Sermons & Homilies

You who are sick from the pleasures of this world, thirsty in this barren desert, hungry from the secular diet; your Physician has been born to bring health to your soul; You who are barren and made sterile by our present world, the Giver of Life has come; You who are bereft of virtue, behold the author of your course and encourager in the race; You who live in darkness, the New Day has dawned with the rising of the day-star in your heart; You who are dead, Life has come into the world; When the crowds declare that God is dead, the angels, the shepherds, the Magi, in unison, declare, “Christ Immanuel is born!”

Today is the Feast of the Transfiguration, the day on which glory of God is revealed to us sinners in the person of the God-man Jesus Christ. Today on Mount Tabor, He Who opened the eyes of the blind now opens the noetic eyes of the apostles — hitherto blinded by sin — and, in the words of the festal troparion, “[reveals His] glory to [His] disciples as far as they could bear it.” And — as long as we ourselves are willing — He will without any doubt reveal that very same glory even to us sinners as well.

Today is the fortieth day since we celebrated the Nativity of Christ, and so today, we celebrate the Meeting of the Lord, a Feast of the Lord having its roots in the book of Exodus wherein the Lord gave the command to Moses: “Consecrate to me every firstborn male. The first offspring of every womb among the Israelites belongs to me, whether human or animal.” (13.1-2, cf. Luke 2.23). We celebrate this event today because Christ is the firstborn male, and the first offspring, and, therefore, was brought into the Temple by his parents, confirming their obedience to the Law.