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This service is built around the theme of what it means to doubt God's promises to us, and the importance of hearing God's promises to us and trusting in them. The lectionary readings focus around Israel doubting God in the desert, after he had freed them from Egypt and God's anger at their faithlessness and mistrust of him.

The transfiguration of Jesus is traditionally celebrated the Sunday before Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Lenten season. At the transfiguration, Jesus' true glory was revealed to several of his disciples, a foretaste of the glory that will be revealed when Jesus completes his work of redemption in the cross, resurrection and ascension. Like his baptism, in the transfiguration, we see Jesus' full humanity and full divinity together in Trinitarian display. At his baptism, Jesus begins his earthly ministry, and in the transfiguration, he turns his face towards his passion and death. Celebrating and meditating on his transfiguration turns our hearts toward the Lenten season, when we will follow and rejoice in his sacrifice.

In our service this week, God reminds us forcefully that his ways are not our ways and his wisdom is not the world's wisdom. By loving and following his law, we see who he is, and are transformed into who he has made us to be. It is only through knowing God rightly that our lives can be changed, and we can bring God's transformation to the world around us.