In the summer of 1994 I made the 200-odd mile journey on foot from Yosemite Valley to Mt. Whitney on the John Muir Trail. On the last night of the 20-day trip I ate an early supper at Guitar Lake and climbed up to about 12,000 feet on the west shoulder of Whitney, where I made camp on a grassy shelf not far from the trail. My plan was to be the first person the next morning to stand on the top of the highest mountain in the lower 49 states. I arose when it was barely light, had a breakfast of trail mix and granola bars, drank a little water, and packed up my tent.
I scrambled up through a boulder-field to the trail and it was there that I met with a terrible sight—Boy Scouts! A whole troop of them, chattering and grumbling their way up the side of the mountain ahead of me. Little had I known three weeks before as I was laboring up out of Yosemite with fifty pounds of food, fuel, and equipment cutting into my shoulders that I was already conditioning myself for this final, desperate race. My pack was like a feather on my back; my legs were like steel pistons. I greeted the scouts curtly as I threaded my way past them—morning pleasantries were not my concern. When I got to the ridge-crest and began to traverse the long spine of the mountain I stopped just once, long enough to put on more clothes against the sunrise wind cutting through the rocky defiles.
And so I got my fifteen minutes alone on the top of Mount Whitney in July. I swung my legs over a ledge and perched above the vast gulf of the Owens Valley, a mile below me and filling up with morning light. I looked out north and saw the countless peaks of King’s Canyon and Sequoiah National Parks like pennants against the sky, all the country I had clambered over like an ant for the last 10 days. And I had one last deep drink of the high mountain silence before it was shattered by the hollers of excited Boy Scouts and I began my descent to the dusty world.
Across cultures and mythologies, the mountaintop is the meeting place with God, if not God’s actual dwelling place. So it would be natural to place today’s Gospel story in that context. Indeed, the story does this to itself, quite deliberately I think. The fact that Moses and Elijah come to meet Jesus on top of the mountain is meant to remind us that these two great prophets also had encounters with God on the holy mountain. Moses, as we heard in the first reading this morning, disappeared into the smoke and fire atop Mt. Sinai and returned with the law of God’s covenant with Israel. And Elijah fled the apostate King Ahab and his murderous queen to Mt. Horeb, where he heard the “still, small, voice” that stiffened his resolve to fight for the covenant’s survival.
But this Gospel story is also different. First of all, it does not describe an experience in solitude. Jesus does not go the mountaintop alone, but he brings his disciples along with him—not the whole crew, but those three, Peter, James, and John, who form a kind of inner circle within the inner circle. And in fact, it is their presence there that becomes the whole focus of the story, even though they are ill-at-ease and out-of-place as, I don’t know, a group of Boy Scouts. We never learn what it is that Jesus experiences atop the mountain, or what difference it makes to him, even though he is this story’s great mediator between God and people. Moses goes up the mountain and comes down with the Ten Commandments; Mohammed goes up the mountain and comes down with the Qu’ran. Jesus goes up and comes down with three guys named Peter, James, and John.
It is these disciples who receive the revelation, and a strange revelation it is. It does not stand by itself; it has no objective content that you can look at from a distance from and interpret, like words inscribed on tablets. And yet a day will come when this ungraspable experience becomes their touchstone of the most demanding kind of truth, so that the 2nd Epistle of Peter can say “We did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty…while we were with him on the holy mountain.”
They had gone up a mountain with him before. He gave them a Sermon there and a startling new version of the law. But they were not brought to this mountain to learn any new doctrines or precepts. Rather, they are given a new vision of the person they have been following. They see him transformed by a radiance that is not of this world, and then they are enveloped by the same glory, and they hear the very voice of the invisible God declaring, "This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!" So what they end up finding out on the mountaintop is simply that they are to follow Jesus. If the wisdom and authority of his teachings was not enough, if the wit with which he deflated the scribes and Pharisees was not enough, if the casting out demons, and making the lame walk, and feeding the hungry multitudes were not enough to convince them that this is the master teacher, the one whose words are the words of life, they now have the vision of his transfigured body, and the command of God.
And what are his words to them, when the vision is past, and they are alone with him once again on the mountaintop? “Do not be afraid.” “Do not be afraid”—the same words he spoke when he walked across the Sea of Galilee to find them in the fourth watch of the night; “Do not be afraid”—the same words he will say to the women who meet him in the garden after he is raised from the dead. If the job of disciples is to listen to Jesus, these seem to be the words he most wants us to hear. Because we never get to stay on the mountaintop. We always have to go down again into the crowds, and the dust and heat, to contend with people’s opinions and our reputations and the crooked dealings of the world.
The mountaintop is its own special place, and the God who we see there in glory is usually hidden in the flatlands and the city. But He is there, and so is Christ is the well-beloved, still leading his disciples. We may not remember his radiance, but he is our guide in the twists and turns of the dark labyrinth, as well as on the bright mountain. And even if all we can see are faces of suffering, we still have access to the deeper, inner data that comes with listening. It may take some time and close attention to drop down below all the chatter and noise, but if we are patient we will hear it-- the voice of a friend near and dear, speaking to us with great patience and tenderness. And the first thing the voice says is, “don’t be afraid.”
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