A man looking a bit downtrodden approached me as I filled my car’s gas tank. He asked, “May I share with you my testimony about how good God is?” “OK,” I skeptically answered. He went on to tell me that he had been an alcoholic and drug addict, and that God had healed him; now he was four years sober. He said, “I didn’t deserve it, but now I’m a different person. God is so good! Have a terrific Tuesday!” A few minutes later, as I drove away, I saw him smiling and handing a homeless person some money. I was confronted with a choice: either he was a total fraud or God had changed him. Something had happened to him, and it didn’t seem fake. Maybe it was God.

In the Church, we are made children of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—the God who makes known His name and His ways to Moses in today’s First Reading.

Mindful of His covenant with Abraham (see Exodus 2:24), God came down to rescue His people from the slave drivers of Egypt. Faithful to that same covenant (see Luke 1:54-55, 72-73), He sent Jesus to redeem all lives from destruction, as today’s Psalm tells us.

In today’s Gospel, we go up to the mountain with Peter, John, and James. There we see Jesus “transfigured,” speaking with Moses and Elijah about His “exodus."

The Greek word “exodus” means “departure.” But the word is chosen deliberately here to stir our remembrance of the Israelites’ flight from Egypt.

In today’s epic Gospel scene, Jesus relives in His flesh the history of Israel.

We’ve already seen that, like Israel, Jesus has passed through water and been called God’s beloved Son (see Luke 3:22; Exodus 4:22). Now, as Israel was tested for forty years in the wilderness, Jesus is led into the desert to be tested for forty days and nights (see Exodus 15:25).

In today’s readings we hear Jesus speaking in Galilee as well as a Jewish sage named Sirach writing in Jerusalem more than a century earlier. The two of them touch upon a single truth: The words that come out of us make known the hidden thoughts within us. Speech reveals the secrets of the heart.