The Transfiguration of Our Lord

2nd Peter: 13-21

The Church seems to be of two minds about when to celebrate the Transfiguration of Jesus Christ. We celebrate it twice in the liturgical year: always on the Sunday before Ash Wednesday, and on August 6. The reason for the first date is clear enough from the context in which it happened. Jesus was transfigured after his first prediction of his crucifixion. So it makes sense for us to remember the Transfiguration before we each embark on our personal way of the Cross during Lent.

But the Orthodox Christian churches of the East have always had a deeper understanding of this momentous event. They have for centuries celebrated this feast on August 6. The Western churches were much later in adopting this date. But the Transfiguration was more than a precursor to the Cross. It was not, as it is written in 2nd Peter, a "cleverly devised myth." It was not one of those spiritual experiences that we might know to be true in a subjective sense. As Eugene Peterson puts it in The Message, "we were there for the preview" (2 Peter 1:16). The Transfiguration was the preview of that day when the glory of God's Son will shine so bright that there will be no mistaking who He is: God!

The Transfiguration is our "preview." Which is why we pray today that, beholding our Transfigured Lord through his "chosen witnesses," we will be "delivered from the disquietude of this world." This world gives us many reasons to be anxious. But they don't hold a candle to peace that comes from knowing that such a dazzling light as shone around Jesus will not burn, but warm us. So confess those anxieties. In the quietness of your heart, bring them to the "holy mount." Let the dazzling white light burn them out of your heart. All that will be left will be that knowledge that Jesus is the Lover-King of all things. Behold Him!