The Transfiguration of Christ

The Transfiguration of Christ (August 6)

Metropolitan Kallistos Ware

This is a feast that enjoys far greater prominence in Orthodoxy than in western Christendom.  In the Roman rite, the Transfiguration is merely a "double of the second class," while the Anglican Prayer Book of 1662 does not even provide a special Collect, Epistle, or Gospel for this day.  (This omission has been rectified in the 1928 Book, as also in the revisions of the Book of Common Prayer used in many parts of the Anglican Communion overseas).

In the Orthodox Church tradition August 6 is reckoned as one of the Twelve Great Feasts, of such importance that it supplants the Sunday office entirely (when the feast is observed on the Lord's Day).

The Transfiguration is par excellence the feast of Christ's divine glory.  Like Theophany (January 6), it is a feast of light.  During Matins the exapostilarion for the day states:  "Today on Tabor in the manifestation of Thy Light, O Word, Thou unaltered Light from the Light of the unbegotten Father, we have seen the Father as Light and the Spirit as Light, guiding with light the whole creation."

Nor is this the only parallel between the two feasts.  Like Theophany, although less explicitly, the Transfiguration is a revelation of the Holy Trinity.  On Tabor, as at the baptism in Jordan, the Father speaks from heaven, testifying to the divine Sonship of Christ; and the Spirit is also present, on this occasion not in the likeness of a dove, but under the form of dazzling light, surrounding Christ's person and overshadowing the whole mountain.  This dazzling light is the light of the Spirit.

The Transfiguration then, is a feast of divine glory;  more specifically of the glory of the Resurrection.  The ascent of Mount Tabor came at a critical point in Our Lord's ministry, just as He was setting out upon His last journey to Jerusalem, which He knew was to end in humiliation and death.  To strengthen His disciples for the trials that lay ahead He chose this particular moment to reveal to them something of His eternal splendor, "as far as they were able to bear it"  (Troparion of the Feast).   He encouraged them -- and all of us -- to look beyond the suffering of the Cross to the glory of the Resurrection.

The light of the Transfiguration, however, foreshadows not only Christ's own Resurrection on the third day, but equally the Resurrection glory of the righteous (ones) at His Second Coming.  The glory which shone from Jesus on Tabor is a glory in which all mankind is called to share.  On Mount Tabor we see Christ's human nature -- the human substance which He took from us -- filled with splendor, "made godlike" or "deified."  What has happened to human nature in Christ can happen also to the humanity of Christ's followers.  The Transfiguration then, reveals to us the full potentiality of our human nature: it shows us the glory which our manhood once possessed and the glory which, by God's grace, it will again recover at the Last Day.

This is a cardinal aspect of the present feast, to which the liturgical texts frequently revert.  For example, it is said at Great Vespers that at His Transfiguration the Lord, "in His own person showed them the nature of man, arrayed in the original beauty of the Image."  Similarly at Matins one hears, "Thou wast transfigured upon Mount Tabor, showing the exchange mortal men will make with Thy glory at Thy second and fearful coming, O Savior."

The feast of the Transfiguration, therefore, is not simply the commemoration of a past event in the life of Christ.  Possessing also an "eschatological" dimension, it is turned towards the future, towards the "splendor of the Resurrection" at the Last Day, towards the "beauty of the divine Kingdom" which all Christians hope eventually to enjoy.  (From the Festal Menaion)

The Lord is My Shepherd

The Lord Is My Shepherd

(A Traditional look at a well known Psalm)

Archbishop Dmitri

Psalm 22/23 which begins with the words, "The Lord is my Shepherd," is probably one of the best known, most often quoted and memorized of all David's beautiful hymns.  It has always occupied an important place in the spiritual life of the Orthodox Christian, and is one of the Psalms included in the order of preparation for the reception of Holy Communion.

In the early Church the catechumens, especially as the time for their Baptism drew near, were made familiar with its content and were even obliged to learn it by heart.  It seems, however, that its meaning was not fully explained to them until after they had received the grace of the All-holy Spirit in the mysteries of Baptism, Chrismation and the Eucharist: "We gave you the Psalm, beloved children who hurriedly approach the baptism of Christ, so that you might learn it by heart.  But, it is necessary, because of its mystical, hidden meaning, that we explain it to you, with the light of divine grace." (From a sermon attributed to St. Augustine.)

The Fathers of the Church saw in Psalm 22/23 both a prophecy and a summary of the mysteries (sacraments) of Christian initiation.  St. Gregory of Nyssa, for example, explained: "By this Psalm, Christ teaches the Church that, first of all, you must become a sheep of the Good Shepherd:  the catechetical instruction guides you to the pastures and fountains of doctrine.  Then you must be buried with Him into death by Baptism.  But this is not death, but a shadow and image of death.  Then He prepares the mystical table.  Then He anoints you with the oil of the Spirit.  And finally He presents the wine that gladdens the heart of man and produces that sober inebriation characteristic of the true Christian."

It is to be noted that then, as now, our Orthodox Church used the Greek Old Testament (the Septuagint - it is Psalm 22 in the Greek), and the understanding of its mystical meaning was based on this version.  The traditional meaning given the Psalm in our Church is obscured in a few phrases of the most widely known English translations, since they follow the Hebrew rather than the Greek.  In the following selection of commentaries on the six verses, we give first the King James translation and in the parentheses a more or less literal translation of the Septuagint.

(1.)  The Lord is my Shepherd (The Lord Shepherds me);  I shall not want (I shall lack nothing).  Once again St. Gregory of Nyssa explains: "David invites you to be one of the sheep whose Shepherd is Christ and who lack no good thing.  The Good Shepherd makes Himself everything for you:  pasture, water of rest, food, dwelling place, and the way of righteousness, and He gives you the Comforter, distributing His grace according to your needs."  St. Cyril of Alexandria states, those who belong to Christ "have as their guide not a simple, holy man, as Israel had Moses, but the Prince of Shepherds and the Teacher of doctrine, in whom are found all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge"...

(2.)  He maketh me to lie down in green pastures (He has made me to dwell in a place of verdure): He leadeth me beside the still waters (He has nourished me beside the waters of rest). "The place of verdure (green pastures) means the ever-fresh words of Holy Scripture, which nourishes the hearts of believers and gives them spiritual strength" (St. Cyril of Alexandria).  "The waters of rest means, no doubt, Holy Baptism, by which the weight of sin is removed."  After having fed the person who comes to Him in faith with His word, the Lord leads him to the waters of Baptism, making him a sheep of His holy flock, whose destiny is only to enter into God's rest.

(3.)  He restoreth my soul (He has converted my soul):  He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake (He has led me...).   David speaks of his own experience: after having learned of God's ways he strayed from the paths of righteousness and fell into deadly sin.  His experience in this Psalm becomes a prophecy:  anyone, no matter how far he may have strayed from God, in Christ may be converted and return to the way of righteousness and learn to do God's will.

(4.)  Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil (....though I walk in the midst of the shadow of death...):  for thou art with me;  thy rod and thy staff they comfort me (...they have comforted me).  "It is necessary for you to be buried in death with Him by Baptism.  But it is not really death, but a shadow and image of death" (St. Gregory of Nyssa). "For we are baptized into the death of Christ, Baptism is called the shadow and image of death, in face of which there is no longer anything to fear" (St. Cyril of Alexandria).  The last part of this verse refers to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.  "He comforts the believer, or guides him, with the rod and staff (the Shepherd's crook) of the Spirit, for the One who guides or comforts is the Spirit" (St. Gregory of Nyssa).  "And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you forever...when He, the Spirit of Truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth..." (John 14:16; 16:13).

(5.)  Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies (...in the presence of those that afflict me...):   thou anointest my head with oil;  my cup runneth over (...thy cup which inebriates me, how excellent it is).  "What does David mean by this ("Thou has prepared a table...") if not the mystical and spiritual table which God has prepared for us?...He anointed thy head on the forehead with the seal of God, which thou didst receive so that thou mightest bear the seal impressed as the sign of consecration to God.  And you see that David is speaking of the chalice, over which Christ said after giving thanks, "This is the chalice of my blood" (St. Cyril of Jerusalem).  "Having abandoned the remains of the former error and renewed his youth like that of an eagle, the newly baptized hurriedly approaches the celestial banquet.  He arrives and seeing the altar prepared, he exclaims, 'Thou has prepared a table before me...'" (St. Ambrose).  "In these lines the Word clearly designates the sacramental unction (Chrism) and the holy sacrifice of Christ's table" (Eusebius of Caesarea).  "The Holy Spirit expresses in the Psalms the same figure of the Eucharist when the Lord's chalice is mentioned; 'Thy cup which inebriates me, how excellent it is!'  But the inebriation which the Lord's chalice gives is not similar to that of profane wine.  It intoxicates in such a way that it does not make one lose his reason; it leads souls to spiritual wisdom..."  (St. Cyprian of Carthage).  "Others mocking said, These men are full of new wine.  But Peter...said unto them...these are not drunken, as ye suppose...but this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel:  and it shall come to pass in the last day, saith God, I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams" (Acts 2:13-17).

(6.)  Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life (...mercy shall pursue me...);  and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.  "Christ, providing the world with the wine 'that maketh glad the heart of men,' provokes in it that sober intoxication which elevates the dispositions of the heart from transitory to eternal things...He who has tasted, in fact, this inebriation trades the ephemeral for that which has no end and remains in the house of the Lord all the days of his life" (St. Gregory of Nyssa).

The Day of the Holy Spirit

Fr. Alexander Men (This year we celebrate the feast of Ascension on Thursday, June 2, and the feast Pentecost, the giving of the Holy Spirit and Birthday of the Church, on Sunday June 12.  In anticipation of the latter we offer the following sermon by Fr. Alexander Men.)

When the temple guard, the soldiers who used to keep order in the House of God, were sent by the temple authorities to seize the Lord, they returned without success, as they had not been able to lay hands on Him. When sternly asked: "Why did you not bring him back with you?" -- they replied, "No one ever spoke like this man." There was power in the words of Christ the Savior.  But that power was not there in the words of His disciples, because the force that spoke through Him was divine, while human weakness alone spoke through them. Even when the disciples had seen the Resurrected One with their own eyes, they hid in fear, locking their doors.  Despite everything, they did not believe. They doubted, even when they saw Him on the mountain in Galilee, as the Evangelist Matthew tells us. Some worshipped Him, but others doubted, believing it to be a ghost.

A few weeks later, on the feast of Pentecost, everything changed.  (Just over a month) had passed since the Lord had died at the place of the skull, in full view of everyone, and then risen again, showing Himself to be faithful and true. Suddenly there was a great noise of troubled voices --and Christ's disciples came out of the house and bore witness to the Risen Christ in front of a whole crowd of people. Everything in them changed:  their fear, timidity and confused speech had gone, as if they had never existed.  They spoke so that everyone could understand, even visitors from distant lands who did not know the language well. Their words were now reaching everyone. Why? What was happening?  They were able to bear witness because the divine power of the Lord had descended on them -- not in a human way, not through flesh and blood, but directly through the Holy Spirit; so they could openly say, "This Jesus, God has raised from the dead, whereof we are all witnesses."

This is an important saying, which we should take to our hearts, like those witnesses. Every Christian is a witness for God.  Think for a moment what a witness is in our ordinary life.  In court, a witness must describe truthfully what he has seen and heard and tell what he really knows honestly and truly. There are false witnesses and slanderers, but a true witness speaks only the truth -- and not just the truth, but a truth that he knows well personally. So the power of Christian witness lies in what we say about the Lord whom we know, about the grace we have experienced, the blessing that is ours and the faith which is in our hearts. If we do not have that Spirit, that power, then we are bad disciples.

The Apostles said:  "He has been raised by God and we are the witnesses thereof" -- because they knew it, they had seen it with their own eyes and had experienced it.  But what about us?  When we pray to the Lord after taking Holy Communion, do we not touch Him?  All true faith is contact with the Lord, but once there has been living contact with God, with the Risen Christ who has saved us, it means we can honestly and courageously witness to the world about our hope, our consolation and our joy.

Our joy is the Lord, who loves the world, trying to save each man and seeking every soul that has erred.  We do not say this just because of reports by others. We ourselves must be witnesses of His Spirit and His power. Let us pray today for the most important thing of all -- that the Spirit of the Lord, which is promised to us, to each one of us, should come to us and touch our hearts.  Then we shall say, not in vain, but out of the experience of our hearts, that we know our Lord and have known the touch of the Spirit of Christ and of God.  Then we shall have the right to say, "Yes, we know Him, whom we have loved, who has loved us, saved us and given us the gift of eternal life."  To Him we all cry, "King of Heaven, Comforter, Spirit of Truth, come and make your home in us."

Good Friday

Good Friday

(Silence in the Face of Injustice)

Fr. Alexander Men

(This year Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Pascha will be celebrated respectively on April 22, 23, and 24.  In anticipation we offer the following sermon by Fr. Alexander Men.  According to one source:  "Father Alexander Men (1935-1990) was a great leader, and one may say architect, of religious renewal in Russia at the end of the Soviet period. He was a pastor, who found the time to write a great number of books including a seven volume study of world religions, ranging in style from the academic to the popular. He lectured widely, at the end gaining access to radio and television and becoming a nationally known figure...He was assassinated in 1990 but through his writings and through his memory and his spiritual heritage he still speaks and it may be is an increasing presence in the world as his work becomes better known.")

The last Gospel of Christ -- St. John's Gospel -- describes the Lord's trial, His sufferings, death and burial.  Throughout three short years the Lord had preached every day.  As St. Mark tells us, sometimes He and His disciples didn't even have bread to eat.  He spoke and did a great deal.  John the Evangelist says that if all the things He said and did were to be written down, the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.

However, when He stood before unjust judges, Christ was silent.  This is mentioned by all the evangelists.  He answered the high priest only once and then was silent.  When He was ridiculed, beaten and mocked, He was silent.  When He was brought before Pilate, He also answered him briefly and then fell silent.  What did this mean?  Why was He, who formerly inspired people with faith and hope now keeping silent?

It was because He had already said all He had to say and also because His unjust judges would have remained deaf to His words and His defense. That was the reason for His silence.  Only once during the trial, in answer to the question, "Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?" did He reply, "I am," adding "and you shall see the Son of Man coming in glory, in the clouds of heaven."  He said this and once more fell silent.  Then, when He was dying, those standing around the Cross heard only a few words from Him.  He suffered and died in silence.  How many bitter words He could have found for the ungrateful human race.  But He was silent, for He was the God-Man, through whom the Lord revealed Himself to us.  He had said everything, taught everything;  He had opened the doors, and thereafter He was silent.  He submitted to insults, ingratitude, flogging and death.

Is it not the same in our lives?  We sometimes feel that the Lord is silent, that He does not respond to our sufferings and sadness, to our sorrowful prayers.  In fact, however, He is listening.  He knows and feels for us, just as He did then, at the time when He Himself was suffering.  He suffered when He stood before me blinded by envy, hatred and malice, yet was silent because His heart was moved even for them:  for their degradation, their sins and blindness.  In the same way our Lord suffers for us, seemingly without speaking.  We appeal to Him, but we must not think that His divine silence signifies indifference, that He "doesn't hear," as we say.  He cannot fail to hear.  It is simply that, as before, He has told us everything.  He has said more to us than the world or our hearts could contain.  He has shown us the read to life and now He is silently awaiting a movement of the heart or will in each one of us.

In the same way that He broke His silence then, and spoke of the Son of Man coming to judge the living and the dead, so now the Lord tells us that He is longsuffering.  He silently endures our sinfulness, our meanness, our lack of faith -- all our unworthiness -- but not for ever.  A time will come when all will be weighed by the justice of God.  For us, the silence of the Cross is both a reproach and a call to a real Christian life  Most important of all for us is the fact that He acknowledges us, for we know that the One who was silent on the Cross, who is silent in heaven, is also the One who is our Savior, who has not forgotten or left us.  He is our only hope.  Amen.