Sunday, March 16, 2014

A Reflection: Transfiguration and the "Speed of Light"

J.M.J. + O.B.T. + M.G.R.*

An internet search (Bing, GOOGLE) on

Transfiguration "Speed of Light" 

provides some major points to ponder.

The light from the rarefied high ground 
reveals this 4th Mystery of Light
 as "a breakthrough"
into heaven. 


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http://www.laudemont.org/sermons/s-light_line.pdf


The Transfiguration seems to be a preview of Jesus as he comes in the body of his resurrection from the dead. At the same time, the Transfiguration isn’t just a preview. It’s also a flashback to previous stages in God’s dealings with his people. Two other mysterious figures appear “in glorious splendor,” as Luke says, conversing with Jesus — the Old Testament leaders Moses and Elijah. Luke tells us they spoke with Jesus "of his departure, which he was to accomplish at Jerusalem" (Luke 9:31).



Moses and Elijah had left the earth centuries before… 


Albert Einstein showed that there is a relationship between time and the speed of light. The faster a person would travel up to the speed of light, the slower time would elapse for the traveler...  

Perhaps the Transfiguration is a window into reality above the “light line,” as Kenneth Copeland calls it. In that window the disciples were given a glimpse of time to come and time past — both a “preview” and a “flashback” that partially revealed to them God’s purpose in Jesus Christ. Jesus is manifested in his resurrection body, while at the same time he discusses with two pivotal figures from Old Testament history what will happen to him when he reaches Jerusalem. In his appearance on the earth, the Word of God took human form. But on the cross he will begin to take his departure, his return to the Father (as he explains in John’s Gospel: “I go to the Father, and you will see me no more” (John 16:10).

Moses received the Law from the Lord, and the five Books of Moses tell of the creation of all this, and the origins of Israel as the people of God. Elijah stands for the fulfillment of God’s plan; the Jews believed he was to appear before the Messiah (Mark 9:11-12).

When Moses and Elijah both appear with Jesus, this event means that the entire Old Testament, from beginning to end, is summed up in Jesus — in his death on the cross and his return to the Father in glory (his “departure,” as the Gospels say here). Recall what Jesus has just told his disciples, before he leads them up the Mount of Transfiguration: “The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised” (Luke 9:22). The Transfiguration anticipates these things.

So the Transfiguration of Jesus is a window into dimensions beyond our four-dimensional space-time world, which it why it’s so hard for us to grasp. To illustrate, let’s suppose you and I are living in what we’ll call Flatland, a two-dimensional world comparable to a drawing on a sheet of paper. We would have only length and width, but no height. But then suppose somebody lays a three-dimensional object, like a matchbox, on that sheet of paper. Living in Flatl and, we can never see the height of the matchbox.

All we can see is the outline of its base on our two-dimensional surface. Then suppose that matchbox is tilted so that its surfaces intersect our two-dimensional world at different angles. We wouldn’t understand what was happening. The phenomenon would look like a “miracle” to us, because we couldn’t fit its behavior into Flatland’s two dimensional perspective where there is no such thing as “tilt.”

Living on a flat prairie we could never experience being on a mountain. Living among low hills, we would not experience being above the “timber line” of high mountains. Living in our “ordinary ”four-dimensional world, we have trouble imagining what could be beyond those dimensions. Ordinarily we’re not able to look beyond the “light line.” In the Transfiguration, however, Peter, John, and James are taken to the mountaintop and given a glimpse of the realm the other side of the “light line,” the realm of eternity. As one writer has said, “In Christian teachings, the Transfiguration is a pivotal moment, and the setting on the mountain is presented as the point where human nature meets God: the meeting place for the temporal and the eternal, with Jesus himself as the connecting point, acting as the bridge between heaven and earth.”


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 http://www.tikkunministries.org/newsletters/ai-jan09.php

Yeshua prayed that we would behold His glory. John experienced an answer to that prayer when he saw Yeshua in His glorified form in Revelation 1. The glory of God is the power that comes with the presence of the Lord; it flows like a river of fire from His throne (Daniel 7:10). It is like a giant tornado of nuclear power (Ezekiel 1). It was seen by the disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration (Luke 9, Matthew 17). They experienced a few "tongues" of that glory on Pentecost morning (Acts 2). 


Yeshua said He shared the glory with the Father BEFORE the foundation of the world (John 17:5). That glory was there at the creation. The glory of God was the power that created the universe. It is like a giant quasar; like a reverse black hole - that doesn't swallow up the universe, but spits it out. 


How much power is that? Einstein proved that energy is equal to mass multiplied by the speed of light squared (e = mc2). If we could reckon the total mass of all created matter and multiply it by the speed of light squared, we would come up with the total quantity of pure energy that was needed to create the universe. That is the power in the glory of God.

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One of my older posts made the list:
  "Spiritual Hiroshima!"



Sincerely yours in Jesus and Mary,
Mike Rizzio

Imitate Mary
Become like Jesus
Live for the Triune God

Seek the Light of Our Lord Jesus Christ
See you on the High Ground!

* - J.M.J. + O.B.T. + M.G.R. stands for:
Jesus, Mary and Joseph;
O Beata Trinitas;
St. Michael, St. Gabriel and St. Raphael

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