Altitude Wellness

Living barely above sea level, where things are pretty flat, we don’t contend with altitude changes moving around the area. Growing up in Tucson, Arizona, we occasionally drove out of the desert valley, up through the Catalina Foothills, and on into the Santa Catalina Mountains. These mountains are the stunning backdrop looking north from the city. Just an hour’s drive had us taking the switchbacks and climbing from 2,500 feet to 9,100 feet. Sometimes this left a person with a touch of altitude sickness.  Until adjusting, the more sensitive folk would experience dizziness, mild nausea, headache, and shortness of breath.

Speaking spiritually and figuratively, we will climb two mountains in the next several months. First, on February 19, The Last Sunday after the Epiphany, we will experience the Gospel as it is read, and it will take us up the Mount of Transfiguration. You will see Jesus. In addition to Jesus, our hiking partners are apostles, Peter, James, and John. Don’t be surprised if you also see, briefly, the prophets, Moses and Elijah.

Then on April 2, six weeks later, on The Sunday of the Passion or Palm Sunday, we will experience the Passion of our Lord from Matthew. It will take us up the hill to a spot called, Place of a Skull, or Golgotha. These two mountains will feel very different to us. Two very different kinds of fear are likely to come over us with each hike. The trips will leave us, in the end, not will altitude sickness, but wellness— the best condition, body, soul, and spirit, that we could ever hope or imagine.

With Jesus transfigured, his face will shine like the sun, and his clothes will become dazzling white. As he discusses things with the prophets, the bright cloud overshadowing them—as we hear the voice of the Deity say, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him, I am well pleased; listen to him!”—what will that feel like? We may feel afraid in an awestruck way. Facing divine mystery pulls us into a strange feeling of attraction and fear at the same time. We might want to run to wrap our arms around the brilliant Christ, and want just as strongly to run away, straight down the mountain, to feel more secure. When the glory of God is manifest, mere mortals quake, not knowing what to do.

With Jesus crucified, we will not see Peter or James. We will see only John, we will see Mary, the Mother of Jesus, and some of the women most faithful to the Master. Peter will be elsewhere, weeping from having denied knowing Jesus. What comes over us as we stand on this mount? It may, again, be awe, but with a deep sadness mixed into the wonder. We’ll hear Jesus cry with a loud voice and breathe his last. Some will hear the curtain of the temple rip in two, top to bottom—the barrier between the Most Holy place and the rest of the temple, now open. Some will hear and feel the earthquake shaking the ground, splitting the rocks. In the middle of that experience, we may wonder, what will become of us?

But of course, we are told what will happen to us and by faith, we are assured. These two mountaintop experiences will bring us to be candidates for mystical union with the Christ of Glory, the Suffering Messiah. Nothing will ever happen to us, that Jesus Christ will not have known. These elevated places will make us well.