What are your mountain top experiences? Not metaphorical mountain top experiences, but LITERAL ones.  When do you remember being on top of a mountain?

• Did you trek there?  Walk there? Climb there?
• Did you fly there? Did you drive up a mountain to get there?
• Maybe you were in another country and were on a rickshaw or in a donkey drawn carriage to get up a mountain?
• Can you take yourself to a mountain top and remember?

Dwell there a moment in memory.

I’m 23. John and I have prepared a snack picnic. We’re around the corner from his house at Ferny Creek, on a pony adjustment.  We’re lying on a blanket.  Solving the world’s problems.  The sky is high: soft blue.  I’m holding some flowers…

I’m 43 and at Rachael’s wedding: accidentally, we’re across the road at the Ferny Creek recreation ground: she is getting married on a 40 degree day under the biggest tree imaginable: the heat is making the canopy of the tree ‘pop’ seed husks, like confetti: and they are being picked up into the air, by the late afternoon cool change that is sweeping over the radiating suburbs, hitting the Dandenongs, and sweeping up the mountain side in gentle gusts.  It’s a wonderland of wonder…

“Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves.”

There is wonder in scripture… details… hints to events and memories… and there it is, captured in two words.  “…by themselves”.  Do you sometimes wonder when was the last time you and Jesus went up a mountain?

I’m 58 and Sue and I are meeting at Sassafrass: we met at Monash University 40 years ago in the Christian campus group.  We soon picked up from where we left off.  A lot of Christian fellowship is often making sense of community life, how it shapes us, and where the truth of the gospel resides within it.  In her life were all the things that can happen in 4 decades.  Some Happy: some faith challenging.  Some just plain sad.  And hard.   It’s raining outside, and the cafe is steaming up. We order a coffee before we eat: and another couple after we finish: and we’re the last to leave ‘lunch’ that day.

What is it about mountain top experiences that is significant?

What’s been significant to you there?

“Jesus took them, and led them up a high mountain, by themselves.” 

When was the last time you and Jesus went up a mountain together?

And then, with little explanation or understanding, Jesus physicality changes in an unexplainable way. 

“And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became bright as light.”

Who has transfigure before you?

I didn’t own a mobile phone fore 2016.  To find me was to ring a land-line.  On Saturday 13 August, 2011, I was working a 9 to 6 shift in a department store.  At the busiest time, mid afternoon, I received a land line phone call from my sister. (Remember, no mobile phone: and I could have been in any department store that day, as I was casual staff).  God only knows how she found me.  My Uncle Bert had died unexpectedly whist having a knee operation: and she and my mother were heading over to the family in Sunshine to be with my Aunty Nell.  I met them there, after work and I witnessed something I’d never seen before.  My mother was sitting with her best friend Nell: while all the family and people whirled around her: all in their different states of shock and disbelief: and there my mother sat with her best friend: not in any way I’d seen before: quietly doing the gentle work nobody else could.  “Here, drink a little tea: here eat a mouthful.”  Holding hands.  Being steady.  Quietly attending.  Almost invisible. Calm.  Stable.  The occasional glint when funny things were remembers at that bleakest time.  It was a behaviour I had never seen before: or again.  It was gentling loving.  Remarkable.  Astounding.

“And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became bright as light.”

Who has transfigured before you?

I’m not saying my mother was Moses or Jesus to Elijah.  I’m not staying my memory is of her radiating like the sun.  Glimmering like Light.  But it was a moment of transfiguration.

In this story the disciples, just 3 of them: maybe those closest; maybe only those who were free at that time: were led up a mountain by Jesus and something happened: and not only that, they learned something about Jesus:  

“…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!”

How’s your listening to Jesus going? Do you need time away up a mountain with him? How could you make that happen?

In reflection on this question, I’m going to read you an excerpt from 2 Peter: part of today’s lectionary, mirrored in with the Gospel…  remember Peter James and John went up the mountain…

“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.  For he received honour 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.”  We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven, while we were with him on the holy mountain. …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.”

It’s an invitation:

You will do well to be attentive to this <story-event>

and invitation to contemplation:

You will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place.

It’s interesting because the Scripture also sets out what will happen in those actions…

be attentive to the story… until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.

I’m not going to even unpack that promise… there’s no need.  It’s too delicious.  It’s too delightful.  It radiates with promise and hope.   Most of our living is not Mountain Top.  And even if you live in the high country, most of the living is ordinary.  I’m not even sure we should be planning for, or even seeking Mountain Top experiences: but I am sure of this: following Jesus Christ is transformative in a way that brings about the wholeness of life: your life: and our life, together.  

Sometimes we get to see Transfiguration in the ordinary of our lives.  Sometimes we witness it in the life of those around us.  Notice that only 3 disciples had this experience: eventually they share it will all of us who were’t there.  We in the Ordinary.  Nevertheless, the story exists for us to be attentive to it: and let it be a light a lamp shining in the dark place, inviting us, assuring us, helping find us: and it will dawn upon us… and the morning star rises in your hearts.

Let us be attentive. Amen.