Read:

• Mt. 16:13-20 (Peter’s confession: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”)
• Mt. 16:21-23 (First prediction of the passion: The Son of Man will suffer and be put to death and will be raised up on the third day.)
• Mt. 17:1-9 (The Transfiguration: “This is my beloved Son, listen to Him.”)
• Mt. 17:22-23 (Second prediction of the passion: “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the power of men…”)

The opening chapter of Genesis affirms that human persons were originally created in the image and after the likeness of the Trinitarian God (Gen. 1:1-3 & 26-27). We were given a vocation — to grow from one degree of glory to the next into the inner life of God (2 Cor. 3:18) in a mystical union with the Holy Trinity.

The story of Genesis 3 indicates that humans have fallen short of their original vocation. Salvation history is full of attempts on the part of God to bring His people back into a right relation with Him. In the Anaphora of the Divine Liturgy, we proclaim week in and week out that God did not cease to do all things until He had brought us up to heaven and endowed us with His Kingdom which is to come. In the Anaphora of St. Basil, we go a step further and affirm that God sent the prophets, performed mighty works by His saints, gave us the law as a help, appointed angels as guardians, and in the fullness of time God spoke to us through His only Son by Whom and through Whom he created the world.

Just this morning at Matins we sang the following hymn to the Theotokos: “It is not possible for man to see God, upon whom the ranks of angels dare not gaze, but through you, O all-Pure One, the incarnate Word revealed Himself…”

This is the God-man, Jesus Christ, in whom the fullness of divinity dwelt bodily (Col. 2:9) and whose divinity St. Peter affirms when (about 35 years after the Transfiguration) he writes “we were eye-witnesses of His majesty.” (2 Pet. 1:16) Another witness of the Transfiguration, St. John, wrote perhaps 70 years after the Transfiguration that Jesus was the “light of mankind” and that “we have beheld His glory, the glory of the Only-Begotten, full of grace and truth.” (Jn. 1:4 & 14)

(The word “glory” is the English for the Hebrew Biblical code word “shekinah.” The term “shekinah” is an important word that reveals a paradox. It means the un-created (i.e., divine) yet visible and brilliant presence of God — that aspect of Himself by which He reveals Himself to his creation — the immanent aspect of the absolutely transcendent God that we are able to apprehend, experience, encounter and commune with.)

St. Paul writes to us that human persons are called to grow into the full measure of the stature of Christ (Eph. 4:3). An ancient patristic statement (first coined by St. Athanasius of Alexandria) words it this way: “God became a human person by nature so that human persons could become divine by grace.” This is what the Church calls theosis / divinization / deification: i.e., mystical union; the partaking of and sharing in divine nature as St. Peter once wrote (2 Pet. 1:4) by invitation, by adoption, by gift. Human persons are called to be transformed and transfigured (meta-morphed) from a fallen nature to their original nature to pursue our original God-given vocation.

In St. Matthew’s account, Jesus’ metamorphosis shows us that his divinity was brilliantly revealed through his humanity. The Transfiguration was an epiphany of the essential deity of Christ — i.e,, a manifestation or a revelation or a showing of the shekinah — but even more. It is a revelation of what the Church has called divine energies — his divine nature as far as we can bear it. This is a Theophany. The uncreated light of God that showed forth to Moses from the burning bush (Ex. 3:1-15) and atop Mt. Sinai (Ex. 33;21-23) is seen again in the person of Jesus on Mt. Tabor — the very same Jesus who declared that He was the light of the world (Jn. 8:12). Although it is not possible for humans to see God and live (Ex. 33;20), Jesus reveals his divinity to his disciples, “as far as they could bear it” and they were overshadowed by the mysterious luminous cloud and in the presence of Moses (of Mt. Sinai fame) and Elija (of Mt. Carmel fame).

At the fourth century Council of Chalcedon, the Church affirmed the mystery of the incarnation: Jesus Christ was fully, perfectly and truly human with nothing lacking in his humanity at the same time that he was fully, perfectly and truly God with nothing lacking in His divinity. In other words, in him were two distinct natures — divine and human — two natures in one Person. His humanity was a deified humanity. His divinity was an incarnate, human divinity. Jesus’ deified humanity is (though in this case by nature and essence) what human persons are called to be (by adoption, by participation, by communion, by grace and gift).

But if we keep up this sort of discussion we could wander into the pantheism of the New Agers. We should recall another patristic statement (attributed to St. Gregory of Nyssa) which runs thus: Peter is Peter, Paul is Paul and God is God — in divinization we always retain our creature-hood and never lose our own personhood and individuality, but we do become “oned” with God by grace. In other words, we never lose our own personality

St. John Chrysostom, in preaching a homily about the Transfiguration, says that if (with God’s grace) we transform ourselves and put on the armor of light, the glory of God will enfold us. The Transfiguration of Christ is a model for the transfiguration (i.e., metamorphosis) of Christians. If Christ’s Transfiguration is a manifestation of His natural divinity, our transfiguration is one that — by grace and cooperation with God: by becoming fellow-workers with God — can manifest our gift of theosis.

At Vespers on the eve of Transfiguration, we sing this hymn: “ Come, let us rejoice, mounting up from the earth to the highest contemplation of the virtues:  Let us be transformed this day into a better condition and direct our minds to heavenly things, having been shaped anew in piety according to the form of Christ; for in His mercy, the Savior of our souls has transfigured disfigured humanity and let it shine with Light on Mount Tabor.”

The Feast of the Transfiguration of Christ has a simple message for us today. Simple message, but difficult to put into practice. We are called to cooperate with the grace of God in order to restore or original likeness. We are called to change from our darkened world of dead ends and self-centeredness in order to live a life that reflects the brilliant and radiant presence of God in Whose image we have been created. We are invited to enter into the bright cloud — that mystical luminous darkness — that overshadowed Moses, Elijah, Peter, James, John and Jesus himself. This transfiguration of our fallen nature — even the transfiguration of the world — makes up our Christian journey to the Kingdom: our life in Christ.

Frederica Mathewes-Green concludes an article for the Feast of the Transfiguration with these words:

“On the far side of everything–the Last Supper, the campfire denial, the Resurrection, and the Pentecost outpouring–Peter tries in a letter to make sense of what happened on Mt. Tabor that day. Peter saw God’s glory, and he knows it is for us. He says that God’s divine power calls us “to his own glory.” Through his promises we may “become partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:3-4).

“Partakers of the divine nature.” The life that is in Christ will be in us. We will have a true oneness with Christ and thus we will have a personal transfiguration. We partake of, consume, the light and the life of Christ. We receive, not mere intellectual knowledge of God, but illumination. This participation in “the divine nature” is not a treat squirreled away for the select few, for mystics or hobbyists of “spiritual formation,” but God’s plan for every single human life. “The true light that enlightens every man was coming into the world” (John 1:9). Participation in this light is not a lofty or esoteric path, but one of simplicity and childlike humility. It’s not won by sudden, swooping supernatural experiences, but by daily, diligent self-control. Through prayer, fasting, and honoring others above self, we gradually clear away everything in us that will not catch fire.

We are made to catch fire. We are like lumps of coal, dusty and inert, and possess little to be proud of. But we have one talent: we can burn. You could say that it is our destiny to burn. He made us that way, because he intended for his blazing light to fill us. When this happens, “your whole body will be full of light” (Matthew 6:22).

Where have we been? We’ve been up Mt. Tabor. “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18).”

Bishop Kallistos Ware often tells stories in his articles, lectures and books. Here is one story of his stories taken from the Desert Fathers: When St Arsenios the Great was praying in his cell, a disciple looked through the window and saw the old man “entirely as fire.” A similar story is told of Abba Joseph of Panepho: “The old man stood up and stretched his hands towards heaven. His fingers became like ten torches, and he said, ‘If you wish, you can become entirely as fire.” Just as Moses was aglow with the radiance of the Father’s uncreated light when he descended form Sinai, so too, us all. And finally, we recall the story about St. Seraphim of Sarov and the storyteller, Motovilov himself, who on a snowy day in deep the Russian forest both became transfigured with the shekinah of God. Not just for monks and saints, but for all mankind.

Before the Transfiguration, Jesus predicts His Passion and adds that the condition for being a follower of Jesus, one must renounce himself and take up his cross. This renunciation is exactly the method (on our part) of transfiguration. Change. Metamorphosis. The daily, diligent self-control. The prayer, fasting, and honoring others above self, by which we gradually clear away everything in us that will not catch fire — about which Frederica writes is the necessary detachment from the self; the needful ascetical preparation of our garden that makes us able to become pure fire and light.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit…

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth…and on the sixth day, God created humankind and all was pronounced good. God’s creation was called good because it was the work of God’s hands and thus is demonstrative of his character and of his essence. Man and woman were created in God’s image – good and pure. But we know the story, the paradise and the purity didn’t last long. The serpent came and deceived Adam and Eve offering them the forbidden fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Thus mankind fell away from God, the mind of man became corrupt and a wedge was driven between humanity and God. The image of the divine within us, God’s good creation, was corrupted and tainted. We became a shadow of what we were meant to be as our minds and hearts fell into a downward spiral. Death, corruption and sin entered God’s good creation.

Adam and Eve’s sin opened the doors to sin, death, and corruption. The Apostle Paul describes this further in his letter to the Romans. He writes that “God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged he truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator… For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions” and “gave them up to a base mind and improper conduct. They were filled with all manner of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity….” And the list goes on.

After the Fall, human nature was changed such that we were inclined towards sin. As Orthodox Christians, we do not believe in Original Sin in the Augustinian understanding, that is, that we are born under the weight and guilt of sin. Rather we believe that human nature was changed with the Fall such that we inevitably will sin because we are inclined to do so. Thus while we are not born under shall we say, original guilt, we are born such that we inevitably will sin and thus fall under judgment. This is the path all of humanity is on, our frail human nature and weak will lead us down a dark road that ends in destruction. On our own, we are hopeless. Left to our own devices, we fall and continue to fall. We, in the terms of Paul, “gratify the desires of the flesh.”

Now all of humanity by way of our fallen nature is inclined to gratify the flesh. On our own, we are without hope, we have sinned are will come under judgment. But the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ offers hope for our salvation. Through faith in Christ, our baptism and Chrismation, we are given the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is given to aid us on the path of salvation, so that we can, by God’s grace, overcome the fallen spirit within us. This is the gospel message: Christ has died for our sins and offers us life eternal. He offers us the opportunity to overcome our fallen nature by submitting to and cooperating with the Spirit he sends to dwell within us. So that rather than sinking deeper and deeper into judgment by the weight of our sin, we can be placed on the path to life.

And so we finally come to the passage that was read this morning—found in Paul’s letter to the Galatians in chapter 5. Here we are given sign posts for how well we are cooperating with the Spirit and how well we are serving our Master, Jesus Christ. In chapter 5 of Galatians, Paul is not so much commenting on or comparing Christians to non-Christians, he is comparing the responses of Christians to the Spirit within them. Paul contrasts the following the desires of the flesh with what he calls the fruit of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit and the desires of the flesh are representative of the two combating natures within us: that of our fallen flesh and that of our new life in Christ. Paul contrasts the fruit of each of these natures and offers us an indicator of our own faithfulness to Christ.

The use of the term fruit by Paul is an interesting word choice. Fruit implies something that grows or springs forth from a plant. In other words it is something that is the product of that plant. In the case of the fruit of the Spirit, the plant or root cause is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the Christian and the byproduct of this indwelling is what is commonly called the fruit of the Spirit. One’s fruit is a sign of what is going on within us—our relative health. A healthy tree produces good fruit, an unhealthy tree bad fruit. Thus one’s fruit serves as a sort of internal barometer of the individual. It demarks a temperament, one’s character and thus serves an internal moral compass. Ultimately, our fruit displays for all to see what master we serve or how faithfully we are serving our master.

To express this idea, the apostle compares the good fruit and bad fruit. As we said, the terminology Paul uses for the bad fruit is the “desires of the flesh.” “Flesh,” for Paul—at least in the context of our reading this morning, does not mean our physical bodies; rather it means the mindset and inclinations of fallen humanity. So the flesh is the fallen man—the thoughts and actions that drive us away from God as surely as the forbidden fruit drove a wedge between Adam & Eve’s relationship with God.

In order to compare the two types of fruit, Paul offers us two lists. The products of the worldly life are fornication, impurity, selfishness, anger, jealousy, dissension, envy, strife, drunkenness and the list goes on. Quite simply, the list is a list of sins.

In stark contrast, the fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control. These are the signs of the Spirit-filled life, a life that is on track and firmly on the road to salvation. They are demonstrative of a transformed life—a life in harmony with the Spirit and in joyful acceptance of the sacrificial gift of Christ Jesus.

According to Paul, the faithful and healthy Christian crucifies the passions and desires of the flesh. This takes hard work. We do not simply sit back waiting to be changed, but we are in a spiritual battle to listen to the Spirit and obey. The two natures within us are competing to be heard and obeyed. We all know that just because we have chosen to follow Christ does not mean that the little voice in our heads tempting us stops working on us—if anything, it gets louder rather than softer. Thus it is hard work to listen and obey the Spirit.

Paul writes in his letter to the Romans, “I do not understand my actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very things I hate.” Christ died to free us from our bondage to sin, but we are now at liberty to choose which voice we listen to. Before we were slaves to sin, now we can choose and that choice is between the battling natures within us. The cross offers freedom and life, but notice God’s calling to us is to put to death the passions and desires of the flesh. It is our job to work towards this.

In our Divine Liturgy book, there are prayers in preparation for communion. In one of the prayers, we say the following: “O Christ Jesus, Wisdom of God and Peace and Power, through the human nature which Thou didst take to Thyself, Thou didst suffer the life-creating and saving passion: the cross, the nails, the spear and death itself. Put to death in me the soul-destroying passions of the body…” and later “Bury in me the evil devices of the devil with good thoughts, and destroy the spirits of evil” and again, “Raise me up who am sunk down in sin and give me the image of repentance.” According to these prayers, God subdues the sinful desires of our flesh, God does the work. Yet in our passage from Galatians, God calls us to this task—thus there is cooperation between us and the Holy Spirit to subdue our passions.

To do this, we work to build good habits— saying no to our sinful desires and saying yes to loving and serving others. We attempt to foster the right temperament by agreeing with the Spirit and this brings forth the good fruit. The longer we obey and cooperate, the more love, peace, patience, joy gentleness and self-control we will have. As Paul says, “if we live by the Spirit, let us walk by the Spirit.”

Walking by the Spirit is not simply waging battles within ourselves, however. It also implies not causing unnecessary battles within our brethren. Paul writes, “Let us have no self-conceit, no provoking of one another, no envy of one another. If a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Look to yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.” The fruit of the Spirit, while representative of an inward transformation, also implies action within our life together as the body of Christ.

The fruit of the Spirit is love, but love towards whom? The fruit of the Spirit is gentleness but towards whom? The fruit of the Spirit is kindness, but towards whom? The answer, of course, is towards the brethren and indeed all of humanity. The fruit is demonstrated in our day to day encounters with other people, but especially among the brethren. Indeed the world will know we are Christians by our love.

Our love is demonstrated not only by helping and serving one another, not only by not provoking one another but by not standing in judgment over one another ignoring our own sin while we point out another’s. As Paul writes, we are to help carry one another’s burdens and when a brother or sister falls, we are to be there to offer healing and forgiveness. This fulfills the law of Christ which is the law of love.

Today we commemorate St. Moses of Ethiopia. St. Moses is a perfect example of what we have looked at this morning. Allow me to read his biography.

St. Moses the Black was a former gang leader, murderer, and thief in ancient Africa. However, he became a model of transformation. His is one of the most inspiring stories among the African saints.

Moses, an escaped slave, was the leader of a group of 75 robbers. He was a large and powerful man, who with his gang terrorized the entire region. Moses was transformed after he and his group attacked a monastery, intending to rob it. He was met by the abbot, whose peaceful and warm manner overwhelmed him. He immediately felt remorse for all his past sins, sincerely repented, and begged to remain at the monastery.

Moses was tortured by his past and for years was tempted to return to his old ways. One day, as he was confessing his sins to St. Macarius, an angel appeared with a tablet full of his sins. As he confessed, the angel began wiping the tablet clean. The more he confessed, the more the angel wiped, until by the end it was completely clean. After meeting St. Macarius and St. Isidore, he completely left his old ways behind him and became a monk.

Later, St. Moses was ordained to the priesthood — a rare honor among the Desert Fathers — and founded a monastery of 75 monks, the same number as his former group of thieves. He was known for his wisdom, humility, love, and non-judgment of others. Once a brother had been caught in a particular sin, and the abbot asked St. Moses to come to the church and render judgment. He came reluctantly, carrying on his back a leaking bag of sand. When he arrived, the brothers asked him why he was carrying such a thing. He simply said, “This sand is my sins which are trailing out behind me, while I go to judge the sins of another.” At that reply, the brothers forgave the offender and returned to focusing on their own salvation rather than the sins of their brother.

Prior to his conversion, St. Moses was certainly on the road to destruction. He was a thief, a murderer, and a gang leader. The biography I read does not offer details of what this man did, but he was a truly an evil character. But he encountered the living gospel in the person of a simple abbot. He repented of his sins and embraced the faith. Guided by the Spirit, the man battled against the temptation to return to a life of sin—and won! He was ordained a priest and provides us with ample example of the fruit of the Spirit in action. When called upon to judge a brother, he carried a leaking bag of sand symbolic of the burden of his sins, a reminder of his own sinfulness as he was called to judge a fallen brother. The result of his actions was that those who had called him to stand in judgment were reminded of their own frailness and sin, and they lovingly restored their brother. The fruit of St. Moses’ conversion was that he was known for wisdom, humility and love. And the fruit of his cooperation with the Spirit was that his person and actions reminded his brethren of their calling to love and forgive their fallen brethren.

Just as St. Moses walked with the Spirit and exhibited the fruit of this walk, let us to seek to battle the fallen nature within us. Let us strive to listen to the Spirit rather than the voice of our fallen nature. Let us remind ourselves of our own sinfulness, repent and seek to foster a spirit of love, humility, patience and self-control within ourselves. Let us love one another, be slow to judge each other but quick to forgive and restore those who in weakness fall. Through the work of the Spirit within us, by God’s grace and the love of Christ Jesus who is our supreme example we too can be and continue to be transformed and contribute to the transformation of our brethren.

Amen.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Today we commemorate our Lord’s entry into Jerusalem; an entrance that looks to be a triumphant entry, like an entry of a King into a conquered city. “Hosanna!” chants the crowds excitedly, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel.” The crowds are out in force, proclaiming Jesus to be the Messiah, celebrating his entrance into the Holy City. They are throwing their palm branches before him. There is great celebration.

But we know that a week later, the same crowd will call for his crucifixion, a dramatic turn around as the one who was proclaimed king and savior, is traded for a thief named Barabas and sentenced to death by crucifixion as a criminal. What happened in this span of less than a week? Why did the crowds who so recently declared him king turn on him and cry out for his death? I believe that the answer to these questions resides in the fact that the crowd did not really understand Jesus; they did not really know who he is.

Throughout his ministry, Jesus asked the question, “Who do you say that I am?” This is perhaps the most important question asked at any time in history. It is the question that Jesus poses not just to those who he met while he lived physically on earth, but it is the question that he poses to us this morning and every day of our lives. Who do you say that I am? Who do you say that I am?

It is an intimate question, one that is goes to the core of being. The question is not a casual, shallow question. In so many social situations, we are introduced to another person and inevitably the question is asked “What do you do?” And we answer the question with a quick, short response—“I am a teacher, I am a nurse, I am a lawyer, I am a doctor, I am a businessman, I am a homemaker”… as if this explanation offers a glimpse into who we are. We define ourselves to others by what our occupation is, but the answer is not intimate or really very informative. Why? Because we are not describing who we are at the core of our being. What we do for a living does not fully describe our soul, what we are about, what we love, our personality—it does not describe who we really are. Jesus asks us an intimate question, one that delves to the very core of being. By asking the question, “Who do you day that I am,” Jesus is really asking, “Do you really know me?”

Early in his ministry, John the Baptist sent one of his disciples to Jesus asking him if he was the messiah. Jesus did not directly answer John, rather he simply pointed to what he did: the blind see, the lepers are healed, the lame walk, the dead rise and the good news is preached. Rather than offering a straightforward answer, Jesus pointed to concrete evidence to make a statement about who he is. John was to come to his own conclusion to his question, “Who is Jesus?” Jesus throws the question back to John to consider. Given what you’ve seen me do and say, what am I about, who do you think I am?

Towards the end of his ministry, Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do the people say that I am?” The disciples responded: “Elijah returned, Jeremiah, a prophet.” Perhaps dissatisfied, Jesus poses the same question to his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter, ever the eager one, proclaims, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus tells Peter that this was known by the grace of the Holy Spirit. By affirming Peter’s answer as from the Spirit, Jesus is telling us the conclusion we all must reach to really begin to know him.

But now we fast-forward back to Christ’s entrance into Jerusalem. The people were expecting a Messiah or a Christ. But their understanding of the Messiah was too limited. The crowds were expecting a savior who would give them a temporal victory. They were expecting a leader who would lead them to freedom over their Roman oppressors. They were expecting a political savior.

The crowds didn’t really understand Jesus, they didn’t really know him. They were desiring a Messiah of their own making, their own creation. Once they discovered that Jesus was not going to fulfill their expectations, they quickly deserted him in the harshest of ways—they handed him over to death on the cross.

Quite often today, people believe in a Jesus of their own making. Some reduce Jesus to a good teacher, one who taught about love and morals. Others see him as a pacifist. Some cast Jesus as a spiritual guru who, like Buddha, will help us reach spiritual enlightenment. Others envision Jesus to be a social activist—one who challenged the status quo and broke social barriers. Others cast Jesus as a sort of spiritual teddy bear—a wishy-washy friend to forgives all and demands nothing.

All of these ideas of Jesus have an element of truth in them, but all fall short of portraying an accurate picture of who Jesus really is. He is a good teacher. He is a peace maker. He is the Truth and therefore is the one who leads us to real enlightenment. He is one who challenges the status quo, who offers justice to the oppressed, and challenges our conventional wisdom. He is our friend and the one who forgives all our iniquities. And yet he is so much more.

To some degree, Jesus defies our attempts to define him. He refuses to let us put him in a box. To those who see him as only a good teacher, he refutes their conception by laying claim to authority that only God himself has—thus proclaiming his divinity. To those who see him as a pacifist, he confounds by saying, “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” To those who see him as another Buddha, as just another way to enlightenment, he says, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” For those see him as one who grants forgiveness without demanding any change within us, he preaches judgment. He is all of these things to some degree, but he cannot be reduced to any of them. To reduce Jesus down to a creature of our own making is to deny who he really is, and it is just as if we were apart of the crowds yelling, “crucify him, crucify him!” We have no use for the real person.

Jesus, therefore, is truly an enigma; he is beyond our simple definitions. Even the great Fathers of the Church and the Great Councils of the Church struggled as to how to answer this question. They understood that Christ was divine and human, but they struggled over how to put him into words. They often chose to leave things unsaid, rather than overstating any particular element. The fathers struggled because they knew that what was said about Jesus must be fully balanced and true to his entire person, his very being. Leaning too far towards his humanity or his divinity would lead down the dark raod of heresy and misunderstanding, just as many modern notions of Christ do. Jesus defies simple definitions, simple reductions.
And yet he calls to us, challenging us, “Who do you say that I am?” He calls us into fellowship with him, he calls us to intimacy. He challenges us to allow him to alter our preconceived notions of who he is. The crowds thought they knew who Jesus was, and when they saw that he wasn’t what they wanted and expected, they turned on him and crucified him. The crowds did not want their notions challenged by the authentic Messiah. Today we must decide, will we allow our own preconceived notions to be challenged by him?

The Lord of creation, the one who walked with Adam and Eve in the Garden, the one who raised Lazarus from the dead, the one died on the cross for the sins of the world and rose again three days later calls to us. The bridegroom calls out to his church and to the world this morning, simply asking, “Who do you say that I am?”

Amen.