Mountains loom large with us upon the parkland and prairies. As a boy or girl, did you ever sit forward in your seat glued to the window, fascinated with trips to the Rockies? Every trip guaranteed moments of admiration. Those mountains were there before we were born, and if Jesus doesn’t return until then, they will be there after we are gone.
When nothing seems to last – mountains do. When life is transient and filled with change, mountains do not sway or totter. Mountains are immovable and constant. And what does God say of us? “Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion, which cannot be moved, but abides forever.” (Psalm 125:1) God intends we be constant and immovable trusting in Him.
Then, acquiesce any security you may WANT to have, CHOOSE to have, in a person, in a leader, in the strength of your body, in all your devices to be self-assured. Surrender to God in the might of His will and ways, and you will not be shaken. Only then will you will be uplifted to be strong and immovable, even when God shakes you a bit upon the coronacoaster.
What is a coronacoaster? Noun: the ups and downs of a pandemic. One day you’re loving your bubble, doing work outs, baking banana bread and going for long walks and the next you’re crying, drinking gin for breakfast and missing people you don’t even like.
If God desires us to be like Mount Zion, we embody devotion to our Creator in the rhythm of repose and movement, of rest and labor. In repose and rest, go to the mountain. Spend time with God in prayer, praise and thanksgiving. Then, in the movement and the labor, devotion to God unfolds to become devotion to one another in compassionate service.
“We’re so busy starring in our own movies that we forget that everyone else is starring in theirs. That’s why it’s extremely important to see yourself as others do – as a supporting actor in their movie.” (Linda Kaplan Thaler) This is how God chooses to raise you up, like a mountain, to be an object of virtue, to be the supporting actor in another person’s life.
Unfortunately, we go from loving our bubble to slashing it with our steak knives. Just as long as we are not drinking gin for breakfast. But, who are we kidding? We are traveling a wilderness of isolation. The crooked path becomes evil when we yield to the temptation to deal with our profitless anxiety and care by indulging desires.
As God intends you to be Mount Zion, in the geography of Palestine, there are mountains that are higher. “As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the Lord surrounds His people, from this time forth and forevermore.” (Psalm 125:2) Even as pilgrims spoke of “going up” to Jerusalem, Mount Zion is not higher, but lower than the surrounding mountains. The hills encompassing Jerusalem are like sentinels.
This means: God stands guard to watch us. God stands guard to protect us. God stands guard to forgive our crooked ways. We become Mount Zion when we look to a greater height, and rest upon a higher range. The one who watches became personified in the Person of His incarnate Son. Jesus is the temple of the living God and He tabernacled among us. Jesus didn’t want heaven without us, so he brought it down to us. You are at one with Your Savior, because He went to Mount Calvary.
The Holy Spirit enters the gap between. A trust that leans is a trust that clings to an ever-present Savior. Two tectonic plates, one of mercy, one of grace, thrust you up from below. The force of this love moves mountains and it moves you. You arise to house God’s presence on earth. Thanks be to God! •
— By Pastor Neil Stern
St. Peter’s Leduc, AB