That Time Jesus Met With Moses & Elijah

There are so many lessons that we can learn about the time when Jesus took some of his disciples up the mountain and Moses and Elijah appeared to him. Even with the greatest of intentions, we often miss the bigger picture of events happening in front of us. The White Robed Monks of St Benedict believe that Jesus never said no to anyone and try to focus on the lessons that Christ came to teach humanity - that of unconditional love.

Transcript

The Lord be with you.

A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Luke.

Glory to you,

O Lord.

Jesus took with him Peter and John and James and went up the mountain to pray.

As he prayed,

The aspect of his face was changed and his clothing became brilliant as lightning.

Suddenly,

There were two men there talking to him.

They were Moses and Elijah appearing in glory and they were speaking of the passing which he was to accomplish in Jerusalem.

Peter and his companions were heavy with sleep but they kept awake and saw his glory and the two men standing with him.

As these were leaving him,

Peter said to Jesus,

Master,

It is wonderful for us to be here.

So let us make three tents,

One for you,

One for Moses and one for Elijah.

He did not know what he was saying.

As he spoke,

A cloud came and covered them with shadow.

And when they went into the cloud,

The disciples were afraid.

And a voice came from the cloud saying,

This is my son,

The chosen one,

Listen to him.

And after the voice had spoken,

Jesus was found alone.

The disciples kept silence and at that time told no one what they had seen.

The gospel of the Lord.

Praise to you,

Lord Jesus Christ.

I wonder if I could have kept the secret,

Seeing Moses and seeing Elijah with Jesus.

Wouldn't this have maybe changed the course of history if people knew at that time that Moses and Elijah came down to talk to Jesus?

Mightn't it have changed some people's minds about Jesus and stopped them from pursuing his death?

But then what good would it have done if Jesus came for the very fact and the very act of giving himself over in death so that we could be reborn with him,

So that he could take away the finality of death and allow us access to love,

Unconditional?

Pretty words.

What does it mean?

What does it mean to live?

What does it mean to live after Christ?

As we enter now this Sunday,

Second Sunday of Lent,

Our second week of Lent,

It is a time for me of reflection.

It is a time of just taking a step back and seeing where am I?

What am I doing?

Is where I am in life now where I want it to be,

Or is it where God wants me to be?

And that's actually a question that we need to be asking ourselves over and over at every moment,

Every day.

But Lent offers us this beautiful opportunity to connect deeper and to review our lives.

Now,

Peter,

John,

And James didn't speak about what they saw until later,

Maybe because that is exactly what God intended.

But then why did Saint Luke write it in his gospel?

What is the lesson that we can learn from this?

There's so many things we can dissect,

This beautiful,

Beautiful piece in so many different ways and iterations.

Moses and Elijah coming to speak to Jesus,

To the Christ about his passing.

How many of you would be comfortable in discussing your own death in a supernatural way,

No less?

Now,

For me,

This is one of the big lessons,

And it's so hidden that we oftentimes miss it,

But what if it is okay for us to discuss our death?

What if it is okay for us to acknowledge the fact that one day we are going to die,

And we don't necessarily have the knowledge of when and how,

Like Jesus did?

But the gospel of Luke,

To me here,

Says that perhaps it's okay to talk about death.

Moses and Elijah were supposed to be dead a long time ago.

Second lesson,

They came back.

How amazing is that,

That in this gospel reading and this gospel according to Saint Luke,

We can see that death does not truly exist.

It is just a path.

It is just a doorway into something else,

And that it is possible to come back from the doorway.

Moses and Elijah did it for very,

Very specific reasons,

But it is possible.

The third thing that stands out for me,

Peter and his companions were heavy with sleep,

But they kept awake and saw his glory,

And the two men standing with him,

And then they wanted to build huts,

So they missed the story completely.

They missed the message,

And they were closest to Christ,

Some of the closest.

The third lesson for me here is that even with our greatest intent,

We do not necessarily know what the will of God is.

We may come with our egos,

And we might want to erect statues and build beautiful,

Beautiful churches and cathedrals to God,

And that might not be what God wants.

Maybe God wants us to go to our neighbor and tell them God loves you.

Maybe God wants us to go to those neighbors and say to them,

We don't care how you call God.

We don't care that you call God by another name,

Or that you express your religion or your spirituality in another way.

God loves you,

And our commandment is to love you too,

So we love you.

Maybe that is what God wants of us,

Because with all these good plans,

We now see that a cloud comes down and covers us all with shadow,

And it covered the disciples,

And they were afraid,

And yet a voice came from these clouds saying,

This is my son,

The chosen one.

Listen to him.

Now,

This takes me back to a couple of weeks ago where we were privy to Jesus and Mary and some friends and family at a wedding,

The wedding in Cana,

Where the last words of our Holy Mother was pretty much the same,

Listen to him.

And here towards the end of Jesus's ministry,

God says it himself,

Listen to him.

Now,

What did Jesus say?

Jesus said a great many things in his time on earth,

But Jesus said two new commandments.

I give,

Love God,

And love each other.

And I was reminded today on Inside Timer that in some of the messages and the stories that we share,

I forget to say love God as each other,

Or love thy neighbor as thyself.

And in that,

It is important to realize that as much as we love God and we love our neighbors,

We need to love ourselves as well because God resides in all of us.

God isn't just in every other person,

God is inside of us as well.

And it was a beautiful reminder.

Initially,

I felt my ego go,

Why?

Why would you want to show up something wrong in what I said?

Because I meant it with the greatest intent,

Just like Peter,

John,

And James meant building the huts with the greatest intent.

And having that intent questioned kind of rubbed me up interestingly,

But here we see,

Listen to him.

And maybe it is time to realize that God speaks through others and the intent isn't necessarily always to put one down,

Our sculptor.

The first word of the rule of St.

Benedict says,

Listen.

And we see that theme in our order and in a way that we experience and we live our spirituality and our religion,

It comes up over and over and over and over again.

Listen,

Go into the silence,

Be with God and listen for God's voice.

And Jesus said,

Love God and love each other.

It's so beautiful and so easy.

And yet we want to complicate things.

We want to build huts for Jesus and we want to build and create these monumental things.

And there's nothing wrong with doing it.

Maybe for some people,

That is what God wants,

But God doesn't expect each and every one of us to build a massive cathedral.

Maybe God expects some of us to have a small chapel,

An online community,

A place for people just to be.

Maybe for others,

All God wants is that you offer a ear that hears,

A shoulder to cry on.

And for others,

Maybe all God wants is that you smile at somebody.

That's it.

That you treat somebody with respect.

That to me is how slowly,

Surely we start bringing change into this world.

How we start connecting more with God.

How we start accepting and rejoicing in the fact that through this time of length,

We are working towards the culmination of the time that Jesus tears down these barriers,

The illusion,

This curtain of illusion that we have of being separated from each other,

Being separate.

We are all part of God and we are all part of this divinity and we carry the divinity inside of us.

Maybe tonight,

Today is the exact time that we need to hear these words again.

When we do that,

We then start moving into this covenant and we create and we become part of the covenant that God made with Abram so many years ago,

But not on the physical realm.

We become part of this kingdom of God.

And the kingdom of God is being in unity with God and to realize and to see that death is okay.

Death happens,

But it's not the end.

I think in death,

We will find a silence greater than we can ever have imagined.

And in that silence,

It is my prayer that we will all hear the word of God and we will start adding our voices to that word of God.

Of love,

Unconditional,

Amen.

Reviews

Thank you. I like your interpretation of this scripture! 💖🙏

🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

beautiful message 🌹 sending love 💕

Amen 🙏🏻
Love Unconditional

🙏💚🌻 Thank you