The Feast of the Transfiguration

Troparion (Tone 7)

You were Transfigured on the Mount, O Christ God,

Revealing Your glory to Your disciples as far as they could bear it.

Let Your everlasting Light shine upon us sinners!

Through the prayers of the Theotokos, O Giver of Light, glory to You!

Kontakion (Tone 7)

On the Mountain You were Transfigured, O Christ God,

And Your disciples beheld Your glory as far as they could see it;

So that when they would behold You crucified,

They would understand that Your suffering was voluntary,

And would proclaim to the world,

That You are truly the Radiance of the Father!

The Feast of Transfiguration is coming up on Monday (Aug. 6th by the Revised Julian Calendar)! Oh, this is my third favorite feast day, after Easter and Theophany. Just read the Troparion and Kontakion of the feast! How can it not excite you? How can it hammer into you that it is Christ, the Radiant and Eternal Logos of the Ever-existing Father that came, condescended to our lowliness, and assumed the form of a servant in order to hallow service. As St. Gregory the Theologian said, "That which is unassumed is not healed"--that is to say, if any part of Jesus was not also God, then our salvation is not possible; he went to sleep to hallow sleep, he wept so that our tears are blessed, he ate and drank so that even our meals are a holy act for the nourishment of our bodies at the same time that He, in His holiness, is the nourishment for our souls. The soul and the body cannot be saved individually, or one at the expense of the other. Christ has a body, and it is in his deified human flesh that he sits at the right hand of the Father.

This is the revelation of the Transfiguration--and it was this glory, the glory of the Uncreated Light of God, showing through and in his human flesh. Is it any wonder that, seeing Jesus in this way, and Moses and Elijah on either side of him, that Peter, James, and John wanted to build tabernacles for each of them on the spot? Seeing him in his majesty, the mystery of the God-man was revealed, and the assurance of our Redemption was made manifest.