“Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me.” (Rev. 3:20)

“Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me.” (Rev. 3:20)

KNOWLEDGE OF GOD COMES FROM HIS GOODNESS*

… If inanimate creation is recalled to eternity by Christ’s glory and goodness, how much more so, the rational beings created in His own image and likeness! Indeed, Christ puts on creation as a garment – but only after wrapping humankind in the garment of His own Uncreated divinity. Wrapped about with the grace of God, man originally wore Him as a glorious garment, said Saint John of Damascus.[5] Thus, from the Great Vespers of the Feast:

“He who of old conversed with Moses on Mount Sinai through symbols, saying, "I am The Being," was transfigured on Mount Tabor today for His Disciples to see. And since He had assumed human nature in Himself, He showed them the original beauty of the image.”

Having cast aside this beauty as not quite good enough, man remains naked, with no recourse but to don the skins of dead animals, i.e. the fallen human nature now subject to death. Reduced to nothing but the material creation he can see, man would have no knowledge of God, did Christ in His immeasurable love for humankind not turn it into the vehicle of theophany. A dry bramble in remotest desert is chosen by the excess of His humility to become the conflagration of fiery revelation, disclosing not only the Name of His unknowable essence, but the fiery energies of His salvation, through a womb pure enough to contain their power without being consumed by it.

While the earthbound Moses symbolizes what we can understand of creation taking place within time and having a finite end; the more ethereal persona of heaven-bent Elijah calls forth rather the imperishable, eternal creation whose mystery remains hidden from human beings – thus drawing us ever closer to its Creator. As a result, says Saint Maximos, the Transfiguration teaches us to think in terms both of what we can know about God, and what we cannot: the two modes, positive and negative, of Orthodox theology.

On the Mountain of the Knowledge of God, gazing up into the heavenly apse of the Sinai basilica, it should not be surprising that both modes radiate from on high. It is by the light flashing from the face of the Lord that the divine essence is made known to us “beyond ineffability and unknowability,” says Saint Maximos, leaving us not the slightest idea of how God is both Three and One. The “unlimited” is not comprehended “by what is limited.” On the other hand, almost quoting Saint Basil’s affirmation of the divine energies by which we know our God intimately, Maximos asserts the possibility of this through what we do know of God – the creative acts, providence, and judgment that support our own transformation from mortal creatures to heavenly. …

*From the Article “On the Holy Summit of Transfiguration” by Sr. Joanna, in the FMSM News Blog: http://www.mountsinaimonastery.org/news-blog/on-the-holy-summit-of-transfiguration