The Holy Hill

Many people have a favorite place up on a mountain. People sometimes use a nickname for their favorite high spot, such as the Holy Hill. The University of the South at Sewanee, Tennessee is a campus built up on a mountain, and you can guess what students call it. The Sewanee Seminary students especially call it The Holy Mountain.  To people of faith from the Bible, the term comes mainly from the Hebrew Scriptures: referring to Jerusalem, Mount Zion, especially the Temple Mount. Observe this psalm’s opening:

Psalm 48

1   Great is the LORD, and highly to be praised; *
         in the city of our God is his holy hill.

2   Beautiful and lofty, the joy of all the earth, is the
            hill of Zion, *
       the very center of the world and the city of the great King.

The temple is seen as the place where humans meet their God. The faithful relish the thought of being there and offering praises to God from there. Look also at the ending of the psalm we use on the Last Sunday after the Epiphany:

Psalm 99

9   Proclaim the greatness of the Lord our God
      and worship him upon his holy hill; *
      for the Lord our God is the Holy One.

On this mountain, in the temple, within the presence of the Lord, our calling is to proclaim God’s greatness and to worship the Holy One. It might make you think of Mary’s words after she heard the angel tell of how she will figure into the plan of God to grant a Savior to the earth: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,” or, with the older phrasing, “My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior.”

Worshipers in the ancient temple loved the temple. At their best, they loved it mainly because, even more, they loved God. The occasion for praising God was a glorious thing. The hill and the building were nothing compared with the One receiving worship. Mary was neither in a temple nor on a hill. Mary was in her home in the Galilean town of Nazareth yet, spiritually speaking, this was a mountain top. God and God’s message through the angel Gabriel turned her simple home into her holy hill. This angelic annunciation became the ultimate occasion to proclaim the greatness of the Lord, and the holiness of God’s name.

Let’s consider that when you earnestly worship the Lord, and proclaim the greatness of God, you move the holy hill to you. Remember, Jesus did tell his disciples. “If you have faith…you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.” (Matthew 17:20). Considering this, when you worship God the holy hill is wherever you are. From that hill, you declare, “The Lord our God is the Holy One.” When you hear and examine the Transfiguration story, absorb deeply the impact of that mountaintop experience, and find yourself magnifying the Lord from your own “holy hill.”