Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
At one point in the Gospel story, Peter confesses his belief that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. Jesus responds with a promise that he himself would build his church, and that the gates of hell would not overcome it.
They were in a city called Caesarea Phillipi when this happened, and the location is important. Caesarea Phillipi was set on a large shelf or terrace 1500 feet up the side of Mount Hermon. Mount Hermon marked the northern border of Israel. On the other side was Syria. The slopes on the southern side of the mountain are called the Golan Heights today.
Mount Hermon had a reputation among the Jews and Gentiles alike, as a world-center of pagan religion, and the worship of Ba’al especially. To this day, its many caves are filled with relics of altars to this idol. A popular Jewish theory was that a group of rebellious angels had agreed together to come to Earth and do great evil among the people, and Mount Hermon was the site of their arrival.
Now, Jesus spent most of his earthly ministry in the South of Israel, the regions in and around Jerusalem. Mount Hermon was not a place that a Jewish person went on the way to somewhere else. You don’t just pass through Caesarea Phillipi. As the saying goes, you had to be going there to get there.
So, why did Jesus go there? Well, to make the announcement: He promised to defeat all the powers of hell in hell’s own backyard, so to speak. As Michael Heiser said, he was there to pick a fight.
The next thing that happened was Jesus took some disciples up the “high mountain” (Hermon) and was transfigured before them. That is, the glory that had been his from eternity, but had been veiled in flesh since his arrival as a baby, was frightfully unleashed. Moses and Elijah appeared there and spoke with him.
Writing about that event years later, Peter said it happened on “the holy mountain” (2 Peter 1:18). This is stunning, really. Hermon? The “holy” mountain? Don’t you mean the pagan mountain?
Hermon had been the sight of a lot of God-hating rebellion, but now it’s holy. It had a centuries-long reputation for idolatry and wickedness. Holy. It was holy because one day, Jesus the Christ showed up there, and chose to reveal himself in an astonishing way.
Its past ceased to matter so much because the Lord claimed it as his own territory.
And this, right here, is good news for all you rebellious, ungodly sinners out there (like me). The same Messiah who made Hermon holy just by showing up will make you into a child of God, a holy one, in the same manner. He still does this.
Our churches are filled with people with checkered pasts and rebellious reputations, former slaves of Satan who have been made holy (though not yet perfect) because Jesus came and revealed himself to them.
Nothing of what the devil currently possesses is safe. The Lord might show up and claim it at any moment. This can be you, even right now.
Gordan Runyan is pastor of Tucumcari’s Immanuel Baptist Church and author of “Radical Moses: The Amazing Civil Freedom Built into Ancient Israel.” Contact him at: