Three Men on a Mountain
As if the transfiguration of our Lord’s glorious Body were not enough, the miraculous appearance of two of the greatest characters from the Old Testament, Moses and Elias, must surely have astounded even further the three disciples who witnessed the scene. As Saints Peter, James and John stood in awe before this tableau, Peter was the only one who managed to blurt out a reaction: “Lord, it is good for us to be here: if thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles, one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias.” It was a response truly worthy of St. Peter, always anxious to please, but not always understanding the full significance of what he was seeing. Filled with wonder at the sight of the great patriarch Moses, and the greatest of the prophets, Elias, appearing in the sight of his transfigured Lord, he is slow to grasp that they are there not as equals, but to give honor to the Messiah, the Son of God, whose laws Moses had given to the people, and whom Elias had foretold.
Moses and Elias. The Law and the Prophets. Each man was brought back from the dead to represent these two pillars of Jewish faith, the Law of Moses, and the prophecies of a Messiah to come. They stand now as two pillars again, one on each side of this Messiah transfigured in glory. Why are they there? To show us that by themselves they are nothing. What is the Law of God without God? And why should we trust and hope in the Lord, unless the foretelling of his coming by his prophets actually comes to pass? Our blessed Saviour is the only one to be transfigured, because he is the reason for the other two. What St. Peter should have said was something similar to the words of the Gloria in Excelsis from the Mass, “For thou only art holy, thou only art the Lord. Thou only, O Jesu Christ, art most high.”
The greatest of the three cardinal virtues, according to St. Paul, is love: “And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three,” he says; “but the greatest of these is charity.” Which of these three men on the mountain most closely symbolizes charity, or love? God is love, and only one of these three men is the Son of God, the same Son of God who has commanded us to love him: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God and thy neighbour as thyself,” proclaimed our Lord himself, “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” And as the law and the prophets hang together on this great commandment of love, so now do Moses and Elias hang on each side of the very incarnation of this Love, our Lord Jesus Christ.
All of this took place upon a mountain, Mount Tabor. Our Lord took his three apostles, Peter, James and John with him up this mountain to witness his Transfiguration, partly to strengthen their faith before the horrors of the crucifixion, and partly to teach them—and us—what is required to rise in perfection. For our blessed Lord, Moses and Elias all had to climb their various mountains to attain the perfect fulfillment of what God willed for them. And as we will see, we too have our own mountain to climb.
In the case of Moses, it was Mount Sinai that he had to climb. He climbed alone, and when he reached the summit the Book of Exodus tells us that “he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.” Moses is known as the great Lawgiver. He was used by God to transmit to us the words of his ten commandments, laws that would keep the Hebrews in line until such time as the Messiah would fulfill the Law with the love of his sacrifice.
Elias’ story is different. He was, as many of us are today, tired with life, so tired of the wickedness of his fellow-man that he desired to die and be with God. So he went out into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree: “and he requested for himself that he might die; and said, It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers. And as he lay and slept under a juniper tree, behold, then an angel touched him, and said unto him, Arise and eat. And he looked, and, behold, there was a cake baken on the coals, and a cruse of water at his head. And he did eat and drink, and laid him down again. And the angel of the Lord came again the second time, and touched him, and said, Arise and eat; because the journey is too great for thee. And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God.” Again this great fast of forty days and forty nights without eating or drinking, climbing a mountain like Moses, all so that he could find God.
The message seems to be clear. If we are to find God and to know what God’s will is for us, what he wants from us in this life, we need to fast, to make a good Lent. And secondly, we need to climb whatever mountain God puts before us. If we follow the example of the great Lawgiver Moses and the Prophet Elias, we too will find God. We too will be worthy to stand at our Lord’s side when he comes again in glory to judge the quick and the dead. And when we find ourselves standing in the sight of God, will we be so struck with awe that we don’t know what to say, like St. Peter? Will we bluster and babble like a great wind, or an earthquake, or a burning fire? See what happened to Elias as he went forth and stood upon the mount before the Lord… “And behold,” it says in the Third Book of Kings, “the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake: And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.
When we reach the summit of the mountain of our earthly torments and sufferings, we will find God. We will find him not as one transfigured in glory before us. We will find him within us. We will find him in the Holy Eucharist within our body and soul, we will find him in the Holy of Holies, the Temple of the Holy Ghost, which is our soul in the state of sanctifying grace. The mountain we climb need not be a physical object of the landscape. It is more likely to be our daily struggles against temptation, against the wiles and wickedness of the Devil as he plots our destruction with the help of the world and our fallen human nature. Or it could be those other struggles against the natural pains of illness and disease, bereavement, old age, there are too many to mention. Whatever tribulations collide with our lives, they must be surmounted, and it is in doing so that we climb our mountains and find God.
In short, it’s not going to be easy. Where can we find the inspiration to surmount the trials of our life? Should we look to the law of God and take Moses as our inspiration, obeying the commandments as best we can? Or should we turn to Elias the Prophet and place our hope and trust in the Lord? Both, certainly, but again, they are not enough. Only one of these three men on Mount Tabor can fully inspire us. He too fasted forty days and forty nights, and he too had a mountain to climb. That mountain was Calvary, and it is by walking in his footsteps, along our own Via Dolorosa, that we will carry our cross and reach the summit of Golgotha, there to find eternal life.
It might require almost superhuman courage and perseverance to actually work our way to the top of this hill, but once we get there, we may finally find that “still small voice” of God, whispering in our ear for us to “Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” Then, and only then, after we have climbed our mountain, we will see the glory of God, and we may finally rest in peace.