Life is easy, when you’re up on the mountain
And you’ve got peace of mind, like you’ve never known
But things change, when you’re down in the valley
Don’t lose faith, for you’re never alone
For the God on the mountain, is still God in the valley
When things go wrong, He’ll make them right
And the God of the good times, is still God in the bad times
The God of the day is still God in the night
This song by Tracy Dartt was the center of a mission preached in our Lexington cathedral during the height of the last round of release of information about clergy sexual abuse violations. The song and the message it gives have stayed with me. They come to mind as I pray and study this Sunday’s readings. There is always the deep and beautiful; there is always the difficult and troubled.
The story of Abram from Genesis describes Abram’s initial mountaintop experience with God. The Gospel speaks of Jesus’ mountaintop experience of the Transfiguration. The brief selection from 2 Timothy ties them together with each other and with our spiritual tasks, now that we are seriously into Lent.
Genesis 12:1-4a
The story of Abram and Sarai begins in Genesis 11. It goes all the way to Genesis 25. Abram’s father Terah was from Haran (Northern Mesopotamia), but he had been living in Ur (Southern Mesopotamia. ) He has Canaan as his goal, but he gets as far as back in Haran. He stops there and dies.
As the saga of Abram begins today, Abram is having a mountaintop experience. He and God are talking. God tells Abram to leave Haran and go “to a place I will show you.” God then promises to make of Abram a great nation. So Abram leaves all he has known and begins to migrate westward.
It is interesting to me that before God spoke to Abram or sent him on his mission, God put his family in Ur. Ur was a highly developed ancient civilization. One characteristic of its faith life was that people talked naturally and intimately with the gods.
And so, from that experience, God prepared Abram in this initial recorded mountaintop experience, and for the many mountaintop, transformative experiences that were to come.
For the purposes of our reflections today, it is important to consider that Abram was 75 years old when God made today’s promises; God did not begin to fulfill them until Abram was 100 years old. In between were many dark valleys.
Matthew 17:1-9
We get the story of Jesus’ transfiguration twice a year in the Sunday liturgies: the second Sunday of Lent and a Sunday in early August. Why do we get it twice? The August Gospel comes at the time in Jesus’ last year of ministry when the transfiguration experience divided his life. Once Jesus came down the mountain after the transfiguration his eyes were set clearly on Jerusalem and the crucifixion that awaited him there. Each of the four Gospels tell the story of the transfiguration; in each of them the transfiguration marks a noticeable difference in how Jesus speaks, interacts with the people he meets, and how he thinks about his life. It is a pivotal event in the chronology of the salvation story.
This week I have been wondering why it is here on this second Sunday of Lent. I think it might be to give us a message about God on the mountain and God in the valley.
Lent is set up to encourage us to seek mountain top experiences: a retreat, a mission, a study, more intense prayer. This is the season to seek God. The daily Bible readings these initial weeks of Lent push us to examine ourselves. The various characters and scenes confront us with a multitude of ways that people can struggle with God, turn from God, and turn back to God. There are the practices of fasting, prayer, and alms that put us in a mindset to be open to these words in scripture God is speaking. If we attend—we are very, very likely to find words God wants us to hear from him.
It is the character of God to want to draw us closer to him.
And so, maybe this week or next or the one after, each of us will spend some time on the mountain. It is good, very, very good to be on the mountain with God.
AND Christian life is such that after a mountaintop experience, a rough, tough experience in a valley follows. Is God testing? Are we resisting? Is it just life? I don’t know. But the valley comes.
Or maybe this Lent you are ONLY in the valley. No mountaintop for you—yet. In that case it is good for you to remember that mountaintop experiences do exist….Perhaps that is how God helps you yearn for the one he will send…eventually.
2 Timothy 1:8b-10
For those in the valley today, Paul speaks, “Bear your share of hardship for he gospel with the strength that comes from God.” When we are in the valley, our works often seem dry and without effect. We grow discouraged. And so it is good for us to remember that our hope lies in Christ Jesus, “who destroyed death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.”
It is good to remember this, too, if today we are on the mountain. The valleys come.
Applications
Every time we have a mountaintop experience with God, be it deeper prayer than usual at mass or in the shower, a retreat, a confession—whatever, we are changed; we grow closer to God. Real experiences of God transform us: they make us different. Maybe different by a hair or maybe different by a radical conversion of life. But different.
As this second week of Lent begins, where is God seeking to meet you? As you enter a great unknown like Abram and Sarai? In a beautiful vision as he did Jesus, Peter, James, and John? With a quiet word of consolation and hope as he did Paul and Timothy? Or…..?
Prayer
The prayer that comes to mind is a song made popular many years ago by Mario Lanza:
I’ll walk with God
From this day on
His helping hand I’ll lean upon
This is my prayer my humble plea
May the Lord be ever with me
There is no death though eyes grow dim
There is no fear when I’m near to him
I’ll lean on him forever
And he’ll forsake me never
He will not fail me as long as my faith is strong
What ever road I may walk along
I’ll walk with God
I’ll take his hand
I’ll talk with God he’ll understand
I’ll pray to him
Each day to him
And he’ll hear the words that I say
His hand will guide my throne and rod
And I’ll never walk alone
While I walk with God
Music by Paul Francis Webster, Nikolaus Brodszky. From “The Student Prince
Note: A new study group will meet for the first time this Sunday, March 5 at 1 pm Eastern US time. Study this time will be of Dei Verbum, the Vatican II constitution on the meaning of Divine Revelation. If you would like to join and did not attend the last study of Lumen Gentium, send an email to mary@skillswork.org and I will send you the link.
