Homily for the Feast of the Transfiguration of Christ

We hear the story of the Transfiguration of the Lord twice each year:
+ on the Second Sunday of Lent
+ on today’s Feast

The story is placed on both days carefully:
+ The Second Sunday of Lent occurs forty days before Good Friday
+ The Feast of the Transfiguration is observed forty days before the Feast of the Triumph of the Cross on September 14th.

The number 40, as it appears in Sacred Scripture is significant: it suggests a passage of time long enough to make a change in a person’s outlook:
+ Noah’s 40 days and 40 nights of rain
+ the Hebrews wandering in the desert for 40 years
+ the Lord fasting for 40 days before beginning His public ministry

So, the Transfiguration experience is given 40 days before the Lord enters His Passion — and we exalt the Holy Cross —in order to strengthen His Apostles for the hardship to come.

Our Lord wanted His Apostles to be certain of who He is. This story follows closely after the “retreat” at Caesarea Phillippi, where Jesus asks, “Who do the people say that I am?” — followed by asking, “Who do you say that I am?” We will recall from that story that Saint Peter answers correctly, saying,  “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.”

This speaks to the connection between the Lord’s twin natures: being fully human and fully divine, — so that — in the Transfiguration, the Lord reveals His divine nature in a manner in which the Apostles can be certain of His divinity
beyond their witnessing of His curing the sick, raising the dead, feeding the multitudes. It’s interesting that the Lord chooses to go up the mountain: it was essentially to listen for the voice of the Father.

Many of the stories in the life of Christ begin with,
+ “He came down from the mountain…
+ “He came in from the desert…

So St. Matthew begins the story with Jesus leading His Apostles up a high mountain. This mountain has been identified as Mount Tabor in Galilee. Though St. Matthew calls it a high mountain, Okemo is higher, which perhaps explains why I find praying up there a task more easily accomplished  than in many other places.

Mountaintops have traditionally been the meeting place for God and Man:
+ Moses on Mount Sinai
+ Abraham on Mount Zion
+ Jesus on the Mount of the Beatitudes… later on the Mount of Olives… and still later on Mount Calvary.

God has always been thought of as beyond human reach, necessitating mountain-climbing to attain His Presence…
and prayer itself has been defined as an ascent of the mind and the heart to God. But God reaches out to us in the person of Jesus, who, even after an experience as amazing as the Transfiguration, wends His way back down the mountain to maintain closeness with His people. 

And now, in our day the priest ascends a few steps into the sanctuary as we begin Mass, a slight reference to Mount Tabor as we enter into an intimate closeness with Christ in the Eucharist. At the apex of the Procession which begins our Mass, I stop beneath the steps into the Sanctuary and recite the Prayer at the Foot of the Altar: Introibo ad altare Dei… ad Deum quiae laetificat juventutum meam. In English, “I go up to the altar of God… to God who gives joy to my youth.” I have no delusions about my youth, which remains many years behind me; the second part was prayed in the past by the Altar Server. But there occurs something of a rejuvenation when considering that we are approaching the Lord in the mysteries we are about to celebrate, and this brings a certain joy  that is experienced nowhere else.

Returning to the Gospel… as the story unfolds, Moses and Elijah appear:
+ Moses represents the Law and the Commandments given by God the Father…
+ Elijah, considered the greatest of the Prophets, represents the prophecies — the Father’s direct words to His people on how to live the Commandments.

Yet their presence is eclipsed by Christ whose inner light…  (as we describe in the Creed, being light from light) is now experienced literally for the first time. And then, for a second time in the Lord’s Public Life, a voice comes from the heavens, saying, “This is my Beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased…” but now this Voice of God adds, “Listen to Him”… Which introduces a shift of focus in salvation history from Moses and Elijah… now to Jesus, whose life unfolds the fulfillment of both the Law and the Prophets… so, now they, and we, are to listen to Him… not disregarding the Law and the Prophets, but engaging them in the light of Christ, His life and His Teaching. 

This was a knock-em-dead experience for Peter, James and John, who literally fell to the earth, — because — up to this point they knew Jesus as an itinerant Rabbi — but now — they have found themselves to be friends with no less than the very Son of God.  It was a frightening as well as revelatory experience, which could explain St Peter’s desire to pitch a few tents and remain on holy ground.

And now, we are here, on holy ground, this consecrated edifice, having come to meet Our Lord in His glory once again, in a miraculous “making present” of Christ who comes to us in word and sacrament. One could say that what happens on this elevated Sanctuary is a miracle greater than what took place atop Mount Tabor.

In the “making present” of Christ at the Consecration, Transubstantiation supersedes Transfiguration, — because —
the consecrated elements of bread and wine which have become the Lord’s Precious Body and Blood… are no mere manifestation of the Lord’s glory with dazzling garments and Sainted persons from the past… He becomes truly present: Body and Blood… Soul and Divinity. Our Lord Jesus is truly here in the consecrated elements. And then, we not only witness the making-present of Christ at the Consecration… we literally take this mystery into ourselves when we receive Holy Communion.

Now, as His Sacred Blood courses through our veins, a “transfiguration” of our own takes place. By the Grace of the Sacrament and the power of the Holy Spirit, we become what we receive… the living, Mystical Body of Christ. So, with Saint Peter we can say from the heart, “Lord, it is good that we are here.”

But, of course, we cannot remain atop the mountain, pitching tents as St. Peter proposed… we must come down from the mountain and return to a world that has lost its sense of the sacred… of mystery… of miracle… and convince the world that we have seen and know God the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost as revealed to us in Word and Sacrament…

…and assure them that God is real,  and that He is knowable.

To this end, so that we may begin to live out our own mountaintop experience at this Mass, and in our personal prayer, Our Lord will say to us, as he said to His frightened Apostles, “Rise, and do not be afraid.”