In the very scenery of the transfiguration Jesus took his three carefully selected disciples to the mountain, where he met Moses and Elijah. More than likely Moses and Elijah were not physically present, though we can not say it for sure. If time travel is real, though scientists insist that it is impossible, then there is a slight chance that it was a physical meeting. Teleportation, like sending people from a place to a far away place instantaneously, was a SCI-FI fairy tale for a while. Quite until nowadays, when serious university labs keep stating that using a technology, based on quantum physics, the new scientific development theoretically makes teleportation possible.
However the physical presence of Moses and Elijah was not very likely as the Gospels uni-vocally say that the two celebrities suddenly just appeared and at the end they suddenly disappeared meanwhile a bright cloud represented the very presence of the supernatural entity, called God, among them. Thus it is likely that whatever happened on the mountain of the transfiguration, it was spiritual in nature, I mean it was a supernatural event.
Still the accounts of the Gospels show, that God can be personally present at a human meeting like a bright cloud, and from it his voice can be heard by human ears, and that two people who lived many centuries ago, they can appear with their personal, identifiable characteristics, and able to have a conversation with Jesus, as the disciples witnessed it, according to the Gospels. How do we know beside the testimony of the Gospels that the two persons were indeed Moses and Elijah and not mere dreamy images. Because the bright cloud of God testifies it. Even Jesus was vetted as the bright cloud testified that ‘’this is my Son, the Beloved, with Him I am well pleased, listen to Him!’
Just imagine the time gap was in the case of Moses approximately thirteen-hundred years, in the case of Elijah it was approximately eight-hundred years to have a meeting with Jesus.
Physical presence or not, ultimately it does not really matter if we can still establish a real contact, like having a video phone conversation with somebody who lives in an other country or in an other continent. Having video phone conversation were considered also a SCI-FI fairy tale even just a few decades ago, until it became an everyday routine of our daily lives. And the holographic telephone, with the TV and holographic gaming SET and the belonging Cinema world are just on their way to arrive.
By physical presence or by spiritual presence a communication bridge was created not only between far away places, but between time gaps. If Moses and Elijah were able to see Jesus and advise him, they must be somewhere even now, where they came from to meet Jesus on the mountain. That somewhere is Heaven, not only the real ultimately final frontier, but the real ultimate reality, even when it looks unreal or impossible to grasp it, that Heaven does exist.
There is a saying that nothing is absolutely certain in life but death. Despite its negative content, the saying is quite popular among disputing people, indicating the up and down swinging probability of almost everything, and that the unexpected should have be expected anytime, at least the unexpected should not be excluded with utmost certainty, because nothing is really certain they say but death. Not even gravity.
Sir Isaac Newton was sure that all apples will fall eventually. However it is only a statistical date. We can not be sure with 1000 percent certainty that gravity will work in the next second or tomorrow. Just imagine a XXIth century culture, where science changes its mind every five years or five hours, where they can not prove that God does exist or not, and the only certain point for science is not math but the unavoidable death and its certainty.
The statement looks plausible enough, and self evident like an axiom, which does not need further explanations. Axioms should be “scientifically” self-evident. At least what usually we think, for example regarding mathematical or geometrical axioms. However, according to the default definition, axioms are self-evident, because they can not be scientifically proven, not even the axioms of math. They are just accepted like a belief that an axiom is true, because it feels so true, that we are certain that it is true.
Thus an axiom must be so certainly true, as it is true that everybody dies. One generation after the other, since the creation of this world and to the end of the history, babies are born, and people die when their time had come, or God forbid even before their time. We take as an axiom that as humans are mortal so everybody dies. Actually the Bible says that yes it is quite frequent but not everybody dies, just almost everybody. Immortality is an ancient dream of humanity. It is a part of every culture, every age and era.
The earliest well documented civilization the Sumerian one left behind the Epic of Gilgamesh where Gilgamesh, the King of the city state Uruk, after he had lost his friend, he made a pilgrimage to the immortal Utnapishtim, the Sumerian version of Noah, asking him about the secret of the immortality. According to the tablets, NOAH, the survivor of the flood was granted immortality by the Gods. This Sumerian Noah told Gilgamesh that he does not know the secret of immortality he was granted with, but he can start to conquer sleep. If he is able to stay awake through seven nights and the days before, maybe he will be able to conquer death as well. Gilgamesh failed and understood that the challenge to conquer death is to big, as he was not even gain control over his own sleep.
Jesus stated regarding of everything: what looks impossible to man it is possible for God, and everything is possible for those who believe, because not EVERYBODY dies.
Some people think that the resurrection of Jesus was a unique event. Actually it was quite common. Prophets Elijah and Elisha resurrected people, Jesus himself resurrected people, even Apostle Paul according to the New Testament resurrected the young Eutichus from the dead, who fell from a high window, as he prayed for the return of the young man’s soul to the lifeless body. However what is common with all this resurrection that they were temporary. All of them, once they had been resurrected aka they souls had been returned to their bodies, they continued their lifespan as where they just dropped everything in a blink. After their resurrections they had to die again, when their time had come. Even Jesus would have died again as just almost everybody else, unless his Ascension occurred. Ascension means that somebody, disappears from Earth, and without death and judgment, he or she goes directly to Heaven. Again, some people think that Jesus’ ascension was unique in the salvation history. But it was not, it was almost quite common.
The Book of Genesis reads that ‘ All the days of Patriarch Enoch were three hundred sixty-five years. Enoch walked with God, and he was not found, for God took him. The second book of the Kings reads that ‘As they continued on and talked, behold, a chariot of fire and horses of fire separated them, and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. Elisha, his student saw it, and he cried, “My father, my father, the chariots of Israel and its horsemen!” He saw Elijah no more. ’ The Fifth Book of Moses reads that The Lord himself Moses in the valley in the land of Moab opposite Beth Peor, but no man knows where his tomb is to this day. Moses was one hundred twenty years old when he died. His eye was not dim, nor his strength gone.’ The Lord buried him himself means of course that the Lord took him, like the Lord took Enoch. They were not able to locate his grave, because Moses did not have any.
It must have a great significance that the two people Jesus met on the mountain of the transfiguration both ascended to Heaven without death. Not only because they were the two greatest Jewish prophets of all time, but because the Bible confirms their kind of immortality, which is not supposed to be physical though still real or even more real than the physical realm. That is the reality of the bright cloud which descended upon them, it is the reality of the personal presence of God, who created the whole universe by his own will. Into this ultimate reality did Jesus invite his disciples in order to gain faith or even more faith than humanly possible.
Into this reality invite Jesus us to gain faith or even more faith than humanly possible. Faith means that there is resurrection, and NOT even everybody dies, for some people ascends to Heaven seeing without death, and even when somebody dies, life still continues. Faith means the certainty that there is afterlife, and even eternal life and immortality. As the Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians that ‘The last enemy that will be abolished is death.‘ Death is not a certainty, but an enemy. Death is not a status or a stage, but a revolving door which opens to the other side, with other names, to the dream world, to the spiritual reality, where is Heaven too. May the bright cloud of God descend upon us too, upon the community and upon the world as we pray in the name of Jesus, that O LORD, your kingdom come.
AMEN
