It’s beautiful up on the mountain.
It’s a calm, clear day. Jesus and the disciples have travelled far; a few days earlier Jesus had made his most intense demand of those who would be his disciples – that they should deny themselves, take up their own cross, and follow him.
Now Peter, James, and John follow Jesus up to the top of the mountain. They don’t know why they’re picked; they just know that if they’re going up to the top of a mountain, it’s probably going to be good.
You see, only good things happen on the tops of mountains. It’s like an immutable law of religion – if you want to find God (or any god) you find yourself a mountain. At the top of the mountain you can build an altar; you can receive stone tablets, you could maybe even get a supplicant’s eye-view of a little divine smiting, if you’re very lucky.
Everybody likes to be on the mountain. And maybe even yourself…maybe you’re the ‘faith is found in the mountains’ kind of person. Or, your husband is, or your children are, and that’s why they’re not here today. I can’t disagree; indeed, it’s beautiful up on the mountain.
On the top of the mountain those three disciples see Jesus transfigured before them; his face shines like the sun and his clothes become dazzling white. The Jesus who walked up the mountain with them, with whom they’ve spent the last few months and years...suddenly, he’s not that Jesus anymore. He’s vastly different.
And Moses and Elijah appear talking to him; we’re not certain how Peter, James, and John knew who they were; this is certainly before the days when they could be Facebook friends with them. But appear they do, and those three Apostles stand dumbfounded as their teacher speaks – on equal terms – with the two individuals that their own religious tradition epitomizes as the Law and the Prophets. There’s not supposed to be anyone equal to these two; even the Messiah is supposed to be answerable to them. But Jesus speaks with them as an equal.
In his awe of what is before him, Peter is the first of the three to speak: “Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”
If that seems a bit odd for you, remember that in the Jewish tradition the festival of tabernacles – of tents, or booths – is a time to recognize and remember when they carried God with them in the wilderness of
But that is not to be, because even as he is speaking a bright cloud overshadows them, and they hear a voice crying out “this is my Son, the Beloved, with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” or as a more accurate translation, “hear him!”
Certainly, God speaking is reminiscent of Jesus’ own baptism. The cloud that surrounds them is quite likely the divine presence itself, but to whom is God speaking? Does God speak to Peter, James, and John, who already follow…We can make a lot of those three. Seeing the baptism, seeing the miracles, we can make ourselves feel a lot better by saying that we recognize Jesus as the Christ, when they didn’t.
Or does God speak instead to Moses and Elijah; and to those who insist that it is the Law and the Prophets that bring salvation, rather than the Son? Because it is only the Master who can determine the worth of a servant, and perhaps here God foreshadows that great Easter morning, when the grave yawns open and death is swallowed up forever.
Yes, it can be beautiful up on the mountain. And it is hard to come down from the mountain.
We all have those ‘mountaintop’ experiences, don’t we? Those times when we’re on top of the world, and everything is going our way – or so we think. But then sometimes, we come down from the mountain in a very hard way, and we land in the valley below.
I met a man named Dave who knew what it was like to fall from the mountaintop to the valley. Dave had been an engineer, a very good one, who had lived the storybook life. He’d married a nurse, raised three beautiful children. Had his own office, his own secretary. Dave and his wife celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary with a month-long stay in
When they returned home, They found how quickly you can fall down the mountain, and how hard it can hurt. They came home to twenty messages on their answering machine from his wife’s doctor. A routine blood test had showed something wasn’t right. Subsequent testing showed breast cancer. Found it too late. Absolutely going to die.
Dave’s wife died in agony, four months after their anniversary. And the alcohol that Dave relied on to soothe the hurt of the vast aching emptiness he was left with came to control his life. And Dave lost everything. His home, his children even stopped speaking with him after two or three embarrassing incidents.
I met Dave when he came by the church I interned at, asking for a handout. As well as that, I sat down with him, and listened to his story. Dave told me he figured that his problems began when he got too comfy where he was in his life, and because he was feeling so blessed and close to God, God wanted to “teach him a lesson.”
It is hard to come down from the mountain. I’d imagine that everyone here knows the feeling of hitting the bottom of the valley, hard.
But God isn’t capricious; God doesn’t wait hiding for you, waiting for you to come seeking so God can smack you down. God is more surprising than that. God is more unexpected than even that.
Peter, and James and John got a foretaste of what it’s really like to be in the presence of the Divine; and they find that the divine tastes like dirt.
As they see and hear what goes on around them, the three of them are overcome with fear and fall to the ground. Then Jesus, just plain Jesus, touches them and says simply, “be raised, and do not fear.” It is the touch of the Saviour that raises them from the death of their fear, his presence that gives them new life.
And then, wonder of wonders, does Jesus stay on the mountain, on this holy place?
No. Jesus walks back down with them. This divinity just revealed to them continues to walk in the same dust and dirt. The glow is gone; the clothes are back to rough and dirty. But this is God who comes down the mountain with them. This hasn’t happened before. Fifteen centuries earlier, when Moses came back down the mountain, he had to veil his face so that the Israelites wouldn’t be so terrified of him, for his encounter with the Divine had forever changed his appearance – his face and beard were shockingly white.
Jesus is either a madman, bedazzling his followers with some well-timed illusions and hallucinations, or he is the Incarnation of the greatest mystery that the universe has ever known – because humanity and divinity don’t mix half-and-half. Plain humanity meeting the righteousness of God is death. Divinity meeting humanity forever alters that person.
But Jesus remains just plain Jesus. The measure of humanity, and the fullness of deity.
Just plain Jesus who walks down the mountain, facing fixedly towards
I’ll tell you, though, that Dave is back working. He works as a handyman at a homeless shelter. On day, getting a meal Dave noticed that a load-bearing beam was beginning to crack. Drawing upon his background in engineering, he helped the shelter fix the problem with a minimum expense. In return for his work, Dave gets a small cot, his meals, and a stipend every month. Dave is still invisible. There’s no powerful story here – he didn’t go back to his corporate culture, didn’t get a new wife, new life. He’s still Dave. But there’s something different about him.
There’s a story told about an old violin that was brought out as the last item at an auction. It was dusty, battered, and scarred, and looked like it had seen many, better days.
And the auctioneer began his calling, saying “one dollar, who’ll give me one dollar? One dollar, maybe two dollars for this old violin?” And nobody moved. Nobody wanted it.
And from the back came an old man who walked to a place beside the auctioneer. He took the violin from his hand, wiped off the dust, tightened the strings, and rosined the bow. And tucking the old violin under his chin, the old man began to play.
And the sounds that came from the old violin then rivalled the song that the angels sing in glory. When the old man was done, he set the violin down, and walked back to his chair, and sat back down.
The auctioneer cleared his throat, and started again: “one thousand, who has one thousand? Two thousand? Who’ll make it three thousand?’
But some people didn’t understand what had happened. “What changed its worth?” they asked.
“Well,” the auctioneer replied, “it was the touch of the master’s hand.”
Beloved you may know that there’s more than one ending to this story. But let me tell you this: the value of the violin changed when people heard that it could be useful to them – but to the master, it was always priceless. It is through use – and misuse – that fine instruments become worn. But to the Master, they are always priceless.
And it’s beautiful when they can sing, and wonderful when they’re heard. But we discard them too quickly when we think they’re past their best, when they’ve gone from the mountaintop to the valley.
But through it all, the Master knows their worth. It is beautiful to be up on the mountain, when everything is clear. And it is hard to come down from the mountain. But that same Jesus who is lifted up before us, is the same one who will take our hands, touch us, and raise us up when we are battered and worn from our journey, and once having touched us, will never let us go.
And we will go up the mountain to see Jesus. But when we come back down into the valley it is Christ who comes with us, bears our burden, heals our hurts, and guides us home.
And let the people of God say ‘amen.’
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