Why did Jesus go out on a mountain?

Isaiah 40.21-31, Mark 1.29-39

And down, a long way down, below the frost
must be soft embers sending up the light
from fires the night-fog has muffled but not kill

 The response to the question “Why do you climb a mountain?” is often “Because it’s there!” What does that really mean? As a youth, I climbed the hillsides in the Scottish Highlands; yes, because they were there, but when I reached a summit, I breathlessly paused and looked around. The landscape set before me always elicited wonder, awe, peace, silence, a sense of the infinite depth of creation, and a desire to stay there for the rest of my life. It seemed as if there was some indefinable presence, powerful, benign, beckoning.

I must offset that with the fact that I have also, to borrow Richard Holloway’s words, stood on the edge of the abyss at 2 o’clock in the morning drinking a cup of hot strong coffee.

The spectrum of human experience is vast, and impossible to convey in a few words.

Why did Jesus go out on a mountain? To pray says Mark’s gospel. But there must be more to it than that. I say that because I cannot define prayer in so many words any more than you can. Holy things cannot be pinned down to simple statements. Myths, legends and faerie stories, all of which are laden with metaphor, are better vehicles for such things.

Metaphors shape the mind

A growing body of literature suggests that metaphors shape the mind, structure our experiences, and influence behaviour. Metaphors are the language of mythology. The canon of our scripture is constructed as myth, rich in metaphor, poetry and story. It is our mythology and it is the primary source of our theology. Without that acknowledgement, we are likely to miss the light of Epiphany, what Rowan Williams called the “secret fire at the heart of earthly reality”.

 However, it seems to me that we can broaden our understanding of sacred literature to include the writings of people like J.R.R. Tolkien, whose Lord of the Rings is as profoundly theological as anything I know. Fr. Guglielmo Spirito OFM of the Theological Institute of Assisi remarked that

In the life of any individual, a book that is reread several times is one that both establishes itself as an intimate and familiar conversational partner, but which at every reading also conceals and reveals different things, opens different doors.

As one may ask of scripture, one may ask of Tolkien, “What is the underlying reality or truth that these would have us see?” Listen to this.

They stood on a wet floor of polished stone, the doorstep as it were, of a rough-hewn gate of rock opening dark behind them. But in front a thin veil of water was hung, so near that Frodo could have put an outstretched arm into it. It faced westward. The level shafts of the setting sun behind beat upon it, and the red light was broken into many flickering beams of ever-changing colour. It was as if they stood at the window of some elven-tower, curtained with threaded jewels of silver and gold, and ruby, sapphire and amethyst, all kindled with an unconsuming fire.  

This was the ‘Window of the Sunset‘, fairest of all the waterfalls of Ithilien, the land of many fountains, the inspiration for Williams’ secret fire, the light kindled at the very foundations of creation. 

Tolkien, said Fr Guglielmo was an artist who created a world that has “the inner consistency of reality …” But he was also a devout Catholic, and his Christianity gave him the joy and vision that characterises his work.

 With the foregoing in mind, let us revisit the prophet Isaiah.

The period within which today’s reading was composed began with the defeat of Judah by the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar in 587 BC. Jerusalem was utterly destroyed and the kingdom of Judah reduced to a Babylonian province. Several thousand inhabitants, the cream of society, were exiled to Babylon, there to be added to another exiled group that had been taken there ten years earlier. Most of the fortified cities of Judah were left in ruins. Some cities were abandoned for generations after this war, and a few permanently.

Fifty years later, after Babylon was, in turn, defeated by the Persian King Cyrus, the exiles were allowed to return to Judah, there to rebuild both the city of Jerusalem and the great temple.

Now, in the minds of the exiles, the power of their captors demonstrated the power of their captors’ Gods. So, it was inevitable that the exiles absorbed some of the religious leanings of their captors.

Isaiah was not pleased about this, and we find the prophet appealing against this assumed power on two fronts. Firstly, referring to the great public processions in which effigies of the Babylonian Gods were carried with great ceremony, Isaiah pours scorn upon these obviously human creations.

 To whom then will you liken God,
or what likeness compare with him?

An idol? - A workman casts it,
 and a goldsmith overlays it with gold,
and casts for it silver chains.

 Then comes the opening verse of today’s reading in which an incredulous prophet chastises the people.

 Have you not known? Have you not heard?
Has it not be told you from the beginning?
Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?

It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,
and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;

The prophet explains that the one true God is the creator of the universe, of the waters, the heavens, the earth, the air; not some tin pot little statuette of an idol sitting on the mantelpiece. Speaking with the authority of the one true God, Isaiah declaims,

To whom will you compare me,
or who is my equal? Says the Holy One.

So, the exiles, now restored to Jerusalem are presented with a striking article of faith that still stands. In the contemplation of creation and our place in it, the vastness and the power of our God are perceived, if but dimly comprehended. We can note that in this literature, the idea of a creator God appears for the very first time in the history of the Hebrew nation.

I wonder, then, if a few modern-day prophets are pointing to that same article of faith, which has been somewhat distorted over the centuries. Although we have always had appeals to creation, they have been appeals that assume that we humans have a mandate to subdue, dominate, and exploit the natural world. That has led in short order to ecocide.

 A very careful reading of the first few chapters of Genesis informs us that the call is to cooperate with creation as stewards of a sacred trust. That is what the Australian Earth Laws Alliance (AELA) is on about; developing earth centred laws that respect the rights of nature, challenging the idea that that nature is ‘property’.