SLIDE 33 SERMON “Mountain Moments and Valley Living.”
Denmark is a small country, and it has a beautiful countryside of beaches, forests, fields, villages, churches, farms, lakes and rolling hills. Not rolling hills like Palos Verdes or Solvang, but smaller more modest rolling hills.
SLIDE 34 We do have most in Denmark, we modestly claim – but we must admit that we do not have any mountains. Our highest Hill we have called Sky Mountain, which is a beautiful place near Silkeborg with incredibly beautiful views of hills, forest and lakes. But it should probably have been named Sky Hill to be accurate.
The Danish pianist and humorist Victor Borge once said that there is wonderful view from Sky Mountain/Himmelbjerg … if you stand on a chair!
The Danish Hymn writer, pastor, poet and politician Grundtvig wrote so beautiful about the higher mountains abroad when he writes in
Far higher mountains are around the world
We live where a mountain is but a hill.
But we gratefully settle for valley and hills
As Danes in the far North.
We are not made for loftiness and wind,
To stay grounded suits, us the best.
Langt højere bjerge så vide på jord
man har, end hvor bjerg kun er bakke.
Men gerne med slette og grønhøj i Nord
vi danemænd tage til takke.
Vi er ikke skabte til højhed og blæst,
ved jorden at blive, det tjener os bedst.
These are words that corresponds well with our Danish or Scandinavian Law of Jante: not to be too lofty, too confident, too aware of own talents, but rather stay grounded and stay humble.
Even if Grundtvig thought it was best to stay grounded and humble, he also wrote so beautifully about how we as humans are created with a deep yearning and longing for the mountains, the visions and the truth.
In “Simplicity of Life/ Et jaevnt og muntert virksomt liv.” Grundtvig writes.
Give me a simple life, a merry heart, ….
With eyes for things above as God ordained.
Awake to greatness, goodness, truth and beauty.
Today we are on the Mountain High. Today we are awake and alerted to greatness, goodness, truth and beauty.
Today Jesus and his 3 closets disciples are on the Mountain and they are in for a true Mountain Experience or Vision that will change them forever.
SLIDE 35 Look at the beautiful painting the Raphael for the Transfiguration. The Transfiguration is the last painting by the Italian Renaissance master Raphael. Commissioned by Cardinal Giulio de Medici, the later Pope Clement VII, and conceived as an altarpiece for the Narbonne Cathedral in France, - Raphael worked on it until his death in 1520 and was to be his last painting. And what a masterpiece!
This masterpiece is now in the Vatican City.
It displays the glory of Christ on the mountain top with light, glory and majestic presence, - with a scene of chaos below. Unusually for a depiction of the Transfiguration of Jesus in Christian art, this masterpiece combines with the next episode from the Gospels in the lower part of the painting. Immediately following today’s story on the Mountain, Jesus and his disciples descend the mount only to find the rest of the disciples during a mess.
Contrasting these two scenes, we are reminded that mountaintop experiences are often followed by a very real return to the confusion and failure, we face in our everyday lives as Christians. From the Mountain Top Glory, we descend to the Valley Living Chaos.
The glorious moment when the disciples seem to finally understand the presence and purpose of Christ up in the light of the mountain, is contrasted by the confusion and chaos below in the valley, just showing that they and we still have a lot to learn and a lot to see.
Mountaintop experiences happen throughout the Bible. These are stories of times when humans encounter the living God in a life-altering and perspective-changing way.
When Moses receives the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai, his face becomes radiant from being in God’s presence.
Elijah’s mountaintop experiences include the time he hears God’s voice as “sheer silence.” God seems to hang out on mountains.
SLIDE 36 Mountain tops moments and valley living.
It is good to be here! We understand why the disciples thinks it is good to be there up on the mountain: close to God, away for the chaos of the valley life, warmed by the light and feeling at peace.
It is so good to be here!
Many and I would claim most people have had epiphany or divine experience in their lives. I have had countless conversations with people who had these mountain experiences, encounters or visions.
A felling of being at peace, being the right place and time, being protected, being thankful or a sudden calling or sense to change directions or paths.
Just try to remember if there was a special moment in your life where God felt close and maybe even called you?
Remembering and revisiting these experiences renews the feeling and the hope in us and encourages us to go on: our different mountain top moments help us keep faith and hope here in our valley living of chaos and confusion.
Sometimes we need to climb a mountain to see things from a new perspective. Just like the disciples did.
In this week’s Gospel story, Moses and Elijah show up to share a mountain moment with Jesus.
The transfiguration of Jesus happens with Peter, James, and John as witnesses. They are terrified and confused when they see Moses, Elijah, and Jesus together. Peter does not know how to respond to a mystical mountaintop experience, and he is afraid, right along with James and John. Not understanding what is happening, Peter tries to create containers for the experience, placing the holy men each in their own dwellings: organized so he can better grasp it.
But after this moment of illumination and glistening clothing, terror strikes the disciples, and they pass into the shadows. A cloud overshadows them. And in this cloud of unknowing, they are finally able to hear God—this moment in the shadow’s changes everything. Suddenly, looking around, they see things differently.
Mountaintop experiences, it would appear, are not all sunshine and light. Sometimes it is our entering into the shadows that transfigures us.
Mountaintop experiences can be exhilarating. But how do we connect these moments with our daily life?
How do we remember and incorporate these deep moments into our lives?
We can try to make time for prayer and quit time: we can try to create spaces for our soul and mind to work its way through the places of shadow and the places of illumination.
Paul wrote to his congregation: “For it is the God who said: “Let light shine out of darkness”, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”
SLIDE 37 The young poet Amanda Gorman mesmerized most of us at the inauguration with her enthusiasm and hopeful poem. The poem “The hill we climb.”
In her poem Amanda Gorman said:
When day comes, we ask ourselves
Where can we find light in this never-ending shade?
….
Scripture tells us to envision
That everyone shall sit
under their own vine and fig tree
And no one shall make them afraid.
If we are to live up to our own time,
Then victory wont lie in the blade.
But in all the bridges we have made,
That is the promise to glade,
The hill we climb. If only we dare.
When day comes, we step out of the shade,
Aflame and unafraid,
The new dawn blooms as we free it.
For there is always light,
If only we are brave enough to see it
If only we are brave enough to be it.”
AMEN.