A HOMILY FOR THE AFTERFEAST OF TRANSFIGURATION
About the Meaning of the Lord’s Transfiguration and What the Feast Demands of Us
Brothers and sisters!
The Great Feasts of the Lord and the Theotokos are distinguished from the other feasts of the Church by the fact that they are celebrated not only on the actual day of the feast, but on several days preceding and following it. These days of preparation and prolongation are called the forefeast and afterfeast. On them the Typicon (the book that governs the order of the divine services) calls for hymns connected with the feast, in addition to others for the saints of the day. Thus our Holy Church both prepares us to meet the feasts worthily and prolongs the joy peculiar to the unique and supremely transcendent events by which our salvation was accomplished.
On Monday we celebrated one of the greatest of the feasts, the Transfiguration of our Lord Jesus Christ, and today we still find ourselves in the post-festal period, so I would like to return to the wondrous events that occurred almost two thousand years ago on Mount Tabor. First, however, I should explain that there is a reason why we celebrate the Transfiguration precisely when we do. The Transfiguration actually took place in February, not in August, when it is now commemorated by the Orthodox Church. The feast was translated in antiquity to its present date because, falling in Great Lent, it could not be observed with due splendor. Lent is a time of penitential prayer and fasting, a reflection of our sinful and sorrowful life on earth, whereas the Transfiguration is a foreshadowing of the joyous age to come. The sixth of August was chosen as the new date because the Transfiguration occurred forty days before the Crucifixion, and August 6 is forty days before September 14, the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, a commemoration closely tied to the Lord’s Passion.
As His sufferings and death drew near, the Savior, wishing to strengthen the faith of His disciples, decided to manifest visibly the glory of His divinity. He wanted to show that His Crucifixion would be voluntary and confirm that He is the Redeemer of Israel promised by the prophets. To this purpose, He led Peter, James, and John up Mount Tabor, allowing them to witness the Transfiguration. According to Saint John of Damascus, “The Lord took Peter to show him,” as the chief disciple, “that the testimony of the Son is confirmed by that of the Father; He took James because this apostle would be first to taste the cup of martyrdom. Finally, He took John, the virgin herald of theology and ‘son of thunder,’ so that, having beheld the eternal glory of the Logos, he might thunder, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”[1] At that time, Peter was plagued with doubts relating to the Master’s prediction regarding His suffering and death; therefore, the Lord showed condescension to Peter’s weakness, deeming him worthy to behold the true glory of the Lamb of God, the glory that forever transcends mortality and corruption. Christ wanted to instill courage into Peter, so that he could face the terrible things that would soon come to pass. As for James and John, they were eagerly awaiting the establishment of a worldly kingdom by the Messiah and were anticipating receiving the foremost positions in that Kingdom; therefore, Christ’s concern in their case was to raise their minds to higher things. It was to this end that He vouchsafed them to behold His true royal magnificence, surpassing all earthly splendor. According to the Law, three witnesses are required to establish the truth of any occurrence, so the Master took three disciples up the mountain to witness the revelation of God’s glory. These represented in spirit all the other disciples, as Saint Proclus says.
On either side of the transfigured Lord appeared the two greatest prophets of the Old Testament: Moses and Elijah. “One,” according to Saint John Chrysostom, “came forth from the dead; the other, not having tasted death, descended from heaven.” Their presence demonstrated that Christ has power over life and death, and reigns over heaven and earth; it showed that Jesus is truly God, the Creator and Master of the universe, and the Lord and Fulfiller of the Law and the prophets. “Joy filled the prophets and apostles on the mount,” Saint Ephraim the Syrian tells us. “The prophets rejoiced, for they beheld the human nature assumed by the Lord, which they had not seen before; the apostles likewise rejoiced, for they now gazed upon the glory of His divinity, previously hidden from them. They stood before the Master as servants, and marveled at the sight of one another: the prophets at the sight of the apostles, and the apostles at that of the prophets. The foremost saints of the Old and New Covenants attended Christ, and the mount portrayed the Church itself, for on it Jesus united the testaments, His covenants with the Old and the New Israel, showing that He is the establisher of both.”
Our Holy Church extols the present feast as a theophany, a demonstration that Jesus Christ is in truth the radiance of the Father and consubstantial with Him. As the venerable Ephraim teaches: “In the glory of the Transfiguration the Lord revealed to the apostles His kingdom before undergoing suffering and His splendor before submitting to abasement. By this the disciples were given to know that He could be seized and crucified by the Jews, not because He was too weak to stop them, but only because He willed to save us by His Passion.” Furthermore, the glory of the Transfiguration foreshadowed the brilliance of the Resurrection, and also, according to Saint Proclus, the splendor in which the Lord shall come to judge the living and the dead. It also hints at the brilliance in which our bodies will be clothed in the age to come.
While extolling the celestial magnificence of our Lord at the Transfiguration, the Holy Church reminds her true children that after this life with its quickly passing disappointments and woes, the end of the world follows, an eternity in which the souls and bodies of the righteous will shine with uncreated light. Yet even in the present vale of sorrows we can be renewed in the effulgence of Tabor by transforming our thoughts through steadfast faith; by acquiring the mind of Christ; by relating everything we encounter to the teachings of the Holy Gospel; by establishing ourselves firmly in the truth; by submitting our wills to the precepts of the Scriptures; by making ample room in our hearts for God and our neighbor; by bridling our thoughts, words, and deeds through watchfulness and mental prayer; and by fleeing bondage to sin, in order to become servants of the truth in holiness. So doing, we will put on the transfigured Christ and ourselves enjoy now (even if only in part) the everlasting and divine radiance of the Transfiguration. But as for those who insist on remaining alienated from God, who do not bear within Christ transfigured, there is no place for them on the heavenly Tabor. Therefore, the Holy Church urges us, as we celebrate this feast, to raise up our earthbound thoughts unto the summit of divine ascent, and reminds us of the necessity of using well the time given us to effect in ourselves the good transformation, the good transfiguration in Christ; to attain the heights of heavenly virtue; and to clothe ourselves in the garments of incorruption, which shall beam forever with divine and celestial light. Amen.
[1] John 1:1
