Preached at Christ Church, Billericay at 10.00

We are looking at mountain top experiences this morning as we look forward to the start of Lent on Wednesday. The phrase is really a metaphor for the type of experience, but in both these cases it is also the geographical location. When we talk about a mountain top experience, we usually mean something that is an amazing revelation, something that gives you an understanding that you have not had before. It gives you the sense of the presence of God in a new and exiting way. It may change your whole approach to life and set you off in a different direction, or it may bolster your faith years later. It may have been a scary experience, or a joyful, exhilarating one. It will certainly have been a memorable one. It may even have been your conversion. Maybe you have had a mountain top experience, if so think about it - remember it, spend some time today reflecting on what you learnt, and what it means to you now. Sometimes these experiences can be triggered by nature, so I am not surprised that we also like to have the literal experience. Going up a mountain to see what you can see. Many years ago we were holidaying on the Isle of Man and decided to take the train up Snaefell, because we wanted to see the view from the top.
Snaefell doesn’t look too difficult a climb, and it isn’t very high, but the children were young, and the railway is a very special type – designed specifically for getting trains up hills. We were looking forward to the view from the top. This is what we saw.
I have something in common with Moses, except that the only voices I heard were other families trying to ensure they all stayed together, and working out how long they had before the train returned. It was a mountain top experience to forget (but I haven’t). We like pretty much everyone else were on the next train down. We got back in the car and drove away going round part of the mountain at one point we looked up, and this is what we saw:
While we were at the top of the mountain for only fifteen minutes or so, Moses was there for six days before anything happened – altogether he was there for forty days. In that time he received instructions on a number of things to be made, and also the tablets with the commandments and the law.
Forty The number forty represents testing in the bible – so the forty days in the wilderness for Jesus that we remember during Lent is a time when He tested his faith and prepared Himself for the ministry to come. Forty days up the mountain for Moses, is not so much a test for Moses, but a test for the Israelites – can they remain faithful to the Lord when their leader is gone? It’s a test that the Israelites spectacularly failed – even before they were properly established as a people. If we skip on a bit to chapter 32 we can read the story of the golden calf. God appears mysterious, remote and rather frightening in this passage as only Moses and Joshua are allowed on the mountain, and then only Moses is called to be closer to God. God had been guiding them through the wilderness in the form of a pillar cloud of during the day and a pillar of fire during the night. (13:21) He had been feeding them on Manna and Quail (16) and providing water from rocks. Now the pillar of fire is on top of the mountain and is described as the Glory of the Lord. It was the way that God showed his presence with the Israelites. Volcano? Mount Sinai, in case you were wondering, is not a volcano, so this is not a mythical tale of primitive people worshipping what they do not know, and have no way to understand. This is the Living God making the Israelites into a people, and demonstrating any number of times how much He loves and cares for them. The laws He gave them are remarkable for their fairness, their concern for the poor and the foreigner, they proved an incredible challenge to the Israelites then, and they still do – even in our supposedly more enlightened times. Transfiguration In the transfiguration story, we see a number of similarities and a number of differences, which we will look at now. Where Both are on mountains, but are they the same mountain?
There are three candidates for the location of the ‘high mountain’. The most likely appears to be mount Tabor, which was suggested as the location by Origen in the third century.
Mount Tabor is located in Lower Galilee, Israel, at the eastern end of the Jezreel Valley, 11 miles west of the Sea of Galilee.
Another good alternative is Mount Hermon.
It is much higher and also closer to where Jesus and His disciples were said to be, so it might qualify as the ‘high’ mountain.   Of course, some people would love it to be Mount Sinai and go out of their way to make the case. So I checked how long it would take and Google tells me it is 124 hours to walk to Sinai. If they had walked 21 hours a day, they might have just made it in six days. Even if we allow the 8 days mentioned in Luke’s Gospel, they would still have to walk 15.5 hours a day – and ignore the Sabbath! Everyone has to eat and sleep, and that takes more than three hours a day, so I think we can safely say that it was not mount Sinai.
Which ever mountain they were climbing six days had passed, and we do not know what happened during that time, but we do know that before the six days Jesus had been teaching his disciples about his death and resurrection. It is difficult to know how much of this the disciples understood, so perhaps they needed to see things from a different perspective. Glory God’s Glory, of course, is present in both episodes, but in a very different way. Moses does not see the Glory of God directly, instead it is the Israelites who are treated to that vision – the “consuming fire” on top of the mountain. Remember, it is the Israelites being tested. Moses did not need to see it, he was doing business with God to get the nation set up. Jesus Shines For Peter, James and John, the Glory of God shines out through Jesus. “His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as light.” What the disciples are seeing is a demonstration that Jesus is God. God’s glory is no longer a separate entity, no longer something detached and scary, it is here inside the friend and teacher they have been following for a while. Moses and Elijah are there too, because this is about continuity – Moses represents the law and Elijah the prophets. All this has happened in plain sight, so Peter failing to understand as he so often does, or maybe just being terrified, tries to be helpful and offers to put up shelters for each of them. The word used is Tabernacles, and refers back to the ways of worshipping before the temple was built by Solomon. Before he can finish making his plans the fog came down, not a grey fog like on the top of Snaefell, but a white fog, and God spoke. The Voice The voice from the cloud says, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him, I am well pleased. Listen to him!” The disciples have heard this message before, at Jesus’ baptism the voice from heaven said “This is my Son, whom I love; with him, I am well pleased.”, just the command “Listen to Him” is missing. Maybe it's the place – the surroundings, - the situation, maybe it's the command, maybe they’re just a lot closer to God now than they had been last time they heard those words, whatever it is they are terrified and throw themselves to the ground – that was not how they responded at his baptism (3:17) – indeed no response is recorded.
Jesus comes to them and tells them to get up. When they do, everything has returned to normal – Moses and Elijah are gone, only Jesus is there. They start back down the mountain – the experience is over. You cannot stay on the mountain top forever, as good as it is to be there. Jesus is already focussed on how they will use the experience and says, “Don’t tell anyone what you have seen, until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.” The experience was meant for them – Peter, James and John. It was meant to be remembered, it was meant to strengthen their faith – so that when, after Jesus’ death and resurrection, they were questioning what happened, when they were questioning who Jesus was, they will have that memory to look back on. What they had seen will remind them that God’s love for all of us is so strong that he sent His only son Jesus came to die for their sins and bring them to eternal life, but also that Jesus is the fulfilment of all that has gone before – of all that Moses did, of all that Elijah and the prophets did and said. All of it points to Jesus and Jesus, their Messiah and ours, supersedes all of it. Salvation is found in Him alone.