After the Mountain Top
Story by Emma McCoy | 2.5 minute read
The lights are dim. Only the stage is visible, low spotlights casting the worship team in a soft glow. All throughout the room, people stand by their chairs, swaying with their arms held out. Some kneel on the floor, others are laying hands on their neighbor and praying, and nearly all are singing with the worship leader.
It’s a powerful moment of repentance, thanksgiving, and praise. Tears are shed, sins confessed, and the Holy Spirit is so present in the crowd many feel it's a miracle all on its own. Song after song is played, and the praise of God continues far past the allocated time.
It’s beautiful; it brings people closer together and to God.
Then the lights come back on. The music ends, and the crowd slowly trickles out in twos and threes. Seatbelts click. Headlights turn out of the parking lot, and a line of red taillights wind their way back home. Eventually, the instruments are put away, and the room is locked up for the next time.
These kinds of moments, whether it’s in a retreat, youth group, conference, church service, or “bootcamp,” are woven deeply into the Christian experience, especially the evangelical Protestant experience. Being able to really feel God and feel close to Him are often called “mountain top” experiences, and that outpouring of emotion and connection with the Holy Spirit is usually the pinnacle moment of a conference or retreat.
Atop Mt. Arbel in Lower Galilee, Israel.
I’m not saying these mountain-top experiences are bad. In fact, they’re important for believers, both new and mature in their walk with Jesus. The feeling of security and love goes a long way.
In Mark 9, the transfiguration happens on top of a mountain, and that’s where the phrase “mountain-top experience” comes from. Peter, James, and John are floored when Jesus is transfigured into a vision of the Son of God. Then Elijah and Moses, two of the most famous prophets, are there as well.
It’s an incredibly powerful moment that rocks the disciples’ world and overcomes them with wonder, fear, and amazement. There wasn’t music (that I know of; the story doesn’t say), but there was the full spectacle of Jesus and the long-dead forefathers of the Jews. Peter, James, and John were in the presence of a miracle.
However, when they went down the mountain, they were immediately confronted with the rest of the disciples arguing with teachers of the law. A boy was possessed with a demonic spirit, and the disciples couldn’t drive it out. This proved Jesus wasn’t who he said he was, the teachers argued. It was a “yes it does,” “no it doesn’t” situation, and while they were arguing, the boy writhed in the dirt.
On the heels of the mountain top moment comes a boy, stuck rolling in the dirt and dust. He can’t speak. He is wracked with seizures, harming himself whenever the spirit seizes him.
This is Jesus too.
Even though the mountain-top moments are important, they aren’t everyday occurrences.
Walking with Jesus isn’t always going to be transfiguration, seeing the dead rise, and feeling overcome with love and security.
There is a lot of walking down the mountain to find arguing, unbelief, and despair in the dust.
Being a Christian isn’t an assurance that nothing bad will happen. John 16:33 tells us that there will be many troubles in this world, and Paul consistently writes in the Gospels that we will suffer for Christ and with Christ. Being on the mountain-top is amazing, and it certainly feels encouraging and bolstering for our faith, but it isn’t the whole story.
Jesus brings the disciples off the mountain and, much like a teacher separating fighting children, he asks, “What’s going on?” Then he reorients everyone with a little verbal smackdown. The disciples aren’t right, and neither are the teachers of the law. It’s all a big ordinary mess, which kinda looks like everyday life. They stand there and watch as only one person gets it right: the father of the demon-possessed boy.
“I believe! Help my unbelief!” he pleads with Jesus (Mark 9:24). Once again, Jesus heals and forgives someone rejected, someone on the outside. Someone unexpected.
The mountain-top moments are important. After all, Jesus took the disciples up there. But like a woman caught up in prostitution and a paralyzed man, Jesus uses someone rejected, someone invisible, and someone unexpected to demonstrate the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven. A boy possessed by a demonic spirit who couldn’t speak or control himself certainly would have been ostracized. And his father, most likely exhausted, in pain, and filled with love and grief at the same time, stayed with him and brought him to Jesus.
“Help my unbelief!” he cries, watching his boy writhe in the dirt. This, too, is where Jesus’ love transforms.
Churches and organizations that center around the mountain-top moment are important and are doing good work. But that’s not the kind of church Spring Church is. We’re the church that stays with the boy in the dirt. We’re a church of uncommon friendship, looking for the unexpected people Jesus might be using in our lives.
For the next six weeks, we’re going to be diving into the story of the boy possessed with an impure spirit. Like the woman at the well and the paralyzed man, Jesus is once again using someone unexpected to disciple those around them. Join us for our Common Table Gathering this Sunday to crack open the story and begin the discussion.
Mark 9:14-29
When they came back down the mountain to the other disciples, they saw a huge crowd around them, and the religion scholars cross-examining them. As soon as the people in the crowd saw Jesus, admiring excitement stirred them. They ran and greeted him. He asked, “What’s going on? What’s all the commotion?”
A man out of the crowd answered, “Teacher, I brought my mute son, made speechless by a demon, to you. Whenever it seizes him, it throws him to the ground. He foams at the mouth, grinds his teeth, and goes stiff as a board. I told your disciples, hoping they could deliver him, but they couldn’t.”
Jesus said, “What a generation! No sense of God! How many times do I have to go over these things? How much longer do I have to put up with this? Bring the boy here.” They brought him. When the demon saw Jesus, it threw the boy into a seizure, causing him to writhe on the ground and foam at the mouth.
He asked the boy’s father, “How long has this been going on?”
“Ever since he was a little boy. Many times it pitches him into fire or the river to do away with him. If you can do anything, do it. Have a heart and help us!”
Jesus said, “If? There are no ‘ifs’ among believers. Anything can happen.”
No sooner were the words out of his mouth than the father cried, “Then I believe. Help me with my doubts!”
Seeing that the crowd was forming fast, Jesus gave the vile spirit its marching orders: “Dumb and deaf spirit, I command you—Out of him, and stay out!” Screaming, and with much thrashing about, it left. The boy was pale as a corpse, so people started saying, “He’s dead.” But Jesus, taking his hand, raised him. The boy stood up.
After arriving back home, his disciples cornered Jesus and asked, “Why couldn’t we throw the demon out?”
He answered, “There is no way to get rid of this kind of demon except by prayer.”
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