A Mountaintop Moment

            At a pastor’s conference a few years ago, we were asked to- aside from our wedding and the birth of our children- name the three of the most memorable or rewarding mountaintop experiences in our lives. A mountaintop experience can be defined as a moment of personal glory or satisfaction… a moment, however brief, when life was absolutely wonderful. Think for a moment about your moment. What is it? Who’s involved? Where were you?

The first memory that came to mind was during my first year of marriage to Kristen. We married young. Although very supportive, we both knew our respective set of parents wanted us to wait. They were- rightfully so- concerned that we wouldn’t be able to afford married life. But, I still had five more years of school left. We’d been dating uninterrupted for four years already, and we really wouldn’t be able to afford marriage or kids until my student loans were paid off (which, by the way, was only six years ago). I just couldn’t see us dating for 19 years until we could “afford” to get married.

So in July of 1988, at the ripe old age of 21, I married the love of my life… but not before being on the receiving end of a few lectures from mom and dad, and friends, and co-workers, and pastors, and the little old granny across the street.

            The semester after our wedding, I had 18 credit hours at school during the day, worked 24 hours/wk as a security guard on nights and weekends (at $5/hr) and spent the rest of my time absorbing the volume of study that comes with 18 hours in my senior year at Concordia.

            It was- by no stretch of the imagination- easy. But we were both bound and determined to not only make our marriage God-pleasing, but to prove everyone who doubted wrong.

My mountaintop experience lasted all of 5 minutes. It was a few weeks after the end of that grueling semester. I ran by my campus mailbox, picked up my mail after a day of classes, threw it all in the passenger seat of my 1982 Ford EXP, and rushed home to get changed for my security duty on the other side of Ann Arbor. Driving on the way home, I fingered through the bulk of mail… mostly junk… and I pulled out an envelope that contained my grades for the first semester. I ripped open the envelope with one hand, pulled out the contents with the other (all the while navigating through town using my left knee) and read 4.0. Six classes. All followed by the same letter.

I was flyin’ high. I screamed. I screamed as loud as my lungs would allow. And when that wasn’t enough, I rolled down my window… doing 40 MPH… and screamed at every car that passed me. Nothing audible. Nothing that made any sense. Just “aaaaahhh”! (little do most of you know that I still do that all the way home after a really good sermon).

            That was my mountaintop. A quick, but enduring moment of sheer glory. When I got to our apartment five minutes later, I left Kristen a note (who was teaching). I changed for work. Ran through the drive-thru at Taco Bell for a late lunch… and worked until midnight. And that… as they say… was that.

            Peter, James, and John traveled with Jesus to His mountaintop. Literally. All 9,000 feet of it. When they reached the top, Jesus bent down to pray. While engaging in conversation with His Father… something happened to Jesus. A glorious moment that left an indelible impression on those who witnessed it.

Jesus changed.

His face shined so bright, it was like looking into the sun. His clothes so dazzling white, it was as if it were a flash of lightning. The company of heaven descended upon Jesus… Moses and Elijah appeared in glorious splendor, and they spoke together. This Maker of heaven and earth. This Creator of angels. This Destroyer of armies and Whisperer of still small voices, was seen in a way no human being had ever seen before. Clothed in flesh, but clothed in glory. Hidden without beauty or majesty no longer. For a moment, however brief, Peter, James, and John saw Jesus in His natural habitat… glorified, magnified, transfigured in the company of heaven, with a voice of thunder booming from the clouds: “This is My Son”.

            It was truly a mountaintop experience. So many impressions for these three. To peek into a picture of heaven on a mountaintop on earth. To see the one who challenged Pharaoh and led the people the wilderness, the carrier of the tablets of stone.

To see the prophet who was whisked away in a chariot of fire… to see these heroes of the faith together with the only Son of God. So many questions. So much excitement. Even God the Father Himself emceeing the event.

            But when that voice of God had spoken… every changed. Again. The flash of lightning was gone. The radiance of the sun was gone. The clouds, the voice, the Lawgiver and the Prophet, gone. “When the voice had spoken”, Luke writes, “Jesus was found alone”.

            And that… as they say… was that.

            No truer words could ever be spoken: “Jesus was alone”.

            His mission was not to shine on mountaintops. His purpose was not to bedazzle the masses with a glory that shimmers like the sun. His resolution was to sacrifice. Bruised. Battered. Beaten. Bloodied. “God made Him who had no sin”- the One enthroned in majesty before the creation of the world- the spotless Son of God- “God made Him who had no sin… to be sin for us”. Poor. Humiliated. Rejected. Betrayed.

            And nobody could do this, but Jesus. Elijah could embrace Him. Moses could encourage Him. The Father could roar forth His pride. Peter, James, and John could stand in awe. But when push came to shove, when Jesus faced the moment of truth… His disciples scattered, His followers turned back, the company of heaven was silent, and His Father… His Father!... forsook Him.

            “Jesus was alone.” Indeed.

            The conundrum of the mountaintop experience is not the glory in the moment, it is the descent back into the valley of the ordinary. Where faces are not as beautiful. Where the company is not as dazzling. Where the journey is not as celebrated.

            Jesus’ return from the mountaintop that day was a descent far beyond the ordinary. He didn’t stop where angels fear to tread. He didn’t turn back at the places we find unbearable… He kept moving until He found Himself nailed to a tree, laughed at, mocked, ridiculed, cursed by God, suffering payment for the sins of the entire world, for one purpose: To guarantee that our final journey unto His mountain would last forever. No turning back.

            In His passage to the cross, he was- indeed- alone.

Jesus faced it alone, so that we wouldn’t have to.