Month: May 2014

Part 1 of this blog tried to discern the purpose of Jesus’ transfiguration as the revelation of Christ as the Son and God both. Transfiguration enabled the disciples to preach the gospel of the kingdom in which Jesus is seated on the throne in his full glory (Revelations 1:14; 4:3; 5:13;Daniel 7:9). This article attempts to enliven the transfiguration so as to realise it’s value in our lives because it not just another historical event but a vibrant spiritual experience.

Jesus lives and hence we also live (John 14:19). Jesus lives through us every moment of life. This is made realistic by following his instruction, “……do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19; 1 Corinthians 11:24). In every holy Eucharist service, Holy Spirit descends on the earthly bread and vine which undergoes transfiguration into the body and blood of Jesus Christ.

We may question about the need for the transformation of earthly bread to heavenly bread. Can’t we just eat the bread of our sweat and still have life? The answer is no as per the scripture. Jesus said “……unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you” (John 6:53). The bread we take to Lord’s altar is not the flesh of Jesus Christ, nor the grapes juice His blood. These are simply perishable things and won’t give us eternal life (John 3:18; 6:49). Therefore, they need to undergo transformation so as to become the flesh and blood of Christ so as to give us eternal life.

In John 6:25-27, we see Jesus looking beneath the surface of individuals who followed him, and criticises them on their pursuit for perishable food. The advice, “Do not work for the food that perishes….” (vs.27) is for all of us. It is unfortunate for many of us that our purpose of following Jesus is to achieve worldly satisfactions and material successes. For such people, the relationship with Jesus is only short term and ceases the moment the supply stops. We are not called for a perishable relationship with Jesus but an eternal one which continues even after our physical death (John 11:25).

Our worldly baggage could be equated to perishable bread. We waste our energy, time, money, space, and our entire life in pursuit of them, at the cost of these being spent for spiritual pursuit. This doesn’t mean that we are not supposed to think about our worldly needs but it is all about priority. God has promised us all the riches (Deuteronomy 8:7) provided we follow his commandments (Isaiah 1:19). Further, in Matthew 6:33, Jesus advises to give first priority to the kingdom of God, and in turn we will be supplied with our worldly needs. People who prioritise their selfish needs over Jesus are actually those who do not know who God is (see Matthew 6:32).

As happened during transfiguration we should bring out the Spirit of God dwelling in us to the surface of our lives. In order to do this Jesus advises us to exchange our worldly baggage (perishable bread) with friends who live in eternal dwellings (imperishable) (Luke 16:9). Here we see friends of this world versus friends of heavenly (eternal) places. Friends of this world belongs to Satan (John 14:30) but we are not supposed to be (John 15:19). Friends of heaven/kingdom of God are those who are spiritual (unlike non spirituals), and are blessed with the gift of discernment (1 Corinthians 2:14-15; also see I Corinthians 12:8). Hence, a spiritually smart person will always be able to see the crisis ahead and will get his perishable bread converted to eternal bread as soon as possible.

The official place for conversion of perishable bread to imperishable bread is our church. Two mutually contributory transfiguration processes occur during holy Eucharist: 1. Transfiguration of human souls, and 2. Transfiguration of bread and vine on the altar.

1.Transfiguration of human souls: Church is not a place to exchange worldly things. Rather it is the house of God for spiritual exchange which happens through prayer (Matthew 21:13). It is the most reliable place where our sins, infirmities, weaknesses, concerns, worries, anxieties, sicknesses, debts, and anything and everything worldly and material are to be exchanged. As we see in the scripture, Jesus lost his temper when he entered Jerusalem temple (Matthew 21:12-13; Mark 11:15-15; Luke 19:45-46; John 2:13-17) because the primary purpose of the temple as a place to exchange the pain and burden of the common mass with Lord’s peace was hijacked by the custodians and converted into “thieves’ den”. The temple of God was built by King Solomon with the specific purpose of spiritual exchange as we see in the dedication prayer of King Solomon (1 Kings 8:31-52).

Church is the body of Christ (Colossians 1:18&24; 1 Corinthians 12:12; Ephesians 5:23) into which we take all our weaknesses and sins to get exchanged, for Jesus said “Come to me all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). Once we are relieved from the burden of sins and infirmities we will find rest in Christ. In order to achieve this, we must undergo the process of transfiguration as exhorted by Saint Paul in Romans 6:21-22. We must replace our stony heart with a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26) because a stony heart is wicked whereas a heart of flesh is full of Holy Spirit. Therefore, in order to undergo transfiguration, we must break or tear down our stony heart in front of our compassionate Lord Jesus Christ, which is what an exchange process in the church is all about (see Joel 2:12-13).

2.Transfiguration of bread and wine on the holy altar: As mentioned above, we cannot have eternal life “unless we eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood” (John 6:53). Therefore, yes, it is the body and blood of Jesus Christ that we take and not bread and wine. We take our worldly baggage in the form of bread and vine on to the holy altar where it undergoes transfiguration into the body of blood of Christ. In fact it is the Spirit of God which transforms bread into Jesus’ body and wine into his blood. This was the same Spirit that Peter, James and John witnessed through the shining face and clothes of Jesus during the transfiguration (Matthew 17:2). In short, the process of transfiguration is the work of Holy Spirit, which we witness on the holy altar of the church.

From the above paragraph, it is evident that the presence of Holy Spirit is a must for transfiguration to take place (2 Corinthians 3:17-18). Therefore, it is a responsibility of all present in the church to contribute towards the descending of Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God won’t descend if the church is filled with evil spirits. Before entering the church we should make sure that we initiate the process of transfiguration praying as David prayed, “Create in me a clean spirit, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me” (Psalms 51:10). The moment we sincerely say this prayer, the strongholds of demons within us will start getting dismantled. Moreover, through this prayer we cease the authority of Satan over us and allow Jesus to be in charge of us. If all those attending the Eucharist have this same objective, the church will become a ‘heating plant’ for the Holy Spirit to act. The heat from a contrite heart and submissive (to Lord) soul along with prayers enable the transfiguration of the bread and vine into the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Further, the transfiguration that the people initiate as soon as they enter the church reaches fruitful conclusion when they partake in the body and blood of Christ. Once Jesus’ real body and blood enters into us we are into Christ and hence a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). In this we, transfiguration of souls contribute to transfiguration of bread and vine, and vice versa.

Churches across the world exist for only one purpose, to experience and witness the transfiguration of Jesus Christ. Any other businesses or activities, if given primary importance, no matter how important or relevant they are to the socio-politico-cultural situations, are only distractions to the primary purpose of the church’s existence. Please remember Satan’s primary aim is to distract us from Jesus Christ.

May Lord’s name be glorified, Amen.

I use the verb ‘encash’ as a focused theme in this blog for a specific reason. As we see around and experience the world around us, and of course to a greater extent we too are engaged in hot chase and violent pursuit of wealth. And, in the course of this pursuit, many are not hesitant to convert anything in possession into hard cash. This madness has resulted in the destruction of our heritage, nature, and spiritual value system. For example, trees are cut to construct concrete jungles (buildings), heritage constructions are sold off for setting up commercial plazas and malls. We often get to read reports that ancient manuscripts, articles, and utensils are sold in the black market of many middle east Asian countries. The tendency of encashing anything and everything has intruded into the life of churches as well. In many western countries church buildings are sold for millions of dollars. These church buildings are later converted into residential dwellings, shops, and even pubs. Thus the same house of Lord is converted into properties of selfish commercial interests and demonic engagements. Jesus said ‘….you have made it into a den of robbers’ (Matthew 21:13; Mark 11:17; Luke 19:46).The hurricane of pursuit for wealth is claiming massive causalities in today’s world and needs to be investigated so as to dig out the hidden agenda of Satan. The fundamental cause and linkages will certainly help us to arrest this destructive regime.

Jesus Christ was tempted by Satan three times in the desert as the Bible describes in Matthew 4, Mark 1, and Luke 4. The first temptation was Satan asking Jesus to turn stones into bread (Matthew 4:3).
Before discussing about this temptation let us have a basic understanding of bread:
Jesus said ‘I am the bread of life” (John 6:35) and this bread comes out of heaven to give life to us (see John 6:33). Therefore, it is evident that there are two types of food, eternal and perishable. Jesus discourages those who follow Him just for the sake of perishable food (John 6:26-27). Many of us are not different from the people identified here. It is unfortunate to see that the journey with God is discontinued the moment when He stops responding to our material demands. We must remember that God is not our butler to look after our material needs. He is “…our refuge and strength, an ever- present help in trouble (Psalms 46:1). Alongside, we need to know that Lord is our refuge from Satan,strength to fight against the demonic powers (Ephesians 6:10-12), and an ever-present help in trouble from the demonic powers (Matthew 28:20). To sum up this paragraph, let me reinstate that we must seek spiritual benefits from God rather than perishable material riches, for our material needs are taken care of without our asking (Matthew 6:8). therefore, let us seek His kingdom and His righteousness first, and the rest will also be given to us (Matthew 6:33).

When Satan asked Jesus to turn the stones into bread, he had hidden motives which could be traced to the Old Testament. In Joshua 4:3,8 & 20, we see that the men of Israel from each tribe obeys Lord’s commandment given through Joshua, and carry 12 stones from the middle of Jordan. Later Joshua set these stones up one in each camp according to the 12 tribes, at a place called Gilgal. The laying of the 12 stones equivalent to the 12 tribes of Israel represents the foundation of the Church as is mentioned in Ephesians 2:20. Therefore, anyone arguing against the Old Testament is in fact arguing against the word of God and in the process undermining the foundation of God’s household (Ephesians 2:19), which is the Church. Secondly, by taking the stones from the middle of Jordan denotes baptism in advance in the glory of Christ. Jesus said …no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit (John 3:5). By passing through Jordan and in clouds Israelites were baptised by Moses (1 Corinthians 10:2). Thus, the 12 stones represent the chosen people of God, prepared in advance by Moses and Joshua for eternal salvation through Jesus Christ. And, we may well imagine why Satan would cede the whole generation of Old Testament to Jesus and His Kingdom. And, Satan was well aware that Israel was instructed through Joshua that the stones represents the mighty hand of God and is an eternal memoir (Joshua 4:21-24). This would have been the reason why Satan asked Jesus to turn the stones into bread. If Jesus listened to Satan’s advise of encashing the stones for bread, Jesus would have lost an entire Old Testament generation to Satan and consequently loosing the primary purpose of His mission. The lost sheep of Israel was apparently Jesus’ first target of mission (Matthew 15:24; Romans 1:16).

The second set of 12 stones is mentioned in Joshua 4:9 where it says that Joshua set up 12 stones in the middle of Jordan, in the place where the feet of the priests bearing the ark of covenant has stood. At the outset, please note that the first set of 12 stones were also taken from the same place, where the priests stood (see Joshua 4:3). This may be linked to the eternal priesthood of Jesus (Hebrews 5:6; 7;21; Psalms 110:4). Coming back to the topic of discussion, the 12 stones which Joshua laid in the middle of Jordan is prophetic in nature, and represents the 12 disciples of Jesus Christ who would form the second part of the foundation of the Church. As mentioned above, Ephesians 2:20 identifies the 12 disciples as the foundation of the Church. Therefore, the Church stands on Old Testament principles and New Testament values and both are equally important in the Kingdom of God and salvation of the creation. While Old Testament converges in Jesus Christ, New Testament stems from Jesus Christ and branches bearing flowers and fruits through the Apostles, and fully guided by the Holy Spirit. Again, as we saw above, Satan wanted Jesus to sell off the (12 New Testament) stones for bread. This would have again be disastrous to the mission of Christ, had the advice been followed. Obviously, Jesus knew the fundamental characteristics of Satan as a liar and murderer (John 8:44) and also a deceiver (Revelations 12:9). And, this is evident in Satan’s tactful recommendation to encash the valuable stones so that the whole church may be destroyed once for all.

The 12 stones representing the 12 tribes of Israel and the 12 foundation stones of the Church (Ephesians 2:20) adds up to 24 in total. The 12 fathers of the Old Testament and the 12 of New Testament are seated on 24 thrones surrounding the throne of Jesus Christ as stated in Revelations 4:4). These thrones were promised by Jesus Himself in Matthew 19:28. Further, As we see in Revelations 4:4 that the elders sitting on the throne are dressed in white robes with golden crowns on their heads.

So ‘who gets the crown’ should be our primary concern. Revelations 3:21 promises that whoever ‘overcomes’will get the crown. As Jesus did, and as His disciples, martyrs and several saints did, we should defeat and overcome the trials and tribulations of this world which are from Satan. Revelations 7:14 says, ‘these are the people who had overcome great tribulations during their life on earth, using the blood of Christ’. Saint Paul boasted that nothing could separate him from the love of Christ (Romans 8:39). He overcame tribulations of this world by considering everything else except Christ as garbage or rubbish (Philippians 3:8). Therefore, Saint Paul could confidently foresee the crown waiting for him (2 Timothy 4:8). Jesus during His time of hardship (like when he was hungry) did not sell the stones, neither did any of the disciples or other martyrs. As children of God we are not allowed to encash our richest of the assets which of course is the foundation of the Church.

May God bless us.