Ain’t No Mountain High Enough

Isaiah 2: 1 – 5
12/2/2007

Summary

              Like Judah and Jerusalem, we are aware that God has called us to be his people. Still, we lose our footing ― we choose to stay at the bottom of the mountain instead of climbing to the top. Jesus comes to us, showing us the way. He provides us with instruction and teaching on how to climb to the top of the mountain with God.

Ain’t No Mountain High Enough

            It has been quite a year in our nation’s capital. The November 2006 elections sent several congressmen and senators packing while affording numerous newcomers the opportunity to move inside the Washington beltway. The control of power in Congress switched for the first time since 1994, elevating the Democrats to the majority while bringing Republicans into the minority. And the change of control has brought about an intense struggle for power between those who work on Capitol Hill and those who work at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The debate has covered issues from immigration reform to the war in Iraq to the minimum wage. And the debate often demonstrates who is in control ― who gets to ascend to the top of the mountain.

            It is good to be on top.

            We live in a nation that is used to being on top. We like having control. Individually we love being top dog, too. We love it when it seems that God is leading us into triumphant victory.

            And yet, like every other man-made kingdom or gathered group of people, we often have erred and fallen from God’s ways. We have focused too much on achieving the top of the mountain, forgetting the ways of the one who dwells there ― forgetting what it really looks like to climb to the top of the mountain with the Lord.

A new beginning

            In our reading, Isaiah comes to Judah and Jerusalem when they are in a sorry state. The Lord has provided for his people but those in Judah and Jerusalem have chosen to rebel against him. They have chosen to follow their own ways, to delight in their own wills. They no longer listen for God. They do evil. They deal corruptly. They forsake the Lord. They despise the Holy One. They are estranged. One need only venture four verses into the book of Isaiah to learn of the people’s condition: “Ah, sinful nation, people laden with iniquity.” The people of Judah and Jerusalem need to be refocused. They need to return to the Lord, and Isaiah has a solemn, straightforward message for them: Change your ways.

            In fact, says Isaiah, the Lord is about to do a new thing. The Lord is about to cleanse the people, to make them clean again. It is not the kind of cleansing that a mother provides for her baby when she takes a damp cloth and gently wipes the corners of her child’s milk-covered mouth. It is not the kind of cleansing that a son provides for his elderly father who is confined to his wheelchair and in need of a bath. It is not the kind of cleansing that the people have heard about when God gathered animals and birds of every kind, along with a man named Noah, saving one family while wiping away everything else ― cleansing the entire land. This cleansing is of a different sort. This cleansing applies to all people. This cleansing is about providing a new way ― a clean start, a fresh beginning ― for everyone.

Ascending to a higher place

            Isaiah tells the people of their condition and then tells them of the mountain of the Lord’s house. He says, in effect, “But let’s go to a higher place. Not the mountain of political power, but an entirely new mountain where we can be taught and receive instruction about how to live and how to act.”

            You and I do not have to ascend to the top on our own to encounter the one in whose ways we walk. The Incarnation means that the one whose mountain is higher than any other mountain came down to the bottom ― to us ― before ascending to the top. The Word became flesh and lived among us! He was born in the most humble of ways, in a borrowed manger in Bethlehem. He grew up a carpenter. He spent time with people in the pit ― people in a tangled web of sin and seduction. He ventured to the homes of individuals who were despised by everyone else. He touched the untouchable. He showed us time and again how there was no place where he would not go.

            Remember Marvin Gaye’s hit song, “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”? It could be the theme song for Jesus as certainly there was no mountain high enough, no valley low enough, no river wide enough for Jesus not to go. He went to the people perceived to be at the top and to the people perceived to be at the bottom. And, all the time he was here, he worked to bring us higher, closer to God. He turned the ways of the world upside down, showing us a better way ― a way in which those who are last become first. He preached good news to the poor, recovery of sight to the blind and release to the captives. He descended to earth so that we might ascend to the mountain ― to the highest of mountains.

            In May of this year, an 18-year-old woman from California, Samantha Larson, became the youngest woman to climb the highest mountains on each of the seven continents. Her last summit was Mount Everest, a mountain she climbed with her 51-year-old father.

            When Samantha was preparing to climb a 16,800-foot-high mountain in Antarctica last winter, she was asked why she wanted to climb all of these mountains, encountering dangerous conditions and paying in extreme physical exertion. Samantha responded, “You kind of exceed your expectations about what is possible for you.” The climbing enables Samantha to exceed her own expectations ― her own thoughts or understanding ― of what she can and cannot do.

            The same is true with God. The ways of the Lord are not always easy. The calling God has placed on each of our lives seems impossible to respond to at times. The expectations of the Lord to do justice or to love mercy or to walk humbly with our God can be difficult to do in this world in which we live. And still, God enables us to go up to the mountain of the Lord. God comes and provides us with the instruction, the mercy and the grace we need, affording us a second chance when we have lost our footing, strayed from the center, found ourselves parched without anything to drink and in need of a new start.

Created to fly high

            A wise preacher from South Africa once asked a group of college students, “Have you ever noticed how hawks are intended for the sky? Hawks are created to fly high in the sky, ascending to the top of the earth, rising above all of creation.” The preacher then asked, “Why, then, does a hawk find itself fascinated by the cobra that dwells on the ground? How is it that something that is designed to fly can become so captivated by a creature destined to the ground ― a creature that often strikes at the hawk, killing or wounding the hawk, when the hawk can fly high above it?”

            The same is true with us. Adam and Eve were created to fly ― to ascend to the top of the mountain of the Lord. They were created to enjoy life ― to fly high above the ground. Their attention was captured by a snake, however ― by a creature that is destined for the ground. And, just as snakes can strike at hawks, preventing them from ever flying again, the snake changed the lives of Adam, Eve and all of humanity forever. We, too, become captivated by the things in the valley ― by the things on the ground ― instead of flying to the top.

            Still, God did not leave us alone. God did not reduce us to the valley or to the depths of the earth. Rather, God provided a better way. God sent his only begotten Son into the world. Christ lived amongst us. Christ gave his life for us. Christ died but rose again and then ascended to heaven. And he will come again. He will judge us and arbitrate for us ― not with swords and spears but with grace and peace.

            In the next four weeks, we will hear about Jesus’ coming into the world. We will be reminded again of how he came into the world as a babe in Bethlehem. We will also hear how he is coming into this world again ― how he is returning to the world a second time to judge the nations and arbitrate on our behalf. And on this first Sunday of Advent we are called to wait and to watch ― to prepare ourselves for his coming by walking in the ways of the Lord, living a holy, righteous life.

            Democrats and Republicans will continue to ascend and descend the peaks of power, depending upon the results of elections every two or four years. People of all ages will continue to ascend to and descend from the peaks of the tallest mountains in the world. And while we may never ascend to power or climb to the top of any physical mountain, we are all on a journey to the top. We are all on a journey of going to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of Jacob, learning to delight in his ways and walk in his paths.

            Let us leave the things of the ground and follow Jesus upward.