The Feast of the Transfiguration, Friday, August 6, 2021

Mark 9:2–10

Jesus took Peter, James, his brother and John, and led them up a high mountain apart by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no fuller on earth could bleach them. Then Elijah appeared to them along with Moses, and they were conversing with Jesus. Then Peter said to Jesus in reply, “Rabbi, it is good that we are here! Let us make three tents: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” He hardly knew what to say, they were so terrified. Then a cloud came, casting a shadow over them; from the cloud came a voice, “This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.” Suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone but Jesus alone with them.  As they were coming down from the mountain, he charged them not to relate what they had seen to anyone, except when the Son of Man had risen from the dead. So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what rising from the dead meant.

A feast commemorating the Transfiguration of Jesus Christ has been celebrated in various regions of the Christian world for well over a thousand years.  Sermons on the occasion of the Feast and prayers for the feast day begin to appear in the 800’s in the West, but at that time it did not have a place on the universal calendar.  The arrival in Rome on August 6, 1456 of the news that the Hungarians had thrown back the relentless march of the Muslims at Belgrade, was greeted with enormous relief and celebration.  In gratitude to heaven for this victory, Pope Callistus III established the celebration of the Transfiguration as a feast day.

At the Transfiguration, the Lord revealed himself to the three Apostles in a form that dazzled their eyes and left them struggling for speech.  They felt compelled to respond, but only Peter was able to utter anything at all, and Matthew tells us that “he hardly knew what to say, they were so terrified.”  The Greek says, literally, “He did mot know what he said, for they were terrified out of their minds.”  Nothing they had experienced to this point in their lives had prepared them for this vision of Moses, Elijah, and the transfigured Jesus.  The event occurred suddenly, without warning.  As far as these Apostles knew, they were accompanying the Lord up the mountain in order to pray there.  By the time they reached the top, they were certainly winded and bent down by their exertion.  No sound accompanied the Transfiguration to gain their attention, simply the blinding glare of the light, which caught them unawares.  The Lord showed himself in this way to fortify them — the most zealous of his followers — for the Passion that was soon to come.  Even so, Peter denied him and James hid.  Only John stood at the Cross with him.  

The vision prepared them for another event: their own deaths.  James was arrested and then condemned and beheaded.  Peter also was arrested and condemned and crucified.  John, according to tradition, lived some time after the Ascension of the Lord and died in his old age.  They would have been breathless in their first instant in heaven at the sight of Almighty God and overwhelmed by the full experience of his love, but unlike at the time of their vision of the transfigured Jesus, they would have been ready to respond rationally.  Years of serving the Lord with all their heart, mind, and strength, devoted prayer to him, and giving up their lives for him had taught them how to speak in heaven.  And so they began to sing in their rapture.  They joined in the ancient hymn of the angels: “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts!” (Isaiah 6, 3).

You and I may not see death coming.  It is so necessary for us to prepare now so that we are not caught speechless like the Apostles on the mountain or like the guest at the great feast (cf. Matthew 22, 12-13).  We have this day and however many days God grants us to learn to speak at the sight of him.  We do this through dedication to his service, prayer, and perseverance in our faith,striving even to outdo the Apostles, who were not so prepared at the Transfiguration.