Dear Christian friends:

During this Church Year we are preaching from Old Testament lessons. Today is Transfiguration Sunday. We just read the lesson at the altar of how of Jesus went up the mountain with Peter, James, and John and showed His full glory to them and they knew truly He was the Son of God and the promised Savior.

Most of you remember how Moses when he was forty years old he killed two Egyptian slave masters and had to flee from Egypt. He came to the land of Midian east of Eqypt and there he met Jethro's daughter, Zipporah and married her. His father-in-law gave him work as a shepherd. Now Moses was 80 years old and had led his sheep to the mountain of God, named Horeb. One day he sees a bush burning, but it is not consumed. He goes near to see this strange thing and suddenly hears a voice speaking from the bush. The voice says, "Moses, Moses" and he says, "Here am I". The voice again speaks, "Don't come here: put off your shoes from off your feet because the place where you stand is holy ground." Then the voice says, "I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.

When Moses hears that he hides his face and trembles and shakes: he is afraid to look at God. Moses remembers how God many times spoke to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and promised that he would make them a great nation and give them the land of Canaan for their home.

He also remembers that God promised to send His Son the Savior for the world to be born from their children. But now four hundred years since Jacob died and God was silent during those four hundred years.

The Jews during the famine in Canaan had moved to Egypt with Jacob their father when Joseph was ruler over all Egypt, second to the King. But after Joseph died the new rulers in Egypt forgot about Joseph and made the Jews slaves. God had told Abraham that his children, the Jews, would be in bondage four hundred years in a strange land, but that He would free them after four hundred years had elapsed.

No doubt, Moses knew these precious promises of God to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. That is whey he tried to free the Jews when he was forty years old and killed those two Egyptian slave-masters. But God's time was not yet. Moses had to flee and learn patience for forty more years in Midian.

Now God is ready. Perhaps Moses had begun to doubt if God would help or remember His promise. But God did not forget His promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And He intends to use Moses for this great work to help do His promise.

That is why He here shows His wonderful power and glory to Moses, so that he will not doubt God's Word and Promise, but believe and obey.

Out of the burning bush God tells Moses that He is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He is their God. Abraham did not first come to God and choose Him for his God, but God in His mercy and kindness came to Abraham and called him while he was still living in a heathen country, Ur of the Chaldees, worshipping the idol god of the Chaldees.

This shows the great mercy and kindness of God that He makes Himself the God of a sinner man like Abraham. To Abraham God promised the Savior Jesus saying, "Go from your country, your people and your father's household to the land I will show you. “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” (Genesis 12:1-3) He renewed these same promises to Isaac and Jacob.

So here in the burning bush when God says that He is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob He means to impress on Moses and on us that He is the God of power and mercy who saves sinners, calls them out of darkness into His glorious light as He did with Abraham.

Moses is much impressed by this wonderful show of God here at Horeb. We read that he "hid his face and was afraid to look upon God." (verse 6) God shows His mighty power in the burning bush that is not consumed and He shows His mercy and forgiveness in Jesus by the words, "I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob." He is both Elohim and Jehovah. Elohim is God in power; Jehovah is God in mercy. Both names are used here in the Hebrew language.

Such a wonderful show of God's glory and grace demands humility and faith from those who see it. When Moses came near to investigate this strange fire in the bush God told him to take off his shoes because he was standing on holy ground. That was the custom at that time for people to take off their shoes when they went into a temple or holy place. So God means to teach Moses to humbly kneel before His glory and power and know his sinfulness before the holy and mighty God.

This also God wants you to understand also when you hear about God's glory from the Bible stories such as this and from today's Gospel and from the other Gospel lessons of Epiphany as the one where Jesus changed the water into wine or when He made the storm on the sea calm again.

All the miracles of Jesus as also this one here in the bush should impress us with His glory and holiness and that we have sin and shame compared to Him. This should lead us to knell before Him, confessing our sin or hiding our face as Moses does here and as Peter, James and John did on the mountain where Jesus showed His glory to them with Moses and Elijah.

Or as Peter did when Jesus showed His glory in the boat. They were fishing all night and caught nothing. Then Jesus told them to row out to deep water and let down their nets. They obeyed and quickly caught many, many fish and their nets broke. When Peter realized what Jesus did He said, "Depart from me, O Lord, for I am a sinful man." (Luke 5:8)

Truly Jesus wants us to know and feel our sins as Moses here does and as Peter many years later did. But then He doesn't want us to tell Him to depart as Peter did. But He wants us to hear and believe that He loves worthless, no-good sinners and has come to suffer and die for their sins that they might have forgiveness and holiness and life with God, now and forever.

He calls us to believe as Moses here does as Abraham did and as Peter, James and John did. We today have seen much more of God's glory and grace then Abraham or Moses or even Peter and John. We have all the words of God in both the Old and New Testaments. We have better teaching and preaching than they did and we have both baptism and the Lord's Supper to prove to us God's glory and grace. We have no excuse if we fail to believe in Him. If we are lost we cannot blame God or anyone else it will be our own fault.

So let us give attention to the Word of God and regularly see his glory and grace that we may not doubt or despair, but believe and rejoice and live.

Amen.