Glory, the Uncreated Energy of God.

Read: Luke 9.21-39; Matthew 17.1-9; 1 Peter 1.1-18

 

Text copyright © 2017 by Fr. Symeon D. S. Kees

 

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5. In the Garden: Healthy Humanness

Read: Genesis 2.4 – 2.25

The first chapter of the Book of Genesis shows us the wide, panoramic view of the creation of the whole universe, then focuses in on the creation of humanity. The second chapter of Genesis keeps this close-up focus on the creation of our human race.

God created the earth and then formed Adam, the first man, out of the earth, and placed him in the Garden of Paradise. In Paradise, Adam served as the priest of creation since, being body and soul, he bridged together the two dimensions of reality: the physical The first chapter of the Book of Genesis shows us the wide, panoramic view of the creation of the whole universe, then focuses in toward the end on the creation of humanity. The next chapter of a Genesis keeps this close-up focus on the creation of our human race.

God created the earth and then formed Adam, the first man, out of the earth, and placed him in the Garden of Paradise. In Paradise, Adam served as the priest of creation since, being body and soul, he bridged together the two dimensions of reality: the physical (material) dimension we encounter with our five senses and also the invisible (immaterial) spiritual dimension.

Adam gave names to the animals, but none of the animals were compatible with him as an equal partner who could could fully compliment and complete him. So, placing Adam in a deep sleep, God took part of Adam’s side, healed the wound, and crafted a woman from the portion of his body. When Adam saw her, he said, “This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.” He named her woman since she was taken out of man. Here, God established marriage as an mystical union between man and woman as one.

The man and his wife, Adam and Eve, were clothed in the radiant Light of God’s Glory. (To say they were clothed in God’s Glory means that that God Himself – His Presence – covered them. We also call God’s Presence at work within the creation the Uncreated Energy or Divine Grace.) Adam and Eve lived together in the Garden with the purity and innocence of children, still on the Path toward full maturity and perfection. They had been created according to the image of God, but they still had not become like God (so far as a creature can become like the Creator). If they stayed on the Path toward becoming more like God, they would fulfilled their potential and purpose as human beings.

In the middle of the Garden stood two great trees, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and also the Tree of Life. The first man, our first ancestor, took care of the Garden. Adam could eat from any tree in the Garden, except one. Only one. God warned Adam that if he ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, he would die by death.

As flight is natural for a bird and swimming for fish, every impulse and inclination of Adam and Eve was for doing what was good and healthful for their souls. They naturally followed the stream of the Divine Will. This natural obedience to God kept them safely on the heavenly Way that led toward continued maturity and progress. Still, since God endowed the human being with a free will, they possessed the ability to choose to do what would be completely unnatural and self-destructive. But, why would they do that?

The Book of Genesis reveals to us that a healthy human being is one with a pure heart who actively experiences the Life-Giving Uncreated Energy – the Grace of God. We have been created to harmoniously bridge the visible, material aspect of reality and the invisible, spiritual aspect of reality. So, we are designed to live in such a way that nurtures spiritual harmony between body and soul. This harmony is created by the experience of Grace that results from living in harmony with God. When we experience this inner harmony, the desire to live in harmony with others and the whole creation naturally grows. Then, we can attain to greater heights of spiritual health and live daily in a way more in tune with our purpose in this world.

Genesis also teaches us what God has created marriage to be. A man and woman are equal as human beings, but each is different from the other and complementary to the other. Marriage is this beautiful Grace-filled gift from God to help a man and woman progress along the Way together as they grow in spiritual unity with one another.

The relevance of these first two chapters of the Book of Genesis, properly interpreted, may be summarized like this: The description of creation in the Book of Genesis offers us a glimpse into Who God Is and what a healthy human being, full of Life, looks like. Genesis also teaches us that being human and achieving our full potential requires each of us to maintain a proper, healthy relationship to God and to other human beings.

Text copyright © 2017 by Fr. Symeon D. S. Kees

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4. “In the Beginning”

Read: Genesis 1.1 – 2.3

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

These are the first words of the Book of Genesis, the first book of Holy Scripture. If you try to analyze the Genesis text as a scientific treatise, a mythological fairy tale, historical fiction, or just an example of world religious literature alongside the creation stories of other cultures, the inner meaning of this Book will escape you.

Genesis is Holy Scripture, through which the God Who created everything that exists out of nothing, Who fills all things, and Who, being present everywhere at once, moves all things, reveals something about Himself and us in simple human language. Genesis gives us a peak into the depth of reality that our rational minds cannot reach. It is a window into the Mystery. Genesis first shows us our universe in a far different condition than the one we know, which we can’t even comprehend because it’s so foreign to our experience. Then, the book moves on to describe the universe as we know it now with both beauty and ugliness, life and death. As a sacred painting (an icon) portrays an event in the past symbolically, not as a photograph, the story of creation in the Book of Genesis is an icon in words rather than paint.

Genesis begins by introducing us to our Creator. Before God created, nothing existed, but the Uncreated One Himself – the One God, Who is without beginning or end. He created everything in existence – time, space, matter, energy – everything – from the tiniest subatomic particle to the vast array of galaxies, both already know and yet to be discovered, as well as the invisible spiritual dimension of reality inhabited by angels and demons.

God created by his Word, that is, by His Tao. Another way of putting it is that God the Father created through His Son. The One God is Father and Son together. The Father has always been the Father because His Son has always co-existed with Him.

In the beginning, the Holy Spirit of God hovered over the waters at creation. This Holy Spirit, who is also Uncreated with the Father and the Son, cooperated with the Father and Son in the work of creation. These Three are One God. However the Father is God, the Son is God and the Holy Spirit equally is God. The Three are distinct from one another since the Father is not the Son nor is the Son the Father, yet the Three cannot be divided from their indescribably united as One. As you can tell if you try to wrap your rational mind around it, God is a Mystery. We know nothing about God, except what He reveals to us.

With these first simple words, In the beginning, the Story of all existence unfolds. The Creator gives existence to everything that exists and life to everything that lives. The contours of the planet’s surface and living beings to inhabit it, from simplicity to complexity, emerge at the command of the Creator. The grandness of creation inspires us to stand in awe and wonder of the beauty of the Earth and vastness of the universe.

Your own story as an individual human being doesn’t just begin with your birth, but here in the beginning. The Uncreated One said, “Let us make the human being according to our image and our likeness.” Notice here that (1) the One God referred to Himself as us and also (2) that the human being is special among all the creature of the universe. God made our first ancestors after His Image and granted them the potential to become like God, as far as it is possible for a creature to be like the Creator.

We see that God made humanity male and female. In their humanness, the man and woman are equal. However a man a human being, a woman a human being equally. They are equal in their humanness, but not the same. They are different and distinct from each other so that in their difference one might compliment and complete the other.

The man and woman were commanded to be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth, and to oversee it. God appointed them as benevolent caretakers and priests over creation on the Way of spiritual progress toward perfection, becoming more and more like God.

Through this first chapter of Genesis, you can begin to learn Who God Is and who we really are. We learn also about our relationship to God, our relationship to each other, and our relationship to the creation around us.

In this first part of the Story, we see a distant panoramic view of the whole creation, but the second part of the Genesis story takes us in for a close-up, focused view on our human origins and the life of our first ancestors in the Garden of Paradise.

Text copyright © 2017 by Fr. Symeon D. S. Kees