Sermon: "View from the Mountaintop"
The Right Reverend Charles G. vonRosenberg
Third Bishop of East Tennessee

[This sermon by Bishop vonRosenberg was delivered using the following notes.]

We have all had mountaintop experiences - those times in life that we seem to rise above the ordinary everydayness of it all. Our mountaintop experiences may be literal ones … or they may be figurative mountaintops. At such moments, though, we experience a kind of transformation. We see the world differently - as if from a new perspective - having been to the top of the mountain. And with that vision, we gain a new sense of commitment and of strength. In fact, our new strength enables us to go down from the mountaintop and to face those everyday demands once again. In coming down from the mountaintop, though, we are different. We have been transformed and changed ... changed for the better.

I remember one such experience in particular, although there have been many for me. This experience did actually and literally happen on a mountaintop ... a mountaintop in Haiti.

I served as a chaplain on a worktrip to Haiti in 1985, when I was a priest in another diocese. I did so again several years later, but that earlier trip involved the particular experience that I want to mention here. In fact, the entire trip was a mountaintop experience, but one event especially stands out for me. It involved a service of Holy Eucharist in the village of Chapoteau.

To reach this remote village, our group had to cross a large water reservoir in primitive dugout canoes. And then, we climbed a mountain on the other side, following a path upwards. After a long hike and at a bend in the path, we encountered a building of sorts. It had no walls, and the thatched roof was supported by crudely-fashioned poles. Underneath and all around were about two hundred children, attending the only school they knew. After a short while, that school was transformed into a church, and the service began.

I heard some of the loveliest singing I ever hope to hear. I saw some of the most eager faces in church that I ever hope to see. And I knew the power of the presence of God in people's lives in a new way for me.

And then, without warning, I was asked to preach the sermon. I did so by phrases, pausing after each one for the Creole translation. And I tried to concentrate my remarks on the Gospel lesson, which - as best I could tell - had spoken of the scribes and Pharisees who enjoyed special places of honor and positions of importance. I talked of oneness in Jesus Christ and of the only honor and importance that truly matters - brotherhood with Jesus and membership in the family of God the Father.

When I had the privilege of administering communion to those people gathered, I knew in a special way that what I had said was true. The greatest honor and importance in this world is to know Jesus Christ as our brother and, through him, to recognize our unity with all people.

That was one of my experiences at a mountaintop ... a mountaintop that lifted me up beyond my ordinary experiences ... a mountaintop that changed my view of life, and indeed, it changed my life itself.

The mountaintop experience is a biblical concept. In fact, we read about such occurrences over and over again in the Bible. Included in biblical mountaintop experiences are several characteristics: first, the individual rose above ordinary life events; secondly, the person somehow was changed; and thirdly and most importantly, in the mountaintop experience God Himself was encountered.

Such was the case when Moses encountered God on Mt. Sinai, as we heard in the First Reading this morning. That mountaintop encounter with God produced the laws by which the people were instructed to live - the Ten Commandments. Such also was the case later on, when Elijah stood on Mt. Horeb. On that occasion, remember that the Lord was not known in the great wind, nor in the earthquake, nor in the fire. Rather, the Lord became known in the "still small voice" heard on that mountaintop.

These and other great biblical events have happened on mountaintops. Mountains symbolize the encounter between God and human beings ... a kind of figurative, half-way point, if you will, between earth and heaven. Mountain locations produce meaningful and profound insight. On mountains, in biblical times and since, people have learned of God and of the eternal aspects of living, and they have gained important personal insight as well. Therefore, again, mountaintop experiences - wherever they occur - are those times of special perspective and vision, from which the rest of life makes more sense.

This pattern reoccurred when Jesus and the apostles climbed the Mount of the Transfiguration - the mountaintop experience we read about in today's Gospel. This encounter involved God Himself. And it was a mysterious and awesome one, as we might expect. In fact, the apostles present did not understand what they were seeing at the time. It even took a voice from the clouds to correct Peter's mistaken impression.

To put this event in some kind of familiar terms, the Transfiguration was also something like an episode of the old TV show, "Quantum Leap." Some of us here may remember that in the show the hero was transported through time, to live temporarily in another time. Now, in a sense, the Transfiguration was like that. Who the apostles saw on that mountaintop was indeed Jesus - but Jesus in a different time. Before them suddenly stood the resurrected and glorified Christ, the transfigured Christ. Yet, at the chronological point of this encounter, Jesus had not yet been crucified. A "quantum leap" through time had been accomplished.

Therefore, we may think of the Transfiguration as a window in time. The apostles had an encounter on the mountaintop with God in Christ - the glorified Christ - before the time of his crucifixion and death.

And there was good reason for this mountaintop experience. The episode intends to convey a message of comfort and of encouragement. After all, the apostles were soon to face disillusionment, discouragement, profound fear, and abandonment. Having followed Jesus for several years, they were soon to be left by him at the time of his crucifixion.

Thus, those apostles desperately needed comfort and encouragement. And the Transfiguration intended to show them that Christ eventually would indeed be glorified, regardless of what else might happen first. In the end, Christ would appear in glory, as he did on that mountaintop. That is the encouraging message conveyed by the Transfiguration experience.

Our own faith may be somewhat like that of the apostles on the mountaintop. We know something of the resurrected Christ. Indeed, our Easter faith points to the resurrection as central to our hope. Yet, we too may have questions and a sense of uncertainty about the extent of what the resurrection of Christ may mean to us. But that is all right. We cannot have all the answers about eternity at this time. You see, we, too, have been to the mountaintop. We, too, know that in some mysterious way, Christ himself - the living, resurrected Christ - provides us with reason for hope and for faith, in this life and in the life to come.

And so today, thanks be to God for this mountaintop experience - the Transfiguration - which we share through faith. And thanks be to God also for our other mountaintop experiences, both past and future. May they provide occasions which lift us higher than ever before on life's journey. May they be times in which we ourselves are transformed, and because of them, may we see the world differently, as with a new vision. And, finally, may we recognize and know in those experiences that we have encountered God Himself ... the God who was in Christ and who was himself transformed and transfigured on the mountaintop. Amen.

Copyright © 2008 The Episcopal Diocese of East Tennessee