We have had a long Epiphany this year. Yet no matter what stories we visit or people we meet during this season, we always end up on the mountaintop with Jesus and three of his closest followers, with Jesus’ big “reveal.”
Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray.
In the Bible, mountains are places where people encounter God. On Mount Moriah, Abraham offers to sacrifice his son and is spared by God. 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 also meet God in deserts and towns and watery places, but the height and majesty of mountains seem to make them particularly conducive to theophanies.
Maybe it's because mountaintops are “away places.” Climbing them generally takes some effort. 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 hope 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 present in the lowlands (as Jesus’ followers discover at the base of the mountain in our gospel reading this week). But we think maybe we’ll have a close encounter with God on the heights, one that will help us through the more challenging parts of our life's 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 anticipated 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 story is very familiar to longtime 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.
This story is very familiar to longtime 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.
No comments:
Post a Comment