Mountains Tops

Although they lack the towering, ragged grandeur of the Rockies and the Alps, the mountains of Acadia National Park are impressive and beautiful in a more refined way.

There is something satisfying, even elating, about achieving a mountain top after a strenuous climb. On the heights, one enjoys an otherwise unappreciated perspective of distant mountains, valleys, and wide ocean vistas. From the top, one better understands the landscape.

Mountain top experiences in scripture were often where one attained a more expansive view of God. They were where God revealed Himself and His purposes to humanity.

After surviving the deadly deluge in an ark, Noah landed safely on Mount Ararat where God renewed His promised blessing to humanity. God revealed Himself as a faithful redeemer to Abraham on Mount Mariah. The Moral Law, which shows us the best possible way to live, came to us on Mount Sinai. From Mount Pisgah, Moses saw the promised future of Israel. Mount Carmel was the site where Elijah proved that God is the only True and powerful Sovereign. Mount Zion was the site of the temple and the presence of God.

Christ gave his first recorded and beautifully comprehensive and instructive sermon on the “Mount.” Peter, John and James saw his eternal glory revealed on the Mount of Transfiguration. And in the garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives, Jesus agonized in prayer as he faced not only torture and execution but the crushing penalty of humanity’s sins. There he showed us how to submit to the Father’s will. Tradition speaks of Calvary as being a mountain where God in immeasurable love, mercy, and grace opened Himself in a new way to us as Christ waged a great battle to achieve redemption for all who would accept it.

If we choose to climb these mountains, we will see God afresh, and our lives will be transformed as we ponder the vast landscape of His ongoing, faithful love and redemptive purposes for us.