Exodus 24.12-18, Matthew 17.1-9
Sunday Next before Lent, 23 February 2020
Austwick, Clapham
We all know something about the mountaintop experience. It may be some time since you last climbed a mountain but you can still recall the feeling now: standing at a peak you’ve just climbed, thighs aching, lungs pumping, exhilarated and taking in the wonderful panoramic view which has opened up before your eyes. For some of us blessed to be living here in this high place, merely opening the curtains to a wonderful Dales view has the same effect. And so we give thanks for the high places: where it is possible to take a long view of life in the tiny villages, fields and farms scattered tiny before our eyes, beneath our feet.
The view from the high places reduces to scratches and smudges on a vast canvas all the signs of human life and activity: the quarries and industrial sheds, railways and tarmacked roads, take on a different set of shapes, patterns, shades and colours, viewed from on high.
We are thankful for the the high places when we reach them, for the experiences they give us, of stopping us in our steps, giving us cause for reflection, permitting us to turn our back for a while on the trivialities and irritations and anxieties of the everyday, and give us renewed energy to face them on our return; to face the grass we tread beneath our feet, to face ourselves. [1]
We might say, then, that mountaintop experiences are about the gaining of perspective, that on the mountaintop we see things in a new way. We might say that the mountaintop gives us a God’s-eye view of the world to which we shall return. And that view lifts our spirits, prepares our hearts, guides our thoughts for the inevitable come-down, the descent from the mountain.
Mountaintop experiences are sometimes a mystery to us. I can’t explain what really happened on the day that two friends and I were caught in a white-out on a peak in Snowdonia, where we couldn’t see our way any more because all there was before us was snow - in the sky, in the air, on the ground - we were surrounded by white, in the blizzard our footsteps had disappeared, and we knew that whichever way we headed we were in danger of stepping off an edge into a drop of hundreds of feet. Our minds play tricks with us now as we recall the moment that a man emerged from nowhere, and greeted us as we stood stranded and stricken there in the white-out, an old man, ill-equipped for a winter mountain climb with a string bag hanging from his shoulders. Was he real? He was real enough to help us overcome our fears that day. Did that incident actually happen? All we know is that he guided us down into safety.
And maybe it was Jesus playing tricks with the disciples, or the disciples’ minds playing tricks with them, that day when he took Peter, James and John up a high mountain, by themselves. Was that really Jesus standing there with Moses and Elijah on each side, his clothes suddenly dazzling white? And when the cloud descended around the terrified group, whose was that voice they heard saying, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!’?
Was this real to the disciples? It was real enough to help them understand more about Jesus that day. Did it actually happen? All they knew was that the voice of God had directed them: to listen to him.
Just before the disciples went up the mountain Jesus had begun to teach them that the Son of Man would undergo great suffering, that he would be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. As Matthew records,
Then he said to them all, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.’ [2]
And as the disciples returned from the mountain Jesus ordered them not to tell anyone about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.
Things had taken a significant turn for the disciples. Their mountaintop experience gave them a new perspective on Jesus, on the mountaintop they saw him in a new way. Having experienced this God’s-eye view of the world, the world to which they returned contained something new - having gone up the mountain hearing that there would soon be a cross and a death, they came down from the mountain now understanding that there would also be a resurrection.
This is a major turn in our gospels; and it is a major turn in the story of the world. It makes possible for the first time the opening up of a new perspective - an eternal perspective, the new understanding that here, now, and for eternity, for those who embrace it, there will be a resurrection.
We’re almost into Lent. And Lent invites us to step up, step out, find a place to regain some perspective. Seek out our own particular mountaintop, where we are. Lent invites us to stand with Peter, James and John on that high mountain and take into our hearts again the covenantal laws of Moses in which God commands each to respect and care for their neighbour regardless of their differences; to be re-inspired by the critical witness and challenging words of Elijah and all the prophets of old. Lent invites us to consider how we can live out the hope of the kingdom of God as taught by Jesus, how we can bring out new life from old, how in our words and actions we can share the perspective of resurrection with those around us.
This major turn in the gospels; this major turn in the story of the world; this opening up of a new perspective - the vision that here, now, and for eternity, for those who embrace it, there will be a resurrection: is this a major turn in my life? Can it be? And if so, what does that mean for me and the way I live?
We might come to worship each week expecting a mountaintop experience of sorts, for here in this place we draw close to God, here we listen to his voice speaking words of comfort or challenge into our experience, here in the physicality of communion our spirits are touched and changed. We should expect to leave this place of worship with our perspective altered, to go back down to earth with Christ at our side directing us forward, helping us change the way we see and do things, inspiring us to a holier, healthier way of seeing and behaving towards others.
Peter, James and John left the mountain of Transfiguration keeping the matter to themselves, but questioning what this rising from the dead might mean. So let us leave this place prepared to enter Lent questioning what this promise of new life, this hope of resurrection can mean for us and for all with whom we share this world.
Am I ready to find a mountaintop; am I ready to lose myself in God, so that I can find myself?
Notes
This sermon is a revision of previous On the Mountaintop sermons preached in Devon in 2012 and 2013.
[1] Opening section based on my poem Junction 24: thanks for the high places from my Walking the M62 blog; also published in the book Walking the M62.
[2] Matthew 16.24-25.
Comments