What I’m Thinking: Faith like a Mountain

We think of mountains as grand, solid, impervious, and we yearn for a faith like that. Volcanic mountains, however, erupt with both creation and destruction. And tall mountains, like Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea, reaching over 13,000 feet into the atmosphere, are harsh places indeed. These provide another metaphor for faith.

Here’s a transcript:

The Season of Creation ends this coming week with Mountain Sunday – or in Hawaiian, Mauna Sunday. The Old Testament reading is found in Isaiah 65 (Isaiah 65:17-25), the vision of the peaceable realm of God, founded on Mount Zion. “None shall hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain.”

In Hawai’i, we live with a more precarious relationship with our mauna, with our mountains. Kilauea, Mauna Loa, both are active volcanoes, and indeed Kilauea has sent hundreds of people fleeing from their homes with this summer’s eruption.

And indeed, high up the slopes of Mauna Loa or Mauna Kea one finds an environment that is, in fact, quite harsh. It’s difficult to breathe up at the top of Mauna Kea, even though the view is stunning.

The epistle reading, from Romans 8 (Romans 8:28-39), is one that has seized my imagination and has seized my heart and has founded my faith for decades. This is the place where the Apostle Paul declares that nothing can ever separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. And to me, that declaration of faith is as great a mountain to climb as Mauna Kea. Thirteen thousand plus feet of faith, of declaration of God’s love in the face of what is often a very harsh and uncompromising world.

So I do, in fact, look to the future for that holy mountain. But I look to the present for the signs of the ever-present love of God, from which I can not and you can not be separated by all the harshness, by all the sins, by all the evils, and by all the losses and misfortunes of the world.

Nothing can ever separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear what you’re thinking. Please leave me your thoughts in the comment section below; I’d love to hear from you.