Transfiguration

August 6th, the anniversary of the Hiroshima Atom Bomb is commemorated. Each year some notice is given to this event. It marks a turning point in the history of mankind. We "harnessed the energy of the sun" as commentators like to point out. We used it in an act of unsurpassed violence and destruction against ourselves at the end of a global conflict that itself, like the century in which it ocurred, was unsurpassed in violence and destruction. We had already meted out similar pain and suffering -- witness the firestorm that had consumed Dresden, Germany, just a few months before Hiroshima -- but the Hiroshima bomb was of a different quality. It was proof of something. We believed it showed the superiority of a free society (the U.S.A.) to innovate and make rapid technological advances. We even, after such explosives proliferated among the superpowers of the late twentieth century, believed such technology was so supremely destructive that it could deter further violence. Now we live with the possibilty of "rogue states" and terrorists availing themselves of the same force, not to defend "civilization" from the ideologies of oppression and suppresion of human freedom, but to undermine the very civilization that concocted "the bomb." And this in the name of wisdom or righteousness or progress or some such religio-political ideals. Supreme force for supreme ends.

More than this, and much less well remarked upon, is a more supreme energy that was revealed many centuries ago, and whose "unleashing" is commemorated by the Orthodox Christians on the same day as the first use of the "atom bomb."

Jesus, it is said, took three of his closest followers, the disciples Simon Peter, James, and John, up the mountain called Tabor and there appeared before them "in glory," "in a bright cloud," pure light transcending all earthly light. The full radiance of the Father was there beyond what the three disciples could bear, and they fell to their faces undone by the vision.

Mt. Tabor from a distance.

Mankind, by sheer will-power and ingenuity, has not "harnessed" this radiance. It is a divine light and uncreated. It makes of the radiation from Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the many nuclear tests (not mentioning the uncontrolled "bomb" of the Chernobyl reactors), it makes of them mere shadow. Inversely to them, it is received and "controlled" by us not as a prior means to violence and destruction, but only after violence ...

After the Transfiguration, Jesus told his disciples how He would be handed over to sinful men to be crucified.

And the glory of the uncreated light of Tabor was restored to the disciples only after this crucifixion and the mysteries that proceeded from it: the burial of the Son of God, the resurrection on the third day, the ascension in glory, the session at the "right hand" of Power, and the Advent of Glory that is to come. After suffering the Cross, uncreated light became a property of every believer, a property even of the whole creation graced by the power of the divine and most humble, suffering love.

From war came the atomic light of destruction; from the crucifixion of love comes the union with the uncreated Light of Life. To Him be glory, honor and worship to all ages!