Mountain-Top Experiences - Mark 9:2-9

When I was in middle school and high school, I was part of Boy Scout Troop 648.  For those of you familiar with scouting, you know that there are always lots of activities that go on with Scouting.  However, February was a big month for our scout troop.  It was not simply because February was scouting month. 

February, with Troop 648, was our annual trip.  We would load all our equipment and selves on to the National Guard bus (the local National Guard unit was our sponsor), and head up to Meadows of Dan.  For those of you not familiar with the area, it is outside Patrick, Virginia, near the Blue Ridge Parkway.  Each February we would make this trip and would hike a series of three mountains known as the Pinnacles.  I know what a lot of you are saying now, “Preacher, you’re kidding us.  You went hiking and mountain climbing?  Give us a break, we know you.”  Truthfully, yes I did this.  I didn’t say I liked it, but I did it.  It was part of my scouting experience, and I did it.  However, I just experienced it a little different than most of the other scouts and leaders in our troop.  We would climb mountains, sometimes simply walking up the trails, other times having to use ropes the leaders had tied to trees to pull us up the side of the mountain, until we reached the top.  Once at the top, there is that amazing experience of having made it.  All of us had that…but where the difference in the experienced lay was that while the rest of the folks stood around the edge of the peaks and enjoyed the view down the mountain, I planted myself square in the middle of top, ready to settle into place and not move again…because if you stay away from the edge, you can’t fall down the side of the mountain.  Now for those of you who know me and how I feel about heights, that sounds more like it, huh?  What I have to admit, though, just as I have to admit it now when we take trips to the mountains, is that the sense of amazement, wonder, and beauty from being on the top of any mountain, is incomparable.

It is no wonder, then, the response that Peter had to this mountain climbing experience with Jesus.  Let’s recap the scene.    Jesus and his disciples had been traveling through the region.  The disciples had watched as Jesus performed miracle after miracle.  They had seen him heal the sick; they had watched him cast out demons; they had seen him walk on water; they had witnessed twice as he fed the multitudes that had gathered around to hear him teach.  When Jesus questioned the disciples as to who others and they thought he was, Peter had identified Jesus as the Messiah.  Jesus then proceeded to tell them what lie ahead, for the Messiah…the rejection, the arrest, the crucifixion, and, though they did not understand it, the resurrection.  He and Peter had a confrontation over just what all of this meant, and the call to sacrificial discipleship.  After all of this, Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up a high mountain.  They scale this mountain by themselves, and upon reaching the top, they behold something more glorious than any sunrise or sunset any of us have ever seen in the mountains.  Suddenly, in front of Peter, James, and John, their friend and rabbi, Jesus, was cast in a light they had never seen before.  Jesus was revealed to the three in all his glory and holiness, and there with Jesus, stood both Moses and Elijah.  Can you imagine how Peter, James, and John felt?  Maybe not, because often we do not get the full impact of what they were seeing.  There was Moses, the one who had stood upon Mount Sinai in the very presence of God, and received the Law of God and brought it down to the people.  There was also Elijah, the Prophet of Prophets, the one who stood on Mt. Carmel, and called down God’s fire from Heaven.  As I said, it is no wonder that Peter, always quick to speak, wanted to build three dwelling places and stay up on that mountain.  He wanted to stay on that mountain top not because of a fear of falling off the side, but because there could never be an experience that topped what was happening right before them.

It may not have happened mountain climbing, but almost all of us have had those kind of experiences.  You know what type of experiences I am talking about.  Those times in our lives where, possibly through hard work, scrapes, cuts, and struggle, we come to a point where everything just seems perfect.  We reach a point where we know that it could never get any better.  It is a place or a time that is just unbelievable.  We are filled with excitement, wonder, awe, thanksgiving, and so many other emotions that we can possibly not name them all.  It is such a wondrous experience that we become like Peter, who unbelievable had been momentarily left speechless, and the only thing we can think of is, “I’ve got to hold on to this experience…I don’t want to go anywhere…I want to stay right here.”  Maybe we had one of these types of experiences on our wedding day; maybe it was looking at our child in the nursery of the hospital; maybe it was a special vacation; maybe it was at our baptism, during communion, or at some other point of worship in our lives.  There is no doubt in my mind that God intentionally places these mountain-top times in our lives.  We want to stay in place because we know that anything else and everything else is going to pale in comparison to what we are experiencing at that point. 

However, that is not the point of this scene in the lives of Jesus and his disciples…that is not the message that Gospel of Mark was trying to get across to the readers, including those of us reading it all these years.  I do not think that permanent dwellings are ever the intention of any of the mountain-top experiences that God places in our lives.  In fact, every aspect of mountain-top experiences that are offered in God’s Word involve God’s servants having to intentionally come back down the mountain, often facing difficult times. 

There was nowhere to go but back down the mountain and into the world for Noah, his family, and all of the animals that had been on the ark.  Yet their experience assured them of God’s life sparing and sustaining presence.

After God spared Abraham’s son Isaac with the sacrificial ram, the two men came down the mountain and headed home, knowing that God provides…knowledge they would both need to know as they contemplated how God would fulfill the promise to make of this old man and young boy a nation of peoples that would bless the world.

Moses, having been in God’s very presence, had to come back down the mountain, bearing God’s life-giving law, and bring it down to a people who had already turned from their saving God and had begun worshipping a golden calf…revealing that the journey to keep God’s people’s worship focused on God would be a long, difficult road.

Elijah, having experienced the wonder of being used by God to rain fire down from heaven was forced to flee the wrath of the evil queen Jezebel as she sought to end Elijah’s interference in the worship of her pagan gods and her influence of God’s people…and she sought to do that by ending Elijah’s life, forcing Elijah to seek God’s protective presence upon yet another mountain, that God sent Elijah back down, ready to confront Jezebel and her like face to face.

In the same way remembering the wedding day can help a couple endure the trials they may face in their marriage…

In the same way remembering the hospital nursery can help parents through the teenage years…

In the same way remembering the good day of a vacation can help a worker through long grueling hours of a project…

In the same way that our baptism, communion, and worship, will sustain us through the tough times of ministry, witness, service, and even doubt…

Mountain-top experiences are preparation experiences.  They are there for God to give us what we need to face the future.

And here, as Jesus’ top three guys go through this amazing experience, there can be no question, that they are going to have to come back down this mountain.  We can only imagine that years later, as they reflected and shared this story with those who would write it down in the gospels, that they finally got the point of the experience.  Peter recalls, “I wanted to stay, but Jesus did not even acknowledge the request, instead, I heard the very voice of God say, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him! I should have known then what I know now.  God had revealed to us that all that had happened before was coming to completion in our friend.  Jesus is the One who fulfills the Law that God gave through Moses.  In Jesus we see what it means to live a life in complete obedience to God.  Jesus is the fulfillment of all of God’s promises, offered through Elijah and the other prophets.  In Jesus we know that God keeps His Word.”  God was preparing Peter, James, and John for what they would face.  God offered them this amazing experience so that they would have the strength to endure the days to come as they headed down the mountain toward Jerusalem.

The disciples have one more mountain-top experience that makes this perfectly clear.  The Gospel of Matthew relates this scene to us.  The disciples had already gone through the experience of losing their friend on the cross, then having him send a message to meet Him on the mountain in Galilee, presumably a place that they had visited before for times of reflection, prayer, and spiritual refueling during their ministry together.  There on that mountain, they encountered the risen Christ, if you think they were tempted to stay on the mountain at the Transfiguration, imagine their desire on this day, but Jesus leaves no question in their minds that they have to go back down the mountain, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.  And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

My friends, as wonderful as the times seem, we cannot build homes and stay on the mountain.  God has blessed us with those times to affirm his presence with us, to strengthen or refresh us, and to prepare us for what lies ahead.  If right now we are on a mountain-top in our lives, thank God for it, receive the blessing, and ask God to reveal where He intends you to go once down the mountain.  If, right now, we instead find ourselves in a valley, in the darkness; if we are struggling just to get from day to day, then we need to remember those mountain-tops we have been encountered…we need to recall those times when God revealed His glory and wonder to us and remember that He is with us.  And, my friends, if we have we think we have never had that mountain-top experience, then get ready and get excited, because it will come…

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.