Now the LORD said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you.  And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.   I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you I will curse; and by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves."   So Abram went, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him.

Today's Song of Praise is taken from Psalm 33:

 R. Lord, let your mercy be on us, as we place our trust in you.

 Upright is the word of the LORD,
 and all his works are trustworthy.
 He loves justice and right;
 of the kindness of the LORD the earth is full.

 R. Lord, let your mercy be on us, as we place our trust in you.

 See, the eyes of the LORD are upon those who fear him,
 upon those who hope for his kindness,
 to deliver them from death
 and preserve them in spite of famine.

 R. Lord, let your mercy be on us, as we place our trust in you.

 Our soul waits for the LORD,
 who is our help and our shield.
 May your kindness, O LORD, be upon us
 who have put our hope in you.

 R. Lord, let your mercy be on us, as we place our trust in you.
 
 

Today's Epistle is from the Second Letter of Paul to Timothy, beginning at the 1st Chapter, and the 8th Verse:

        Do not be ashamed then of testifying to our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel in the power of God,  who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not in virtue of our works but in virtue of his own purpose and the grace which he gave us in Christ Jesus ages ago,  and now has manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.

+ A Reading from the Gospel of Matthew, beginning at the 17th Chapter, and the 1st Verse:

        And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain apart.  And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his garments became white as light.  And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. And Peter said to Jesus, "Lord, it is well that we are here; if you wish, I will make three booths here, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah."  He was still speaking, when lo, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him."   When the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces, and were filled with awe.  But Jesus came and touched them, saying, "Rise, and have no fear."  And when they lifted up their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus only.  And as they were coming down the mountain, Jesus commanded them, "Tell no one the vision, until the Son of man is raised from the dead."

        We are the spiritual heirs of Israel -- adopted to that nation through Jesus Christ, who was a Jew of the Jews, and yet a great deal more.  We are heirs of the Lord's promise to Abram, who took the name Abraham when he accepted that promise.

        Abraham is the wanderer mentioned in Deuteronomy 26, where it says:  "My father was a wandering Aramean, and he went down into Egypt with a few people and lived there and became a great nation, powerful and numerous. But the Egyptians mistreated us and made us suffer, putting us to hard labor. Then we cried out to the Lord , the God of our fathers, and the Lord heard our voice and saw our misery, toil and oppression. So the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great terror and with miraculous signs and wonders. He brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.

        We, too are captive in our own version of "Egypt" -- the ordinary world of sin, doubt and uncertainty.  We, too are called out of Egypt "with great terror and with miraculous signs and wonders".  We are promised "a land flowing with milk and honey", but in eternity, not in this world.

        We are saved, as Paul says in the Epistle:  by "the power of God,  who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not in virtue of our works but in virtue of his own purpose and the grace which he gave us in Christ Jesus ages ago,  and now has manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel."

        We are certainly saved by Grace -- by the Will of the Father, acting in the world -- no work of ours is good or powerful enough to save us by itself.  But with the power of God's grace, we are given  both "great terror" and "miraculous signs and wonders" -- Jesus' Death and Resurrection, which we look forward to at the end of this Lenten Season.

        Now some, distracted by the Traditions of Men invented in the early 16th Century (and never heard of by the Apostles and Fathers), would have it that all we have to do is believe -- to think and confess with our mouth.  We know better -- for Christ said "by their fruits ye shall know them", and "Not everyone who cries 'Lord, Lord' will enter the Kingdom -- but only he who does the will of the Father."

        Lent is the penitential season, where we examine our lives -- what we have done, what the fruits of our labors are -- and judge ourselves, and amend our ways to bring us into line with the Will of the Father.  There is no magic word or phrase -- no "Sinner's Prayer" that will automatically get us into heaven.

        In another place, Paul exhorts us to "work out your salvation with fear and trembling."  How can we not tremble, when we contemplate how small and insignificant we are, in terms of the whole Universe and its creator?

        Yet that Creator:

        "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made."

 . . . stepped down into our little world, took on our flesh in the Incarnation, out of love for us:

        "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

        And in today's Gospel, we are given a foreshadowing of the Glory that awaits us in heaven.  Jesus calls to himself, Moses and Elijah, the greatest of the Prophets, and is see by the Apostles shining  with the Glory of God -- as we will, one day, in eternity.

        Now why Moses, and why Elijah?
 
        Moses, first, because he also went up on the mountain, and came back shining with God's glory:

        Exodus 34:29   When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, with the two tables of the testimony in his hand as he came down from the mountain, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God.  And when Aaron and all the people of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him.  But Moses called to them; and Aaron and all the leaders of the congregation returned to him, and Moses talked with them.

        And also because no one knows where he lies buried -- it is as if God took him:
 
       Deut 34:5 And Moses the servant of the Lord died there in Moab, as the Lord had said. 6 He buried him [in Moab, in the valley opposite Beth Peor, but to this day no one knows where his grave is. Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died, yet his eyes were not weak nor his strength gone. The Israelites grieved for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days, until the time of weeping and mourning was over.  Since then, no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, who did all those miraculous signs and wonders the Lord sent him to do in Egypt-to Pharaoh and to all his officials and to his whole land. For no one has ever shown the mighty power or performed the awesome deeds that Moses did in the sight of all Israel.

        Moses was the mightiest of prophets,  the founder and shaper of Israel and Judaism -- he had  "the mighty power [and] performed the awesome deeds" -- he is the hero of Judaism to this day.  He led his people out of Egypt to a land of milk and honey, as Jesus leads us out of this world to His Father's Kingdom.

        Why Elijah?  He does signs and wonders, including destroying the priests of Baal on Carmel, and:

        2 Kings 2:1  When the Lord was about to take Elijah up to heaven in a whirlwind, Elijah and Elisha were on their way from Gilgal.  [Elijah said to Elisha,  several times: "Stay here; the Lord has sent me somewhere", and Elisha says, each time: "I will go with you".]  Elijah and Elisha stopped at the Jordan River. Elijah took his cloak, rolled it up and struck the water with it. The water divided to the right and to the left, and the two of them crossed over on dry ground.

        Then, when his time came to leave this world:

        When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, "Tell me, what can I do for you before I am taken from you?"  "Let me inherit a double portion of your spirit," Elisha replied.  "You have asked a difficult thing," Elijah said, "yet if you see me when I am taken from you, it will be yours-otherwise not."  As they were walking along and talking together, suddenly a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them, and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind.  Elisha saw this and cried out, "My father! My father!"

        He was taken up into heaven without dying, and thus was a forerunner of Christ, who returned from the dead and then Ascended into heaven, having conquered death.  Jesus is not just another prophet, as the Mohammedans and cultists would have it -- he is God Incarnate, come out of love to share our flesh, but leading us out of it toward the shining glory of the Father.

        In Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part I, Glendower, trying to impress the Prince, says, "I can call spirits from the vasty deep."  And Hotspur replies, "Why, so can I, or so can any man; But will they come when you do call for them?"  Jesus is God -- when He calls, even the greatest of the Prophets come.

        Let us pray that we might amend our lives and hearts, to make us more worthy of the reward promised us in heaven . . .

        In the Name of the Father +
        And of the Son +
        And of the Holy Spirit +
Amen.