Remember the Mountain

Have you ever noticed how different Sunday feels?

The alarm isn’t as abrupt. The coffee goes down slower and tastes better. There is time—at least for a few hours—to breathe.

We gather. We sing. We pray. We remember who we are. For a little while, the noise of the week quiets down.

And then the benediction comes, and it is onward to Monday. Before we even reach the parking lot, we check our phones. Monday is waiting—deadlines, appointments, difficult conversations, a diagnosis, a decision. The ordinary rushes back in, and what felt luminous only moments before begins to dim.

Wouldn’t it be nice if every day felt like Sunday? Of course, it doesn’t. And it never has.

Peter knew something about that. He once had a moment he wished would never end.

On the mountain of Transfiguration, the veil was lifted. Jesus shone with a glory that left the disciples speechless. Moses and Elijah stood beside him. A cloud overshadowed them, and a voice declared, “This is my Son, the Beloved… listen to him.”

And then it was over.

No instructions.
No explanations.
Just a command to listen.

The disciples fell facedown, terrified. Real glory does that. The presence of God exposes what is unfinished in us—what is small, what must be surrendered. But Jesus touched them and said, “Get up. Do not be afraid.”

Then he led them back down the mountain.

At the bottom, there was no applause. There was chaos. A desperate father. A suffering child. Disciples who had tried and failed. Arguments already underway.

The mountain did not prevent weakness. It did not make them spiritually invincible. It gave them something else.

Memory.

The light they had seen would soon dissolve into confusion and darkness. They would have to trust what they could no longer see.

Peter later wrote that he did not follow cleverly devised myths. He had been an eyewitness of Christ’s majesty. What sustained him was not the spectacle itself, but the word God had spoken—a light shining in a dark place.

The mountain was not given so they could stay there. It was given so they could remember.

That is often how faith works.

We gather on Sundays. We pray. We sing. We glimpse something steady and holy. But the purpose is not to remain in sanctuary light. It is to carry what we have received into the valleys that await us.

The light we see becomes the light we live by.

There is, however, something important to say.

You cannot remember the mountain if you have never been there.

At some point, each of us must face what Peter faced: the unsettling recognition of who Christ truly is—and who we are not. That recognition happens most clearly at another mountain—Mount Calvary—where Jesus gave his life for us.

There we acknowledge our need.
There we receive forgiveness.
There we entrust our lives to him.

The first step up either mountain is not strength. It is honesty—honesty about our limits, our sin, our hunger for something beyond ourselves.

And the grace of the gospel is this:
The One who shines with God’s glory is the same One who reaches out and says, “Do not be afraid.”

We will go back down the mountain. We always do.

But we do not go alone.

 Where have you glimpsed God’s presence in a way you still remember?

• What valley are you walking into right now?

• What would it look like to trust what you have seen, even when you cannot see clearly?

Dr. Ronald S. Cava, Senior Minister

If this reflection resonates with you, or if you would welcome a pastoral conversation, I would be glad to hear from you. Please do not hesitate to reach out.