EXODUS 24:12-18

PSALM 99

PHILIPPIANS 3:7-14

MATTHEW 17:1-9

Sermon – February 6, 2005

“Have you been to your mountaintop?”

Have you ever had a “mountaintop experience”?

The phrase “mountaintop experience” refers to a time of peak spiritual insight, awareness of God’s goodness, perhaps an ecstatic spiritual “rush” or an overwhelming sense of peace or serenity, and most essential of all, an experience of closeness to God as a result of God’s initiative and the human being making himself or herself totally available to God.

Plenty of people have tried to create such sublime and wondrous experiences themselves, either chemically or through some sort of self-created “spirituality”. Neither can create the real thing.

The original “mountaintop experiences” in the Bible were literally on mountaintops, starting with Moses, as described briefly in our Old Testament reading this morning. The Israelites had been liberated by God from the bitter oppression of slavery in Egypt only a few weeks before today’s reading comes in – but they had spent most of those weeks of journeying south and then east towards the Promised Land complaining to Moses and doubting God’s willingness – or ability – to provide for them in this strange new land they were in.

All of the Israelites except for Moses had spent their entire lives in Egypt, in the flattest part of the country near the delta of the Nile River where water was everywhere and food was abundant – though they could eat only what their slave-masters grudgingly allowed them. They were also surrounded by reminders of their slavery and the power of Pharaoh, the absolute ruler of the only superpower of the 2^nd millenium B.C. Finally, they were surrounded by the Egyptian cults of many gods and by the Egyptian fascination with death, symbolized by the already-old pyramids, which enclosed tombs.

Suddenly, the Israelites were out in a rocky, river-less desert studded with towering, craggy mountains – the first desert and the first mountains they had ever seen. They were free, beyond the reach of Pharaoh’s army or interest and beyond Egypt’s idols and tombs, able to commune directly and without outside distractions with Almighty God himself.

Actually, only Moses was really interested in that part. The people alternated between being bored – not having to dodge the whips of slave masters anymore made the days less exciting – thinking about their next meal, and being terrified that they might actually themselves come close to the Lord, who had so dramatically destroyed the Egyptian army.

So when the commandment came down that only Moses would ascend the mountain to commune with God and that anyone else touching the mountaintop would be struck dead, the people didn’t have to be told twice. That much they obeyed: Stay away.

Moses, meanwhile, who had grown tremendously tired of the rebellious whining of the people, eagerly ascended the mountain to experience the Divine Presence without his fellow Israelites.

The peak traditionally identified with Mt. Sinai is a jagged mountain looming over 7,500 feet over rocky desert and other mountains as far as the eye could see from its top, as I observed when I climbed it in 1994. But Moses did not go up to admire the view, but to be with his Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier. Only thus sustained with the direct, personal experience of God would Moses have the spiritual and emotional strength to lead the people effectively for another generation, until they stood on the east bank of the Jordan River, ready to cross into the Promised Land after his death.

Almost 400 years later the great prophet Elijah stood on this same mountain and probably was nourished at the same extraordinary high altitude oasis on the side of the mountain which we saw and which likely sustained Moses. Elijah in later tradition came to embody the whole brave, outspoken prophetic tradition among the Israelites and is to this day expected by observant Jews to return to usher in the Messiah; Jesus identified John the Baptist as Elijah returned to earth to do just that. Elijah was and is a towering figure in biblical tradition.

When he came to Mt. Sinai, however, Elijah did not feel like a towering figure. Unlike Moses, he came to the mountain not after a dazzling success followed by an affirmation of the bond between God and God’s people (the giving of the Ten Commandments through Moses); Elijah came after a brilliant victory by him over pagan priests, but one followed by Queen Jezebel putting a price on his head.

Elijah, unlike Moses, came to Sinai in despair. Elijah, unlike Moses, came to the mountain alone. But Elijah, like Moses, found God there – this time in the “still small voice” (or “sound of sheer silence”) which gave Elijah courage, strength and vision for the challenging tasks which lay ahead of him.

Peter, James and John didn’t know what they were getting into when Jesus invited them to go on a hike with him. Their journey was not up Mt. Sinai. The traditional site of the Mount of Transfiguration is a steep but rounded 1,800-foot hill which rises dramatically out of a plain in northern Israel; the alternate – inaccessible to tourist buses – is 9,000-foot Mt. Hernon in Syria. Either way, it was a vigorous and dramatic trip, and mountains and mountain climbing were probably as foreign to the Galilean fishermen with Jesus as they had been to the Egyptian-born Israelites of 1,200 years before.

But once there, the three apostles knew they were having a mountaintop experience indeed. They were alone with Jesus on top of a mountain, a brilliant cloud overshadowed them (as it had Moses), they had an experience of dazzling brilliance (Jesus being revealed as a heavenly being) and, above all, The Voice of God. Lest these three Jews miss the connection to other biblical mountaintop experiences, there also was a vision of Moses and Elijah.

Peter famously blurted out his proposal to build “three booths”, one each for Jesus, Moses and Elijah – a suggestion which embarrassed the Gospel writers Mark and Luke. I suspect, however, that Peter was not nominating himself to be Jesus’ Junior Warden and Chair of the Building Committee, but was hoping the visionary, ecstatic experience could be prolonged.

But it was not to be: not “forty days” like Moses, perhaps not forty minutes. But it was long enough for Peter, James and John to come to understand who they were following: Jesus was no ordinary man with great gifts, but the Son of God himself. It was a vision which, as Jesus implies, could only be shared after his resurrection because only then would it make sense. But after that ultimate peak experience – seeing and being with the resurrected Christ – the apostles were spiritually nourished and strengthened by their mountaintop experience to face the challenges and dangers they could have.

What about us?

The people I’ve mentioned are all spiritual “Hall of Famers” – although, let us remember, early in their lives they did not imagine that they would be – so look around this church; you never know.

But the basic fact of these spectacular mountaintop experiences was that God revealed himself to people who sought a closer relationship with God. God can reveal himself, in some way and to some extent, to all sorts of people who seek a closer relationship with him. You don’t have to be a “spiritual Hall of Famer”; you just have to “play”.

And just like with Moses, Elijah and Peter, don’t expect those awesome moments to come only to people who had led perfect lives and for whom everything was going swimmingly, for those qualifications would have eliminated all three of those guys and, let’s face it, us as well. Besides, the whole point of revelation-based faiths like Christianity, Judaism and Islam is that God reveals himself to human beings not because we “have it all together” but because we don’t, not because we’ve “earned” the right to be closer to God but because we haven’t, not because the world is in great shape but because it isn’t.

So all of us qualify for a mountaintop experience, even without going to a mountain as long as we seek God and make time and space for God to answer.

A special moment might happen for you sitting quietly at your kitchen table, going for a walk, or sitting in your car or truck before - or after – a tough day. Just make time. Put the rest of the world on hold and listen for God – who may reach out to you in many different ways. God doesn’t always use “special effects” like on Mt. Sinai or the Mount of Transfiguration, sometimes it is a “still, small voice” that speaks to us – or sometimes it’s by a “coincidence” which is way too coincidental to really be coincidental, but which gives us the chills when we think about it, with awe.

As we journey together into Lent, let us be open to going to a mountaintop and drawing closer to the Lord. He might, as with Moses, say “take two tablets and call me in the morning” – or he might call you in the morning. If so, remember that the most frequently repeated commandment in the New Testament is one we heard in today’s Gospel: “do not be afraid.”

(The Rev.) Francis A. Hubbard

St. Barnabas Episcopal Church