Cloud of Witnesses Radio
Audio drama retellings of the stories of the Christian Saints, Panel Discussions, Cast Commentary, Reaction Videos, Screwtape Returns, and more!
Cloud of Witnesses Radio
Orthodoxy & Transfiguration | Fr John Reimann | St Anthony The Great Orthodox Church | TLTS014 CWP74
What if you could witness a transformation so profound that it challenges the very essence of your faith? In our latest episode, we promise to uncover the secrets behind the ancient Greek concept of transfiguration and its deep spiritual implications. Journey with us as we reflect on the timeless testimony of St. Peter, delve into the complexity of creation, and explore the awe-inspiring Old Testament encounters with God's glory. Through these reflections, Fr John Reimann helps us find hope and assurance in God's steadfast promises amidst the turbulent waves of modern life.
But the journey doesn't end there. Discover the transformative power of divine grace as we recount historical and personal stories of God's intervention, including the compelling narrative of the woman caught in adultery. We'll celebrate the unique paths to holiness exemplified by saints such as St. Marie of Paris and Mother Olga of Alaska, illustrating how God's love uniquely transforms each individual. Join us in embracing the possibility of becoming more like God through His power, grace, and the inspiring intercessions of the saints.
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We are the ultimate trans church. Okay, now, I say that? Okay, because we live in a crazy age. My sister Toni I have to quote her from Idaho, she's the one who came up with this, not I she says I don't know what happened to us. I think that aliens from another planet came down and sucked up all of the common sense from our minds I would say not from all of our minds, I think from some. And so when we have an understanding of what transfiguration is really meant to be in Greek metamorphosis, right, what we are seeing is several things that are promised to us, once again, that our God is revealing to himself himself, and it's really important for the disciples because they'll need that at a difficult time that's going to come. And, brothers and sisters, we need to hold on to this feast when we have the difficult times that come in our own life. Okay, because what, ultimately, god has planned for us is something beyond our imagination and expectation and beyond what we can even imagine or see in this world, even the beauty of this church and the beauty of this worship. It is so far beyond that, for God is seeking to give to us, and this is the beauty and the wealth and the richness that we offer to all and we know not all will want to receive.
Speaker 1:There was a Protestant song. I remember hearing towards the end of my days of Protestantism, as I was beginning to transition into Orthodoxy, that when I was making that change there was a beautiful song that came out and one of the words, part of the words, said the darker the night, the brighter the light right. Some of you might know that, or maybe I'm the only one who's that old and coming from that background, but if you listen very carefully, you listened very carefully to hear what was said in the epistle that in the epistle that St Peter is talking about in terms of knowing, about the eyewitness of his majesty, because he was one of those who was there. He was a witness to this amazing event. He was a witness to the fact that this was not just mere man, this was not just a teacher. We live in a weird time. Even in the Soviet Union's time, they did not deny the historicity of Jesus, they just denied his divinity. But they would never have the audacity to say that he didn't exist as a person. It's only in our age that we've had people, people who were people raised in a very strong evangelical faith who apostated to the extent that they are writing books to say that Jesus never even historically existed. But why would a group of people make up such a person and such a faith that puts them in direct conflict and torment and torture and martyrdom continually, unless there's really something to this person and something to this power that we know and experience, to this power that we know and experience?
Speaker 1:St Peter and St John, as they're up there on the mount along with James, were allowed a little bit of a glimpse into the glory of God. My brother Timothy, one of his brothers, professions of faith that he had years ago and looking and I've said this to you before as he's looked at understanding the complexity down to the subatomic level, looking at the complexity all the way to what they're discovering about the universe, looking at ecosystems and how things work together, and because he was trained as an EMT, almost as a paramedic, the complexity of the human body ended up saying it just made sense that all this doesn't come into being by itself. There has to be a one who created this, who is so great in his power that we can't look at him and live. And I told him. I said, tim, that's right from the Old Testament. No one can look on the face of God and live, because in his words he said, if they tried to see him they would be blown to bits. And that's true. That's why we hear the Old Testament passages where God wants to have just the shadow side of his glory passed by Moses, and Moses has to be hidden away in a cliff by Moses, and Moses has to be hidden away in a cliff. And even at the transfiguration the full power of God's majesty and divinity is still not revealed, because indeed, those apostles would have been blown to bits.
Speaker 1:And my brother had said something that was quite amazing. He said it made sense to him that Jesus has come, sent by God to be with us, to be with us face to face, so that we could experience God and live and survive it. And it made sense to him, and that made sense to him, that thus Jesus being God, is that revelation of God to us. We live in a day and age that denies that increasingly and even makes a mockery of it. We saw it in the Olympics, the sad tragedy, what was meant to be a play on words in French, and they ended up not only spoofing it, but in a very blasphemous way, and some people tried to say, oh no, no, no, it was just something, a pagan reenactment going back to the origins, the pagan origins of the Olympics. Well, in reality, they knew what they were doing, they named it and then they tried to backtrack and say something different.
Speaker 1:Well, we understand this. This has been our experience ever since our Lord came. He came into his own, and his own received him, not, but to as many as received him to them. He gave the power to become the what, sons and daughters of god. And so, brothers and sisters, in this amazing feast, jesus reveals to his disciples there that he is God from God, light from light, and, of course, that is revealed in our hymns. Make it very clear. We've heard this in this beautiful part of the Vespers that's here. We hear this in the Kentuckian so that when the disciples would see him crucified, they would remember this glory and have something of hope to hold on to, because there are times in our life right when we go through those dark times. It doesn't seem like the light of God is shining very bright, and that's why we have to recount our salvation of history Of what God has done for us in time and space, not only the great historical events that are recorded in the scriptures and even in the iconography of our church, but what God has done in our own personal historical salvation history, how he's helped and intervened and interacted with us so that, when we get to those times when it seems to be dark, when things seem to be falling apart, when our bodies seem to be failing, when our jobs seem to be losing or even our relationship with our dear family and friends seem to be threatened, that in those times of darkness we have the light of God.
Speaker 1:To remember that it is God who lives in us, brothers and sisters. Greater is he who is in us than the evil one who's in the world who would like to transform things in a different way. God's desire is to transform things from lower to higher. Do you understand that? He calls us like the woman caught in adultery, each one of us in our sin and brokenness. He comes in his mercy and says who's going to accuse you? And he gives us forgiveness. And then he raises us up by giving us his hand in time and space, brothers and sisters, not only in that woman who was caught there in that historical event, but in our own lives Think of the times in your own life when this has happened and he offers his hand to pull us up. But we have to get up, we have to grab a hold of that hand and we have to, with his help, pull us out of the dirt. And that's when our God says to us the God-man Jesus, go, no one, you are forgiven, no one accuses you. Go and sin no more.
Speaker 1:God is trying to take us From the essential goodness that he created us, which was marred by the fall into sin, which he seeks to recreate in the incarnation, in his crucifixion, in his resurrection, through our baptism and our chrismation. He seeks to make us that new man, to restore us not only back to that original goodness but, brothers and sisters, to be transformed. Be transformed, as St Paul says, to grow and to go continually, eternally, from glory to glory, to glory to glory. Our calling in this life is, like the saints that we'll soon be putting on the walls around us and up on the ceilings here on the side, and each one of them will be very different. I've worked really hard. Some of you donated some of those, but I've worked really hard to try to be able to choose some from different times and ages, and that as reminders of God's working in every age and every unique situation, as a reminder that he, yes, can and will work in us if we allow him to transform us as well too.
Speaker 1:In a way, transform how we say, our very speech. We're not being pulled down by the evil one who wants to distort His form of transformation is to pervert and to destroy. God seeks to elevate and raise up that what we say, not be perverse but be holy what we do would be that which reflects the work of God in us, that even what we would think and what we feel would be transformed. And I know that's a lifelong process, it's part of our ascesis. So don't give up on that. God never gives up on us. He is always here, willing. He will never leave us, nor forsake us. We're the only ones who walk away from him. Do you understand that?
Speaker 1:And so on, all any affliction, any trial, any test, any tribulation, any temptation, our God is the one who seeks to be manifesting that power in us so that he can transfigure us to be the unique, holy person we are called to be. We are unique in the whole of the universe. There's no one else like John, even though I'm a John. Okay, we have multiple Johns that are here, right. We have multiple Jacobs that are here, all right. We don't have very many Charleses, okay, sorry about that. All right, but each one of us are to reflect and become like God. That's what our calling is for. That's the transformation, that's the empowering that God seeks to do.
Speaker 1:Imagine that he is not jealous of his own divinity, that he's willing to share his grace, that we would become his children, god-like in our person, the uniqueness of that person so how that's going to be manifested like St Marie of Paris is going to be different than St Procla, who is Pontius Pilate's wife, and different from St Mary Magdalene, different from Mother Olga of Alaska, because we are his unique creation. He's created us and he rejoices in that beauty of that uniqueness, and what he really desires is it to be a holy person. That's the transformation we're seeking. God is not selfish and instead seeks to share his life with us and even thus, by his energies, seeking for us to become like him, what he is in essence. We will never be, but we can be like him in the energies that he seeks to share with us. If we would grab a hold of that, brothers and sisters, and appropriate that, even when things appear to be dark, when we seem to be crucified, when the world seems to become darker and darker, we remember this feast, right, this beautiful feast of the transfiguration, okay, that bright, shiny light. And we have saints I believe one of.
Speaker 1:I think Saint Sarah from Sarov will be one of the ones that will be depicted here. All right, so Christian will be happy for that, okay, all right. So, yes, because he's one, not all shown with the uncreated light, right, but he's one who did. There is that potential. That's not something we seek. If it happens, then God lets it happen. We don't all seek to levitate, like Saint Mary of Egypt, off the ground, because I don't hear Jesus doing that, or the apostles, but she did at arm's length when she prayed. Jesus says greater things than these. Will you do if you believe? This is the transformation he wants to do in all of us and he makes it possible if we would, but grab a hold of it, brothers and sisters, and make it our own by his power and grace and our own effort, and through the prayers and intercessions of our Holy Lady of Theotokos and of all the saints. Amen. Blessed feast. Blessed feast.