Last Sunday after the Epiphany - 2.15.26

Aaron Johnson

+In the name of the loving, liberating, and life-giving God. Amen.

Today’s lessons offer images of ascent: people climbing into the clouds and encountering God. In our first lesson, Moses is told to come up to Sinai to receive the law. The mountain is shrouded in cloud until the seventh day, when God appears to Moses “like a devouring fire,” and Moses stays forty days and nights. Scripture loves numbers; they carry symbolic weight. Seven speaks of completion or fullness; forty often marks times of testing, formation, or transition. The pattern is clear: climb, wait, encounter, and be formed.

These biblical mountaintop scenes make me think of the mountains we climb in life. Recently, I climbed a figurative one: I told my father I planned to marry the man I love. What should have been a simple, joyful announcement became tense because we hold different convictions about scripture and faith. Some of you in this room know that experience, the hard conversation when our beliefs about sexuality, marriage, politics, parenting, or faith collide with someone we love. You expect a particular outcome: that your position will be affirmed, that you’ll hear, “You are my beloved child,” and that the path will be clear.

I confess I came to that conversation with those expectations. I wanted my interpretation to win and the reassurance I longed for. But what emerged was not the victory of a debate but a deeper relational truth. Drawing closer, speaking vulnerably, and listening with humility, my father and I both heard something like, “You are my beloved.” Not because one view triumphed, but because mutual recognition and love grew. That felt like God on the mountain; an unexpected revelation that reshaped how we would live with one another.

Our epistle lesson tells us that prophecy is not a matter of private interpretation; revelation isn’t simply what we decide it should be. Yet prophetic moments do not confirm our preferences so much as open us to God’s reorientation toward compassion, justice, and embodied love. That reorientation reappears in our Gospel reading. Jesus goes up the mountain with Peter, James, and John. He is transfigured; prophets of old appear; a cloud envelopes them, and a voice names Jesus as God’s beloved. The disciples fall, overwhelmed by fear. And Jesus says, “Get up and do not be afraid.” For me, that scene shows two things: for one, even those closest to Jesus struggled to interpret what was happening, and yet God’s voice calls them into action despite their fear.

The cloud in both stories is a potent symbol. Sometimes I imagine an image of a mountain hidden by a thick cloud, its summit obscured, its path unclear. In life, these clouds might be grief, illness, systemic injustice, or complicated relationships that make the path forward uncertain. The cloud hides, but it also signifies God’s presence. For Moses, the cloud surrounded the mountain until the time was right; God called Moses into the cloud and revealed Godself in a flame, and then Moses entered a longer season of formation. For the disciples, the cloud both overwhelmed and named belovedness, nudging them toward obedience and witness.

These readings focus on what these mountain encounters call us to do in the world. They are not retreats into private consolation; they are formative experiences that deepen our capacity to love. When revelation happens, whether in quiet wilderness or in the middle of a difficult conversation, it often enlarges our moral imagination. It asks us to resist systems that dehumanize and exclude, to lift up those on the margins, and to make space in our communities for difference without casting people out. To be named beloved is not only comfort; it is a charge to live out that love radically.

We might also hear an even broader echo of this mountaintop vision in Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” where the experience of being named beloved is transformed into a summons to collective courage and justice. King’s mountain sojourn did not end in private consolation; it propelled people into the risky work of building the Beloved Community: organizing, resisting oppression, and loving neighbors across lines of division. If our own mountaintop moments deepen our humility and repair relationships, King reminds us that they must also enlarge our solidarity: the encounter with God that assures us of belovedness also commits us to stand with those who suffer, to confront systems that dehumanize, and to descend from the cloud ready to act even when the path is unclear.

We must also remember that mountaintop encounters are not ends in themselves. Moses had to come down and lead a people; Jesus and the apostles had to descend and continue ministry. We, too, are invited to descend. Bringing whatever we have learned into ordinary life: our relationships, our workplaces, and our communities. This is where the transformation is tested. Sometimes, as with Moses, the community will have turned away, and we will return in frustration; for Moses broke the tablets of the law in response to the golden calf crafted as an idol during his mountaintop encounter. Sometimes our efforts to bring love and justice will be met with resistance, misunderstanding, or outright hostility. Just as Jesus and his disciples encountered. That is part of this Christian journey.

There is also a humbling truth: revelation rarely gives us all the answers. The cloud does not spell out every detail of the path. Rather, it assures us that God is present within uncertainty and invites patience. In the midst of ambiguity, God calls us to be present to one another, to listen, to be willing to change, and to hold our convictions with humility. That posture matters whether we are negotiating family disagreements, advocating for systemic change, or caring for a neighbor in need.

So when you find yourself in the fog, when the way forward is unclear, when you are afraid, when relationships or community life get messy, remember this. The cloud can be a place of encounter: a place where belovedness is named, where we are formed for action, and where we learn to carry compassion into the world. Let those mountain moments deepen your courage to act justly, love mercifully, and walk humbly. Amen.