Mountain Climbing

“Then the Lord came down upon Mount Sinai, on the top of the mountain. And the Lord called Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up.” [Exodus 19:20]

Mountain climbing can be a dangerous business. In one 1996 Everest expedition eight climbers were killed and several others were stranded by a rogue storm. Some mountains are even more treacherous than Everest. The Annapurna peaks in the Himalaya range are among the world’s most perilous mountains, with a fatality rate of more than 40 percent among those who attempt to scale them.

So why do people climb mountains? When British climber George Mallory was asked in 1924 why he wanted to climb Mount Everest, he responded “Because it’s there.” August of that year Mallory and his partner, Andrew Irvine, disappeared on the way to the summit. For 75 years he was missing, but in 1999 his body was discovered in remarkable condition at about 27,000-foot elevation. No one is quite sure whether or not he and his partner made it to the summit. We hope so.

Then there is Reinhold Messner, an Italian mountaineer from South Tyrol, who is often viewed as the greatest mountain climber of all time. He is renowned for making the first solo ascents of Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen and for being the first climber to ascend all 14 peaks over 8,000 meters or 26,000 feet above sea level. Of course Mount Everest, at 29,032 feet, is the highest peak in the world. The mountain was officially conquered on the morning of May 29, 1953, when Edmund Hillary and his Sherpa guide, Tenzing, reached the summit where they took a few pictures and buried a cross.

Did you know the Bible says in the last days every believer may have to become a mountain climber? “So when you see the ‘abomination of desolation,’ spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing where it ought not (let the reader understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains” (Mark 13:14). God’s people have often fled to the mountains for safety. When the armies of Titus destroyed Jerusalem, over one million people died and about 97,000 were taken captive. But during a break in the siege, all the Christians fled, as Christ directed, and not one of them died.