Brief synopsis of the readings: Our first reading comes from Genesis where Lord takes Abram (later Abraham) outside and tells him that his descendants will be as numerous as the stars in the sky. The Lord reminds Abram that he took him away from the land of Ur and granted him the land that we today call Israel. Abram then sacrificed a cow and a goat to seal the covenant. Luke’s Gospel describes a scene that we often call the Transfiguration. Jesus, along with Peter, James, and John up mountain to pray. Once there Jesus’ disciples saw Jesus speaking to Moses and Elijah. Peter then suggested that they commemorate this even with tents to honor Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. Then a cloud appeared over them and a voice from the cloud announced: “This is my Son, the Chosen One. Listen to him.” Moses and Elijah then disappeared. The disciples then fell silent and told no one what they had seen.

If you took a poll of the five religious figures that command the most importance, Abraham would likely win. Christians would put Jesus at the top of the list, Mohammad would command the Muslims, and Moses would win the Jewish vote. But when totaled, Abraham would likely win because he would enjoy votes from all three faiths. Today Jews, Christians, that Jesus and Muslims constitute more than half of the world’s population and we all look to this event with great importance.

I think most of us grew up hearing about Abraham and thinking that he was an anomaly. Most people spent their entire lives in one place, doing the same thing. You were born into a family and did what they did, year after year, decade after decade, and generation after generation. But the truth was a bit more complex: they were nomads and were not as tied to the land as we might think.

We know from other passages that Abraham was a shepherd. Shepherds were nomads out of necessity: they were constantly in search of grazing pastures and water for their herds and on some level they were constantly competing with other shepherds for these resources. Sometimes they cooperated and negotiated with others, and sometimes they used force. But it was always between the shepherds.

Things change here. God’s relationship with Abraham raised the relationship between divine and human to a new level. The first several chapters of Genesis shows God intervening into our history (the Tower of Babel, Noah’s Ark, etc.) but here God not only reaches out to Abraham, but God also promises to be involved in the lives of Abraham and all his descendants. This may have felt like an empty promise as Abraham and his wife Sarah were elderly and didn’t have children but it wasn’t. This reading begins with God taking Abraham outside and promising his descendants will be as great as the stars in the sky.

Truth be told we now believe our universe contains 10 billion galaxies and each galaxy holds 100 billion stars: either this was hyperbole or we need to get started finding other planets to occupy. In any case Sarah shortly gives birth to Isaac who grows up to father Jacob, etc. Jews and Christians come from that line. Abraham also fathered Ishmael and we generally assume Ishmael’s descendants eventually formed Islam.

God’s decision to enter more closely into human history continues to evolve in Luke’s Gospel. As I was growing up and hearing this reading I confess to a little confusion. I knew that Judaism prohibited graven images and there were not drawings or painting of their leaders; I couldn’t figure out how Peter, James, and John recognized Moses or Elijah because they had never seen pictures of them. Perhaps seeing them speaking with Jesus enlivened their hearts if not their eyes. Regardless they recognized that they were in the presence of a landmark in human history.

Clearly God chose this event and these historical figures to impress upon the disciples that Jesus belonged in strong company. But why these figures? There were scores of important people in the Old Testament. Why these two?

Perhaps this speaks to a progression. We can look in what we call “salvation history” and see how each of the three persons, Abraham, Moses, and Elijah, played an important and crucial role in making us who we are.

As we read from the first reading Abraham began the first permanent covenant between God and us. We revere Moses because he continued this covenant by liberating our ancestors from slavery and led them into the land we still refer to as the “Holy Land.” Elijah isn’t as well known but he holds an important place also. He was a prophet, and at the end of his earthly life he is taken (body and soul) into Heaven in the 2nd chapter of 2nd Kings. To this day many Jews keep an open chair at all circumcisions, believing he is present.

And so in today’s Gospel we can draw a bright line through all three that ends with Jesus. As Abraham began the covenant with the People of God, Jesus fulfills it. As Moses liberated his people from slavery to the promised land, Jesus liberates us from our sins into forgiveness and salvation. As Elijah was taken from us to Heaven, Jesus’ resurrection carries all of us to salvation.

The season of Lent chronicles the journey to Easter. We commemorate Lent each year because we need to remember that we are not defined by what we do or who we are, but instead by who loves us and who crashes into our lives out of profound love of us.

Finally, I confess to some amusement at the disciples’ reaction to seeing Jesus with Moses and Elijah. Their first reaction was something I think many of us would share: let’s make a monument. These days we surround ourselves with monuments to commemorate events from the past. But Jesus discouraged them from doing this because he didn’t want them to commemorate the event but instead to look forward. Jesus understood something that Peter, James, and John didn’t. Jesus understood that the Transfiguration should not be a memory but should instead be a call to continue a relationship. Just as Abraham began the covenant of the chosen, just as Moses liberated those chosen, just as Elijah spoke to the chosen by his elevation to Heaven, we are all chosen, liberated, and saved through Jesus.

Let us continue our Lenten journey with this understanding.