(Audio)
Go forth from the land of your kinsfolk
and from your father’s house to a land that I will show you.
We aren't all called to travel great distances but we are all called, in some sense, to leave what we have known to follow the path God sets before us.
We are called to step out from the synchronization with society around us which has overtaken us, perhaps almost hypnotically. The LORD tells us that the promise he has for us cannot be realized in the familiar and the comfortable. It makes a certain sense. If it was found here we ought to be closer to discovering it by now.
Whether or not there is travel as such,. there is a transition, a transformation, in the call to leave what we have been, that it is as much of adventure as any great expedition.
The journey from the old self to the creation (see Second Corinthians 5:17), Christ come to full stature within us (see Ephesians 4:17), entails bearing our share of hardship for the gospel. It entails following Jesus, who shows each of us the way to carry our own personalized crosses.
The whole journey, especially when it is difficult, is only possible by "the grace bestowed on us in Christ Jesus before time began". This grace is "made manifest through the appearance of our savior Christ Jesus". It is grace that reveals resurrection and immortality. It comes through the gospel.
And he was transfigured before them;
his face shone like the sun
and his clothes became white as light.
The Transfiguration is a place in Scripture where we can receive more of this grace that we need for our grand adventure with God. Just as the light of Jesus and the testimony of the Law and Prophets embolden Peter, James, and John on their way to Jerusalem so too can it embolden us. In the darkness of the dying of Jesus the memory of the Transfiguration helped keep alive the hope that was willing to investigate the empty tomb on Easter Sunday. So too can it keep hope kindled on our dark times.
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.
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