Transfiguration On The Mountaintop

Mark 9:2-9

Transfiguration on the Mountaintop

Have you ever had a Mountaintop Experience? Sure you have, most everyone at some point in their life has had a Mountaintop experience.

Weddings, children being born, graduations, grandchildren all of these are great experiences that are mountaintops.

We have them in our spiritual lives to sometimes at revivals or spiritual retreats, times when we feel like we are already standing before the throne of God.

In our text today we find Peter James and John high upon a mountain with Jesus and they are truly having a mountaintop experience. Let’s look at our text today and join them for a moment.

(Read Mark 9:2-9)

These three disciples have climbed the Mountain with Jesus and get to see his transformation into his heavenly body and listen in on a conversation Jesus was having with Moses, and Elijah about his coming departure that was about to happen in Jerusalem. (Luke 9:31). This mountaintop experience was a glimpse into the Holy realm of Heaven and the Disciples were awestruck and dumbfounded Mark said they became terrified.

Peter wanted to build a tabernacle or tent for each one of these Holy men; he wanted to memorialize this experience it seems and never leave. Then a cloud comes down and God says listen to my Son, then the experience is over and they must head back down the mountain.

Now I know leaving that place must have been hard but imagine what they thought when Jesus said “ Hey guys, all these things you just saw and that stuff we were talking about, you can’t tell anybody about it until after I’m gone.”

Thankfully when we have a mountaintop experience we can tell the world about it.

So how many of you here have physically been on top of a mountain? Great view to behold isn’t it?

When we are on a mountain we can see for miles, sometimes if your high enough you can even see the clouds below you. I tell you there is nothing like the view from high upon a mountaintop. It makes you want to build a cabin and just stay there forever.

Even in our spiritual lives when we have one of those mountaintop experiences we want to revisit it, every time we have a revival, or attend a spiritual retreat we want to relive that same mountaintop experience. But sadly we can’t.

It’s always different when we go upon the mountaintop, we can have similar experiences, we can witness similar things but each climb allows us to have great mountaintop experiences. No two are exactly alike, maybe similar but never exactly alike.

When you’re on a mountaintop it’s great to look back and see where you have been, it gives great satisfaction to look back and then look out over the horizon and say “I made it” “Thank you Jesus I made it!”

But the Journey doesn’t end on the mountaintop not only can we see where we have been but we also see where we must go.

You see Jesus and His disciples didn’t stay on top of that mountain of glory, Jesus knew he had work today and must go back down in the valley in order to reach the next mountaintop.

You see once we take in the breathtaking view that the mountaintop has to offer we realize that we must continue on to the next Mountain. If we bring our vision in when we are on a mountaintop we realize not much growth takes place. The ground is rocky, the air is cold, oxygen is lower a mountaintop isn’t a place to grow and live, it’s a place to enjoy the view for a moment, it’s a place to realize what we have overcome, it’s a place to find a short rest with God in order to prepare for what awaits us in the next valley as we journey to the next mountaintop.

Our lives are full of Mountaintops, but we can’t get there if we don’t first go through the valley. You see the valleys are the most fertile parts of our journey; the valleys are where we grow and mature in our faith. The valleys of life are what makes us who we are, and allows us to have those great mountaintop experiences.

The birth of our first child is a mountaintop and wouldn’t it be nice if we could live in that euphoric state forever, sure it would but we can’t, babies get you up at 2 in the morning, the need feeding, they need diapers changed and they need to grow so they can have mountaintops and we can share in those mountaintops with them.

A lot of people want to relive their wedding day, they wish their lives could always be just like it was then Love, and affection not a care in the world, but we can’t stay there , bills have to be paid, jobs await, families are born, we must move forward in order to grow and mature and experience other mountaintops.