2-1-16 - Up the Mountain Again

That was fast. We barely got out of that river, and here we are, climbing the mountain again with Jesus and three of his closest disciples. It’s been a brief Epiphany season, but we have arrived at the last Sunday, ready or not. We always end the season with what I think of Jesus’ big “reveal” – the son et lumiere show of transfiguration, up on the mountaintop.

In the Bible, mountains are often place where people encounter God. On Mount Moriah, Abraham is spared by God from sacrificing his son Isaac. On Mount Sinai, Moses meets with God, and when he descends, his face shines so brightly people are blinded. On Mount Horeb, Elijah catches a glimpse of God. People encounter God in deserts and towns and watery places too, but there is something about the height and majesty of mountains that seem to make them fertile ground for theophanies.

Maybe it's because mountain tops are “away places.” They generally take some effort to reach. We need to plan our expeditions, bring lunch and water - or, if it’s a really BIG mountain, weeks’ worth of supplies. We have to make sure we’re fit enough to make the climb, and maybe surround ourselves with people we want to hike with.

And we have expectations – of beauty and grandeur, of great vistas and intimate moments with the natural world. We expect hard climbing but also some flat ground and downward slopes. And we expect to see something at the top that we can see from nowhere else on earth, the big picture that puts our lives into perspective.

The life of faith can be like that, with hills and valleys on its route. We know God is also to be found in the lowlands (as Jesus’ followers discovered at the bottom of the mountain in our reading this week). But we think maybe we’ll have a close encounter with God in the highlands, one that will help us through the more challenging parts of our journey.

I don’t know what Peter, James and John expected when Jesus invited them along on his hike – certainly not what they experienced. They probably expected some rich time of conversation and contemplation with their master and friend. And so should we. Let’s make this climb with Jesus this week as a training run for the deeper excursion into God we might make during Lent.

What are your expectations of time with God? What do you dread?
What provisions do you want to carry for going deeper in the Spirit? Who else do you want along?

This is a very familiar story to lifelong churchgoers, but I pray we will have a new encounter with it this week. After all, we can hike up the same hills time and again and never experience them quite the same way. May it be like that with this strange and extraordinary tale of Encounter.