The mountaintop experience

Exodus 24:12-18

12 The Lord said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain and wait there; I will give you the tablets of stone, with the law and the commandment, which I have written for their instruction.” 13 So Moses set out with his assistant Joshua, and Moses went up onto the mountain of God. 14 To the elders he had said, “Wait here for us, until we come back to you. Look, Aaron and Hur are with you; whoever has a dispute may go to them.”

15 Then Moses went up on the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain. 16 The glory of the Lord settled on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days; on the seventh day he called to Moses out of the cloud. 17 Now the appearance of the glory of the Lord was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the Israelites. 18 Moses entered the cloud and went up on the mountain. Moses was on the mountain for forty days and forty nights.

2 Peter 1:16-21

16 For 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. 17 For he received honor and glory from God the Father when that voice was conveyed to him by the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, my Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” 18 We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven, while we were with him on the holy mountain.

     19 So we have the prophetic message more fully confirmed. You will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. 20 First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, 21 because no prophecy ever came by human will, but men and women moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.

Matthew 17:1-9

1 Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. 2 And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became bright as light. 3 Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. 4 Then Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will set up three tents here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” 5 While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” 6 When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. 7 But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.” 8 And when they raised their eyes, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone.9 As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, “Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.” 

“First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation.”  That’s always been a useful verse to deploy whenever you think someone is misinterpreting the Bible.  Just because you think it says something doesn’t mean that’s what it says.  “That’s just like your opinion, man.”  Christians all agree that, to some degree or another, the Bible is authoritative, but they don’t agree as to who - if anyone - has authority to interpret.   While Catholics locate that authority upwards, in the hierarchy of the Church, Protestants have typically pushed it downward, claiming that any Christian who opens his or her Bible is competent to interpret (which also entails the assumption that meaning of Scripture is plain).  

I probably find myself somewhere in the middle, or somehow holding these two concerns in tension.  On the one hand, I am biased toward the idea that special people, like myself, with a theological education are better equipped to interpret well in the same way that a doctor is better equipped to make a diagnosis than someone who searching on the internet.   

On the other hand, history is also full of examples of the “professional class” of Christians becoming invested in what now seem like obviously bad readings of Scripture.   This is not because they are evil (though sometimes that’s been true) but simply because people in power naturally become invested in maintaining the status quo even as contrary arguments accumulate.   And all of tend to interpret as we’ve been taught to interpret.  In every age God’s people must both embrace and challenge their inheritance.  

This all worth bearing in mind today as we turn our attention to the Transfiguration of Jesus, a passage that defies a single interpretation. What’s interesting is that the author of 2 Peter (who most conclude wasn’t actually Peter) actually more or less overrides the question of interpretation by appealing to direct experience: 

“For 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…We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven, while we were with him on the holy mountain.”  It’s pretty hard to argue with that sort of claim, though it’s not so difficult to doubt it.  I confess to being wary of claims to spiritual experience, probably because I’m the sort of person who hasn’t had such experience, probably because I’m the sort of person who refuses to take my experience at face value but who instead runs it through some interpretative framework.   I’m highly skeptical of those who claim to have heard voices or seen visions.  

And yet, I have to admit that the ultimate goal to which life points is not a perfect understanding of God, but to the actual experience of God, of oneness with God.   These passages seem to be about the times God interrupted the usual course of things and shows up in a way that people can more directly experience.   

Moses goes up the mountain to receive the law and the glory of the Lord covered the mountain like a cloud, and Moses remained there for 40 days.  But eventually he had to come back down, his face still radiating God’s reflected glory, only to find the people worshipping a golden calf.  From glory to rage, be threw down the tablets.   Just as Moses reflected God’s glory, so too does the law which he delivers.   

Jesus also went up the mountain and was - in a word we use in no other context - “transfigured”, his face shining like the sun, his clothes radiant.  Only there is no indication that the glory of God has covered the mountain and that Jesus is reflecting it - rather Jesus is the glory of God.  Moses and Elijah appear, representative for the Law and Prophets, but Jesus does not receive a law to deliver or a new word to proclaim; rather he himself is the new law, not written on tablets of stone but in his flesh, not just words but the Word made flesh.   As we read last Sunday, Jesus comes to not to abolish the law but to fulfill it by not merely God’s glory but embodying it.  The voice of the Father sounds from heaven, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” Doing what Jesus says and does, that is our “law”.  

Peter, apparently overwhelmed by the experience, floats the idea of erecting booths, or little tabernacles, for Moses, Elijah, and Jesus.  He’s convinced that this moment is “good” - probably the best! - and he desires to somehow but it in a box and preserve it, to live in that moment.  Jesus seems to ignore the suggestion.  Instead, Moses and Elijah presumably disappear, and Jesus and his disciples head back down the mountain - but not before he instructs them to tell no one about it until after he’d been raised from the dead.  The danger here is that others would make the same mistake that Peter did, to make what happened on that mountain the endgame rather than merely foretaste of what was to come.  

I used to go to Church camps as a kid, or later as a counselor and a leader.   It was common to refer to these days as a “mountaintop experience” and then to lament, once back to mundane life, that you couldn’t always live in that moment.  The experience - or more precisely, the feeling it produced, did not endure.   Even in Scripture, you always have to come down from mountain and return to life.  You can’t remain in that moment.  

Here’s another tension in Christian life: the tension between how it’s going to be and the way it actually is. And this tension leads to the fundamental question, Why?  Why can’t life always be as beautiful as it is in its best moments?  Why do sorrows always follow joy, eventually?  Why is so little of it glorious, so much of it mundane, or ugly?  Why haven’t we arrived at the destination yet?   

Jesus had to come back down from the mountain because he had a mission to complete, a course to which he must remain faithful, even a death he must suffer to bring life to all.  And we live in the same mystery; we too have something to do (even if it’s not always readily apparent what that is) even if - perhaps especially if - that means suffering ourselves in the hope of rising again.  

One possible moral of the story is that we should draw upon our best experiences to inspire and sustain us, that the mountaintop gives us a foretaste of what is to come, that we see in glimpses what will be revealed in full.  Life is about patient endurance, believing what God will do even when our eyes can’t see it.  There’s a lot to commend this view, but then it necessarily makes God’s self revelation, God’s glory, exceptional, even exceedingly rare, the in-breaking of the supernatural in our otherwise drab natural lives.  

But another possible moral to the story is that these mountaintops are not just the rare places where heaven and earth intersect, but the place where we see most clearly the glory that is always present.  When Jesus comes down from the mountain, his face may no longer shine like the sun, his clothes may no longer be radiant, but he is no less glorious.  In fact, his glory may never be more apparent than when he hangs on the cross.  Christ isn’t changed in these episodes - only our ability to perceive him.  

If you emphasize this, then the challenge is no longer to search for some elusive experience, or to take confidence in the testimony of another, but to see the glory of God ever present.  That colleague whose very face we find irritating is transfigured into the very image of God.   The stars in the sky declare God’s praise.  The glory that is to be revealed is the glory that has already always present.   And if we want to see that glory, the glory of the Father, what better way than to listen to the Son?   It is Christ who ultimately reveals God’s glory, and it is by following Christ that we come to see it for ourselves.