“Jesus went up to the mountain to pray . . . and as he was praying his appearance was transformed.” Luke 9:28

“In the blinding moment of salvific truth, it was real knowledge, calling for personal engagement of my mind and heart.  Christianity was no longer a moral code, but a love affair.”  Brennan Manning

Have you ever had a mountaintop experience?  Not the kind where you take a vacation or go hiking in the Sierra Nevada’s, Appalachians, or Rocky’s, though those are really fantastic!  No, I mean the kind where you experience Something that goes beyond beauty, awe or majesty, and you have a personal encounter with God; the kind where you lose track of time, and yourself.  The kind where you recognize how small you are, and how big God is, and even more how big God’s love is for you, and for all creation.  The kind that changes not only on how you see yourself, but how you see God, and life itself.  The kind where forever after you’re never the same/

That kind of mountaintop experience can be experienced in the mountains, and sometimes is.  It happens a lot in the bible.  Abraham goes up to Mount Moriah to sacrifice Isaac, and there encounters the God who desires mercy, not sacrifice.  Moses goes up to Mount Sinai and there meets with God face-to-face and comes down with his face shining.  Elijah goes to Mount Horeb, after giving up on life, and there hears God in a very quiet whisper.  All of these had a personal encounter with God, and their lives were transformed.

And of course, there is Jesus, who we find repeatedly going up mountains.  After his baptism he goes to the “Mountain of Temptation” where he stays for forty days being tempted by the devil.  Before he preaches the Sermon on the Mount, he spends all night on that mountain praying.  In the above passage he is on the Mount of Transfiguration, having taken three of his disciples to do a divine meet and greet with Moses and Elijah, and to see him in all his majestic glory.  Jesus goes to the Mount of Olives to pray prior to his death, and finally to Mount Calvary where he is crucified.

Mountaintop experiences abound in the bible, taking place at different times and places to very different people.  But they have this in common:  They are prompted by the desire to be in the presence of God, they often take place in the context of prayer, and they result in a mystical encounter with God that goes beyond words, let alone imagination.

This may surprise you, but prayer is not a means by which to bombard God with requests as though God were a cosmic fairy godmother who grants wishes.  In fact I would suggest that it is not a time to speak at all, but to BE; to BE still, to BE silent, to BE receptive not only to what God is saying, but what God is doing.  And to BE open to be welcomed into the very Presence of God.

That Presence can be glorifying, as it was for Moses and Jesus—the disciples saw Jesus appearing in dazzling white clothes with his face brilliantly shining—but the Presence of God can also be much more subtle, as it was for Elijah, where God was not experienced in lightning and thunder and earthquake, but in a very small and quite voice that spoke words of encouragement.

The Presence of God can be experienced on a literal mountaintop, but there can also be mountaintop experiences that happen in everyday places with common occurrences and people.  That is the kind that Manning describes in his book “The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus” (I encourage you to read the book), where he experiences the Presence of Jesus as he’s packed his bags and is preparing to leave the seminary and give up on his vocation to be a priest.  He decides to offer one last prayer, and as he falls to his knees in front of the last station of the cross, he is swept up in a tide of personally divine love unlike anything he had ever experienced before. 

That is it, isn’t it?  Divine Love.  The Universal yet oh so personal love of God poured out and through the life of Christ that assures us that this “God stuff” is more than an idea, a concept, a cause, a guide for daily living, but instead is that which comprises the very marrow of our existence, giving us not only meaning and purpose, but so much more, because it is a deeply divine love meant just for us.

So, what is your mountaintop experience?  Have you had one?  If not, perhaps it is time to take that journey, to intentionally to put yourself in a place and a position where God just might make a majestic, mystical, and magnificent appearance and change your life in the process.  You’ll never be the same.  And if you have, well, your life has already been changed—and you know what I’m writing about.