Going up hill takes some work.
Whether it is a train going up the Saluda Grade, or an 18 wheeler going up hwy 25, or a bicycle going up through the Greenville Reservoir, or a person on foot climbing the Jocassee gorge, going up hill takes work.
Pushing it down into low gear, the engine roars as slowly the hill is climbed, sweat dripping, heart pounding, lungs bursting, climbing to the top of the mountain is an achievement.
But it is coming back down the mountain that gets us in trouble, the brakes over heat and give out, we go too fast to handle the curves. It is going down hill that makes the muscles soar and the joints ache, as we hold back from running down hill, trying not to slip and fall.
Going up the mountain is an achievement, but coming down the mountain is a hazard.
Coming down from a mountain top experience is hard.
Walking away from the glory of a holy experience, as the light grows more and more distant we descend into the shadows and contrasts of the everyday world, where it is so easy to forget that there is more to life than we know.
I have always loved the thick glory and mystery of the story of the Transfiguration of Christ. Moses and Elijah appear out of no where, the clouds appear, the voice speaks, Jesus appearance becomes dazzling, Peter and James and John, cower in fear, Peter blithers in astonished stupidity.
It is definitely not just another day.
It was a gift to all involved, an encouragement, an extra charge in preparation for the devastation of the cross.
The gift of glory, of awe and wonder and hope, and bedazzled foolishness.
A fleeting glimpse, a passing moment that can not be clung to or recreated or found again, just the gift and then it is over and then back down the mountain where the memory becomes more and more the stuff of dreams, forgotten upon waking to the daily grind of life, of busyness, of grief and disappointment, of that forgetful hurried way that we go about living and dying.
I have always loved the wonder of this story.
But it is the coming down the mountain that occupies me more and more.
How do we live the life of God’s glory in the everyday world?
How do we live with the knowledge of the Cross and Resurrection of Christ?
How do we carry that knowledge in the world as more than a fleeting dream that is drowned out in the pain and loneliness of this life?
How does the Transfiguration give us the courage to live, and to share that gift of life together? How do we become agents of that life and light to those in darkness and death?
It is coming down the mountain that carries the hazards, the hazards of a soul forgetting how to live, the hazards of a life that is just lived without any reason to look beyond our own stuff.
It is easy to just forget to live, but there are those who remember and they remind the rest of us. Those who eyes look up and they see the whole world, who see those around them and are at awe at the rare and unique beauty of nothing and nobody special.
Those are the ones who have come down the mountain and received another gift after the gift of the transfiguration, the gift of the whole world. These are the ones who remind us, who awaken the rest of us, to live and love and worship because to do less would be a damn shame.
The gift of the glory of the transfigured Christ is a gift of awe and fear, but it is also the gift that cracks open the whole world to the blazing love of God that shines through all things.
We come down the mountain this week to the season of Lent, the season of the journey, where we leave behind slavery to sin and take up the life of freedom, that ongoing exodus.
We will begin in ashes and we will end in death being annihilated, the gates of hell burst asunder and the captives set free.
Lots of big stories, and big ideas, and deep images, but it all comes down to how do we live with this knowledge, how do we come down the mountain and not forget, how do we receive the gift and become the gift?
I love glory.
But my attention keeps getting drawn to the ordinary dust and dirt of life.
Somehow they are not so different.