Lecture by Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia
3. The two hills Tabor and Calvary.
It is time to return to our original question. In what way does the glory of Christ transfigured upon the mountain – glory of the Trinity, glory of the Logos incarnate, glory of the human person, glory of the whole creation – enable us to understand the mystery of suffering? How does it help us to respond to the anguish, anger and despair that our sisters and brothers feel in Iraq or Darfur, or for that matter in Milan and Turin, or in my own-town of Oxford? It is all very well, you may say, to speak about the glory of burning bush that is all around us; but how can we make these words a living reality?
An answer, or at least the first beginning of an answer, emerges if we consider the context in which Christ’s transfiguration occurred. It took place shortly before Jesus departed from Galilee (Matthew 19:1) in order to journey for the last time up to Jerusalem. So the next major events after the transfiguration are the meeting with Zacchaeus in Jericho (Luke 19:1-10), the raising of Lazarus in Bethany (John 11:1-44), and then the entry into the Holy City, followed almost immediately by the crucifixion. Thus chronologically there is a close proximity between the transfiguration and the passion. This is easily overlooked, because in the Church calendar Holy Week and the feast of transfiguration (6 August) are celebrated at entirely different moments in the year. If, however, our liturgical observance were to adhere more closely to the actual sequence of events, then we would commemorate the transfiguration at some points during Lent; and in fact according to the Latin rite the Gospel for the second Sunday in Lent is precisely the Matthean account of the transfiguration (Matthew 17:1-9).
Let us, then, attempt to explore further the possible connection between the two hills: Tabor and Calvary. This can best be done by asking: in the Gospel narrative, what comes immediately before the description of Christ’s transfiguration, and what comes immediately afterwards?
In all three Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, there is an identical sequence of events. First, on the road to Caesarea of Philippi, Peter makes his decisive confession of faith: “You are the Christ, the son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16). Jesus goes on to predict his coming passion, death and resurrection (16:21). Peter is scandalized, but Christ rebukes him and insists that not only he himself but all who desire to be his disciples are called to follow him on the path of voluntary suffering: “If anyone wants to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me” (16:24). Discipleship means cross-bearing. Christ then foretell his future coming in glory (16:28), and after that there follows immediately the account of the transfiguration: “After six days Jesus took Peter, James and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves” (17:1).
This sequence in the Gospel narrative is not simply a chance juxtaposition, but expresses a vital and all-important spiritual interdependence. First and most obviously, the transfiguration endorses Peter’s confession of faith: Jesus is indeed not only son of man but “son of the living God.” Tabor vindicates Peter’s proclamation of Christ’s divinity. But the transfiguration is also to be understood in the light of the remainder of the dialogue on the road to Caesarea of Philippi. It is no coincidence that our Lord should speak about his passion and the universal vocation of cross-bearing immediately before the revelation of his divine glory on Tabor. On the contrary, he is concerned to emphasize the essential connection in his redemptive economy between glory and suffering.
So the context of the transfiguration suggests to us a possible way of approaching the mystery of innocent suffering. Glory and suffering go together in Christ’s saving work. The two hills, Tabor and Calvary, are indeed significantly linked. The transfiguration cannot be understood except in the light of the cross, nor can the cross except in the light of the transfiguration, and likewise of the resurrection.
This becomes clearer as we look more closely at the Gospel narrative. Who, we may ask, are the three disciples who accompany Jesus to the mountain-top? They are Peter, James and John. And who are the three disciples present with Jesus at Gethsemane? Exactly the same three: Peter, James and John (Matthew 26:37). It can of course be argued that these three were present on both occasions because they were the disciples most intimately associated with Jesus, an inner circle within the twelve. But surely there is to be found a deeper meaning than this.
Just as it is no coincidence that Christ should speak about cross-bearing immediately before his transfiguration, so it is no coincidence that the same three disciples are present both on the mountain-top and at the agony of the garden. Witnesses of his uncreated glory, they are witnesses also of his deepest anguish. Witnesses of the transfiguration, they are witnesses also of what Fr Enzo has called, in his opening address, the “defiguration.”
What, we may further ask, is the theme about which Moses and Elias converse with Christ as they stand with him in the radiance of Tabor? It is, according to St Luke, nothing else than his coming exodus at Jerusalem, his imminent death upon the cross (Luke 9:31). Is not this an astonishing fact? Enfolded in the light of eternity, they speak not about the transcendent joys of heaven but about the sacrificial kenosis of the crucifixion. This indicates exactly how the transfiguration is to be understood in the light of the crucifixion, and the crucifixion in the light of the transfiguration. On the summit of Tabor there is planted the cross; and equally behind the veil of Christ’s crucified and bleeding flesh upon Golgotha we are to discern the presence of the uncreated light of the transfiguration. Glory and suffering are aspects of a single, undivided mystery. “They crucified the Lord of glory,” affirms St Paul (1 Corinthians 2:8): Christ is as much Lord of glory when he dies upon the cross as when he is transfigured on Tabor.
This “Tabor-Calvary syndrome,” as it may appropriately be termed, is repeatedly underlined in the liturgical texts for 6 August. First of all, it is noteworthy that the feast of the transfiguration occurs forty days before the exaltation of the cross on 14 September. The number forty has obviously a special significance in sacred time: Israel spent forty years in the wilderness (Numbers 14:33), David and Salomon both reigned for forty years (1 Kings 2:11 and 11:42), Elias journeyed for forty days to mount Horeb before experiencing the theophany at the cave (1 Kings 19:8), Jesus was tempted for forty days in the desert (Mark 1:13), and he ascended into heaven forty days after his resurrection (Acts 1:3). The fact that the feast of the transfiguration is exactly forty days before the exaltation of the cross is emphasized by singing the katavasiai of the cross at the Canon in Matins on 6 August. Comings events cast their shadows before.
This is by no means the only place in the liturgical observance of the transfiguration where Tabor and Calvary are juxtaposed. The first two stichera at Great Vespers, both describing the moment of transfiguration, begin strikingly with the words “Before Thy crucifixion, O Lord.” In the same spirit the first sticheron on the Praises at Orthros commences, “Before Thy precious cross and passion.” The link between transfiguration and crucifixion is stressed likewise in the kontakion of the feast:
Thou wast transfigured upon the mountain,
And Thy disciples beheld Thy glory, O Christ our God,
As far as they were able so to do:
That, when they saw Thee crucified,
They might know that Thy suffering was voluntary…
At the crucifixion, then, the disciples are to recall the theophany on Tabor, and they are to understand that Golgotha also is a theophany. Transfiguration and passion are each to be understood in terms of the other, and equally in terms of the resurrection.
The link between Tabor and Calvary is evident, not only in Scripture and in the liturgical texts, but equally in iconography. As Fr Enzo reminded us, in what is the earliest surviving representation of the transfiguration (along with the mosaic in the apse of St Catherine’s church, mount Sinai) – in, that is to say, the mosaic in the apse of St Apollinare in Classe at Ravenna – the transfigured Christ is shown precisely in the form of a crux gemmata, a vast jewelled cross extending across the firmament of heaven. The interconnection between the transfiguration and the passion is here proclaimed in a particularly striking and memorable fashion.
We have considered what happened immediately before the transfiguration. Let us now look at what comes directly afterwards. In all three Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, there is once more an identical sequence of events. The three disciples, descending with Christ from the mountain, are confronted at once by a scene of confusion and distress: a sick child, afflicted with epileptic fits; a father, crying out in anguish, “I believe: help my unbelief!”; the other disciples, bewildered and unable to assist him (Matthew 17:14-18; Mark 9:14-27). Once more, this is not a chance juxtaposition. Peter wanted to remain on the mountain-top, building three tabernacles and so prolonging the vision (Matthew 17:4). This Jesus will not allow: he insists that they descends once more to the plain. We participate in the grace of the transfiguration, not by isolating ourselves from the suffering of the world, but by involving ourselves in it. Our daily living is transfigured precisely to the extent that, each according to our own situation, we share in the pain, loneliness and despondency of those around us.
Such, then, is the life-giving connection between the glory of mount Tabor and the world’s anguish and despair; such is the message of the transfigured Saviour to the suffering human race; such is the significance of the transfiguration in the contemporary world. All things are capable of transfiguration, but such transfiguration is possible only through cross-bearing. As the Orthodox Church affirms each Sunday at Matins, “Behold, through the cross, joy has come to all the world.”
Through the cross: there is no other way. For Christ himself, and for all of us who seek to be members of his body, glory and suffering go together. In our life, as in his, the hills Tabor and Calvary form a single mystery. To be a Christian is to share, at one and the same time, in the self-emptying and self-sacrifice of the cross, and in the great joy of the transfiguration and the resurrection. Present with Christ in the glory of the mountain-top, we are present with him also in Gethsemane and Golgotha.
“The paradox of suffering and evil,” says Nicolas Berdyaev, “is resolved in the experience of compassion and love.” This is true not only of ourselves but of God incarnate. Our God is an involved God. He does not offer an answer in words to Ivan Karamazov’s question; his answer is an answer expressed in life, through his compassion, through his participation in our pain, through his suffering love. His transfiguration bestows healing upon us, exactly because it signifies not escape from the evil and alienation of the fallen creation, but an unreserved and open-ended involvement in it. The transfiguration leads to the cross, and the cross to resurrection: therein lies our unfailing hope.
The title of my address has been “The transfiguration of Christ and the suffering of the world.” But I could equally well have chosen as my title, “The suffering of Christ and the transfiguration of the world.” “Beauty will save the world:” yes, certainly, Dostoevsky was right. But Isaiah was equally right to say, “Surely he has borne our grieves and carried our sorrows” (Isaiah 53:4). The beauty that is the world’s salvation is indeed the uncreated beauty that shines forth on Tabor; but this same uncreated beauty is manifested no less in the sacrifice of the cross. Christ’s transfiguration does not enable us to evade all suffering, but it makes our suffering life-giving and creative: in Paul’s words, “… dying, and see, we are alive… sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” (2 Corinthians 6:9-10).
Kallistos (Ware) of Diokleia