Climb the Mountain

This sermon was given at our Sunday morning service on 19th February 2023, the last Sunday before Lent. I hope you enjoy reading it, and don't find the puns (too!) cringe-worthy!

The gospel reading was Matthew 17:1-9.

The astute amongst you may well have spotted a theme running through our readings today.

 

All of our readings, from the Old Testament, to our Gospel and the other New Testament reading from 2 Peter mentioned one thing. If we had read out today’s psalm as well, we’d have heard that that theme in the psalm too. That theme is ‘mountains’. And mountains have certainly given me ‘summit’ to think about in preparing my sermon today.  Oh – sorry, were you not ‘inclined’ to find that joke funny? I thought it was the ‘peak’ of humour, myself but maybe you’re just not appreciating how hill-arious I actually am? I guess I’d better leave the mountain jokes here, and ‘ev-a-rest’.

 

I’m so sorry.

Feel free to come at me after the service today with your worst mountain-based puns, if I haven’t already used them all up. God knows I deserve it after that awful introduction. Perhaps I should give up punning for Lent?

Yup, Lent starts on Wednesday this week! If you hadn’t spotted it creeping up on us, Tuesday is Shrove Tuesday (or Pancake Day if you like) and Wednesday is Ash Wednesday; the first day of Lent, and that – surprisingly enough – is why today is all about mountains. I might start a campaign to call today – the Sunday before Lent – ‘Mountain Sunday’; the day when we hear about Moses climbing Mount Sinai to meet with God; and Peter, James and John travelling with Jesus up an unnamed high mountain to see Jesus being transfigured.

Today is about mountains because Lent is a mountain. As Jesus would say, let those who have ears to hear, hear. Today, in order to hear, you’re going to need mountain-ears. (I’m so, so sorry)…

 

Lent is a mountain, and we are those mountaineers; those pilgrims on the journey to its summit, where we will experience the – quite literal – high of Easter Day. Those who are on top of a mountain early in the morning will be the first to see the sun rise. And we are about to start that journey to the top of the mountain to be the first to see the Son of God rise. Mountains in the Bible are where people meet with God.

But in order to get to the top, if we want that meeting with the divine, we need to climb.

 

Julie Andrews in 'The Sound of Music' - Climb Every Mountain

Climbing a mountain is hard. It asks for our time. It asks for our effort. It asks for our preparation.

But any mountaineer knows that the climb is the point. Many years ago, climbing a mountain was the only way to get to its peak, to see the world from a different point of view and to find the exhilaration of a mountain-top experience. That’s not the case today. Today, with enough money, you can charter a helicopter flight to bypass the arduous journey and land you safely on the top without any of the hassle, or the work. But those people, when they get out of the helicopter are not mountaineers; they’re tourists.

Now, don’t get me wrong – everyone there sees the same view; they all experience the joy of the mountain top. But only one of those groups arrives at the top of the mountain a different set of people than they were when they left the base camp.

Because, it’s not being on the top of the mountain that changes us; it’s the journey up. The trials, and time, and effort, and preparation of the journey to the top – with our fellow pilgrims and mountaineers – is what changes us. That journey prepares us for the mountain-top experience. It prepares us to get to the summit, with – as we heard in today’s readings – Moses on Mount Sinai and Christ and the disciples on the un-named mountain in the Gospel reading, to meet with God, and to be transfigured.

Transfigured. That word doesn’t just mean changed. To be transfigured is to be changed into something more beautiful, more elevated, more divine.

If we want to meet God, and be transfigured ourselves, we can’t just be helicoptered to the top of the mountain; we need to climb it. We’ve got to go through the effort, and time, and preparation.

If we want to be changed by the events of Easter Sunday in a month-and-a-bit’s time, we’ve got to join that pilgrim journey of Lent first, starting with Ash Wednesday, and travelling through Passiontide and Holy Week until we stop and wait and weep with the disciples at the cross.

It’s not an easy journey, but change never is. Christ never promised easy travelling. He did promise, however, to be with us on our way.

I hope you’ll make the choice to travel with us this Lent. People often talk about things they will give up over these next 40 days, but I think over the past few years with the events of covid, we’ve probably all had enough self-denial for a little while. So, let me encourage you to take something up instead; come to some of the Lenten services, join the Lent discussion group, find a way to get involved in some charity work, download the Church of England’s daily devotional app, Dust & Glory and spend a few minutes on that each day– take up your cross and join us on our pilgrimage up the mountain. Climb the mountain with us, and be transfigured.

And be sure to let me know if you come up with any good puns on the way; I’ll try to use them in my next sermon – but only if I think they’re funny enough to be ‘a-mountain’ to anything…

 

(Again – I’m sorry; I really have stopped now!)

Amen