Mountaintop Intimacy

Had to walk the rocks to see the mountain view
Lookin’ back, I see the lead of love.
-Caedmon’s Call

I can’t tell you why, but I have always been bothered by the phrase “mountaintop experience” when referring to an intimate time of communion with the Lord. It always feels so… isolated, so estranged from everyday reality, as if you have to somehow climb a mountain in order to be with God or experience His presence. It makes me think of the Johnny Hart’s B.C. comic strip, in which the main character ascends a large mountain and arrives at the top breathless. Waiting for him is a man of wisdom who gives him some sage advice to take back down the mountain with him, which he will use when he enters back into his “real life.”

The phrase comes, I suppose, from Moses’ experience with God on the mountain face of the Sinai, where He gave to him the commandments. It was a wild experience for Moses, where the Mount was covered with smoke “and the Lord descended on it in fire” (Exodus 19:18). But it was isolated. It was a once-in-a-lifetime gig. And, although Moses and the Lord would speak face-to-face “as a man speaks with his friend” (Exodus 33:11), it was not constant. Moses, in fact, had to ascend the mountain several times in order to meet with God, and there the Lord would command him what to say to the Israelites, even at one point commanding that Moses bring Aaron back up with him on his next trip up the mountain (Exodus 19:24).

This is what bothers me most about using the phrase to refer to an intimate time with God. It’s used often when speaking about a seminar or a church service or a time of worship. Coming back from a Christian conference, a friend of mine commented that he will now have to “come down off the mountain.” A popular contemporary Christian music group sings, “When I climb down the mountain and get back to my life,” signifying the intimate time with the Lord as something that is sought or experienced apart from everyday life.

Back on March 30th, 2004, I wrote this in my journal: [A friend] told me how he saw me as someone who always sought the mountaintop and didn't live well in reality. I take that seriously, Lord God - because if anything, I want to live in Reality, in light of the Really Real, in the Kingdom of the Real, not in the illusions. Ever since our conversation I've been asking you what validity, if any, there was to such an observation...

Yesterday, two-and-a-half years later, the Lord God answered me.

Three things are going on at the same time. First, I'm facilitating a study this week that prompted me to go back through and explore my journals, where I found this entry from March 2004 and remembered the conversation and question I brought to God. Second, I've been in recent "conversations" again with this same friend. I use the term conversations loosely, since they are riddled with accusation and fear and belligerence. But I want him. I want his heart. I want to hold him to the truth in love. And the third thing that happened yesterday is that I read one of Kendall's blog posts called "CloSe, Hard." In it, he essentially says that with the arrival of Jesus on the scene, the kind of life we get to live, the kind of life we have permission now to live, is , in effect, a constant "mountaintop experience" (meaning up close, intimate, personal) with God. This concerns Jesus’ words to the crowd in John 6, when he tells them that his flesh is the bread, and that “if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.” Here, here’s what Kendall wrote:

What if what is so "hard" about the teaching isn't about eating flesh or drinking blood? What if what is so "hard" is that Jesus is saying, "Yeah, that time in the wilderness with the manna and the quail? The whole Pillar of Fire and Column of Smoke being so uncomfortably close to you? The reality of God asking you to trust against all odds, even when the necessities in life run dry? Well, you ain't seen nuthin yet." What if Jesus was saying something like, "I want to be closer to you than I even was back then?"

Kendall continues,

Again, I am reminded that the Israelites seemed to asks for less and less direct interaction with God as time went by. It started mano-y-mano. It eventually became an isolated room in a temple that only a few guys could talk to, with a rope around their waste. Then there was a "silence."

Then, he concludes,

So, Jesus shows up and does some pretty cool things with fish and bread to get their attention. Then he lays it on them that the kind of life God wants is one that is up-close again, only not isolated to a wilderness experience; he wants it in the everyday. He says, "if you eat…I will come and make my home in you." Not just pitch a tent near by, but actually move in.

Through Kendall, God has spoken directly and in no uncertain words to my delimma. In fact, Jesus already addressed it with his invitation in John 6 to "eat and drink." Continuing from the March 30th '04 journal entry,

Why shouldn't I want the mountaintop?? Why shouldn't I want to behold the glory and splendor of my God?? If I am accused of wanting the mountaintop view, perhaps I am really being accused of having too much desire... an accusation I take delightfully. Open me up, though, Jesus, to more desire!

Amen. More desire, Jesus. This is your invitation and your desire. You have come to make your home in me now and forever. The glory of God has come. We no longer need the mountain. We need You. I eat. I drink. Make your home in me.