Music: Love Divine, All Loves Excelling

There is an old story about a fellow who was not very handsome at all. He fell in love with a young woman, but he was sure that she would not be interested in him. So with the help of a surgeon he had a special mask designed, a handsome mask that was then placed over his face. With this handsome new look, he easily won over the woman he loved and they were married. But many years later, she discovered the trick and asked him to remove it. When he peeled off the mask, what was underneath, but a handsome face! For, after all those years, his natural face had taken on the handsome contours of the mask. His face had been transformed into the likeness of the mask.

The Christian life, from baptism to death, is a journey of being changed, transformed, into th…