We are climbing a mountain today with Jesus. I’ve been to a few fine mountain tops in my lifetime. Last month I had the chance to run the seven ancient hills of Rome, so significant in the history of Western civilization. Of course, most of them are covered in concrete and urban landscape now, but a few still have magnificent views. One almost took me to heaven, when I ran in front of a car whose driver wasn’t expecting me to dart in front of him at a cross street. I’ve been to the top of Mt. Bonnell here in Austin to watch the sun set. I stood on top of Mt. Carmel in Israel and saw the amazing panorama of the valley below. I stepped off the ski lift at Purgatory in Colorado and looked down the bumpy black diamond slope and prayed as I never had before. I played on the slopes of Mauna Loa, which is supposed to be the largest mountain mass of them all. And I stood on Mt. Zion where Jesus joined the generations of Jews who worshipped God in Israel’s Temple there. I can say I’ve been to a few mountain tops in my life time. How about you?

Mountain tops are important in the Bible, of course. Noah’s ark comes to rest on Mt. Ararat, and creation begins again. Moses meets God on Mt. Sinai, and the covenant people of God are formed. Moses sees the promised land he will never enter from across the Jordan on Mt. Nebo. Elijah competes with the Baal prophets at Mt. Carmel, the Disciples pray with Jesus at the mount of Olives, Jesus carries the cross up Mt. Calvary - mountains are important places in the Bible.

Every spiritual tradition has emphasized the heights as places to draw nearer to the Divine presence. The ancients – Egyptians, Babylonians, Mayans - even built stair-stepped temples, artificial mountains they would climb to make sacrifices to their deities. Something about a mountain top makes us feel closer to God. Perhaps it’s based on the ancient superstition that heaven was up in the clouds so if you climbed towards the skies you would be closer to heaven. Or maybe it’s the view, the godlike vision of the world at your feet. Maybe it’s the rarified air, the oxygen deprivation that leads to visions some might label hallucinations. Or maybe it’s the exhaustion you feel by the time you climb to the top. You may feel that way by the time you get to the top of our stairs climbing to the sanctuary every Sunday.

Of course we hope to have a “mountain top experience” every time we come to church. We hope to see Christ reveal his glory and to feel inspired like Peter, saying, “Lord, it’s good for us to be here!” And like Peter when we get a glimpse of God’s glory we want to hold on to it, we want to camp out awhile and enjoy the exhilaration, the inspiration, and the reassurance we don’t feel so often down in the valleys of our everyday experience. We are tempted to recreate the glory, even by artificial means, which is why I think worship in so many places has degenerated into hi-tech entertainment extravaganzas designed to stir our emotions and manipulate our senses into feeling we have met God. We substitute emotional excitement for spiritual awe. But you can’t make God appear on demand. You can’t force the glory of the coming of the Lord. It has to be authentic. It either happens or it doesn’t. But it’s always up to God.

So let us climb this mountain with Jesus and three of his disciples today and see what happens. The disciples have been with Jesus on a long journey already. They have seen his reputation grow. They have seen him heal lepers, cast out demons, preach in the synagogues, teach on the hillsides, and debate with the scribes and Pharisees. They have seen Jesus still the storm and feed the multitude. You would think by now they might have a clue who he is and trust his direction. But no, they are still slow to believe, hesitant to trust. How long does it take for us to follow him before we catch on and learn ourselves to trust?

Today we walk with Jesus, and Peter, James, and John, away from the crowd, apart from the others, and climb to the heights – we aren’t told why. We get to the top and admire the view as we catch our breath. We turn to tell Jesus the other disciples look like ants down below, but suddenly his appearance is transformed – “metamorphosized,” Mark tells us. His clothes become a dazzling white. Moses and Elijah, the chief figures of “the law and the prophets” (as the Jews call their scripture) come beside him to confer. Then a cloud overshadows them, like the cloud which led Israel in the wilderness, like the cloud that came to end the drought as Elijah foretold. The cloud is a sign of God’s presence in the Hebrew Bible, of God’s leadership and providence.

We fight again to catch our breath. We feel like ants before the glory of the Most High God. Peter, scared witless, tries to take control of the moment and proposes a building program. He makes some inane remarks instructing Jesus on what we should do, but then the cloud comes over us and from the cloud the VOICE speaks: “This is my Son, the beloved; listen to him!” It is our usual way. We react to fear with useless hyperactivity. We respond to feeling out of control with empty chatter. We fill our prayers with inane instructions telling Christ what he needs to do for us when we should be listening to him, waiting in silence for him to speak to us.

But we can’t hear God speak to us until we turn off the noise of our environment without and the noise of our own demons within, and get quiet.

What happens on that mountain with Jesus today is not what any of us would expect, though by now you think we would. It is simply – to use an old word rediscovered by the youth of our day – it is simply awesome! If only for a few moments, we see Jesus revealed, Jesus as he truly is, Jesus, the beloved Son of God, in all his glory.

The mountain top, the dazzling clothes, Moses and Elijah, the cloud, the VOICE – so many symbols here, it makes you wonder: are we meant to take this story literally, historically, or figuratively, metaphorically? And in either case, are we to understand that Jesus changes before their eyes or is it that their eyes are finally opened so they see him as he has always been? Surely they will never look at him the same way after this. Surely they will begin listening to Jesus with a new concentration. Read the chapters in Mark which follow. Soon Jesus will teach them with a new urgency about service and sacrifice and the willingness to suffer for the sake of others. Soon Peter will be the very first to confess that Jesus is the Messiah we’ve all been waiting for. I wonder if they don’t begin to see the same glory more often in the valley they witnessed this day on the mountain top, not because he has changed but because their eyes have been opened to see what has been there in plain sight all along.

I’ve had some spiritual mountain top experiences in my lifetime, too, where the glory of the Lord came to us in worship. We’ve shared some metamorphosizing moments in this very room. Many of you remember the Open Door Concert with the Turtle Creek Chorale and the Women’s Chorus of Dallas. I still get verklempt when I remember them singing “We Shall Overcome.” Or the time the Ebony Ensemble performed and James Forbes preached. Or our worship on September 9, 2001 when friends from ten other congregations joined us in chanting “God is love” in contrast to those who wanted to say “God hates.” You remember what those experiences were like: awesome! Nobody could have contrived those moments of glory to be what they were, but we hope for such glory, we pray for such glory, whenever we gather here in the name of Christ.

What I want to say today is that the glory God is not just with us in those mountain top moments of worship, but also on ordinary Sundays and even gloomy Mondays when we are down in the everyday valleys of life. The same Jesus who is with us when we feel high and exhilarated in a moment of inspired worship is with us in our journey every day, leading us, helping us, surrounding us, calling us. Jesus doesn’t change. It is we who lack vision to see him. It is we who are too noisy to hear him.

Most every Wednesday night I ask you to share evidence from your life that God is good. I believe the evidence is all around if we’ll just open our eyes to see. The glory and goodness of God are not so hard to find. We would see more if we would only look. So look. Because even in your most unguarded moments, you may suddenly be surprised by grace. Even in the hardest struggles, the awesome transforming Christ may suddenly be revealed, and what happens if you are paying attention is what? Awesome!

Let me offer a few examples. A young woman comes into her pastor’s office at a church in – of all places - Conway, Arkansas. She has had a long struggle with depression, even suicidal thoughts. Finally she confesses, “I am a woman, but I have always felt like a man. I am in counseling to have an operation to change my gender. You may tell me never to come back here to church again, but I thought I should tell you this.” The pastor reminds her God loves her, prays with her, but tells her, “I want to set up a discernment committee in our church to help you make the decisions that are ahead of you.” He sets up the committee. He includes one woman who is outspoken in her opposition to such matters. The committee meets with the young woman, talks with her, prays with her, studies the matter over a nine month period. One day they come to the pastor. “We believe it is time for her to take up her new name, her male name, and we want to do this in worship.” The pastor agrees. There is one request of the committee, though. The woman who had once been so opposed insists she be the one who announces his new name before the people. What is that? Awesome!

A young man is sent to prison. His mother is ashamed to tell her congregation. But people keep asking her where he is. He has been active in the church for many years and suddenly he’s not around. And now a letter of support from the congregation would help him process his parole more smoothly. The pastor takes a risk. He convinces the mother it’s the right thing to do, but of course, even he can’t be sure how the congregation will respond. “Dwayne is in prison,” he announces the next Sunday. “He needs a letter from us promising to support him when he gets out.” The pastor recalls for them the date Dwayne was baptized in their own church. According to their liturgy, on that day they made a covenant to be his church and support Dwayne always with their prayers and help. “It’s payday!” the pastor tells the congregation. He puts the letter on the altar table, and waits to see who will sign. The service goes into overtime because everybody wants to sign. What is that? Awesome!

My friend Joe Phelps leads “prayers for healing from violence” in Louisville, Kentucky. Some of you may remember the year we did that here in Austin. Last week they have a prayer vigil for a twenty three year old man gunned down at forty third and Market. The father, a black pastor, tries to say something to the fifty plus people gathered, but all he can get out is “I loved my son so much.” There’s this long silence, interrupted by a blue-collar white guy whose son was killed last year. “C’mere Dad,” he says as he embraces the grieving father in a huge hug. Later, Joe’s the last person left, except for this grieving Dad, who is standing in the street where they found his son. Joe has the processional cross in his hand, a three foot wooden cross they use in the service. The father shows him “up here's where his head was, and his body stretched out that way.” They stand there for a minute in silence, and then Joe is inspired to lay the cross down in the street where the son’s body had lain. The dad bends down and begins to stroke the arms and trunk of the cross as if it were his son. After a few minutes he picks up the cross, hands it to Joe, says, “I love you” and walks away. What is that? Awesome!

You see what I mean? Not just on the mountain top. Not just in our happy days. Not just in our exuberant triumphal worship. But also in our sorrows. In our hardest struggles. In our deepest losses. The glory of the Lord is with us. The grace of Christ guides us. The love of God sustains us. And what we experience in those moments can only be described by one word. What is that? (Awesome!) May we pray?

Jesus, Savior, Sovereign, You are always awesome. But we live with our eyes to the ground, our ears filled with noise, our mouths yammering away with our fearful and foolish plans. We miss so many signs of your glory. We do not even see the beauty and majesty you have planted in the people around us or we would have no trouble loving them. We do not see the glory and the power of your presence or we would have no trouble trusting you. Open our eyes. Unstop our ears. Teach us to live everyday by the vision we have from you in those rare mountain top moments. And we will embrace the way of your cross in the name of your love, in the name of Jesus, the Christ. Amen.