Kerry Mountains

I’m not really one for climbing mountains, but I like being surrounded by mountains. And I’m not the sort of person who’d want to lie on the beach all day, but I do enjoy walking along beaches. It’s a long time since I swam. One of my favourite holiday spots is County Kerry, Ireland, which largely consists of mountains near beaches and lakes.

Perhaps I would choose mountains. There’s just something very majestic about them. Think of Mount Sinai in the Old Testament and Mount Zion, where Jerusalem is located, which is mentioned so much in Scriptures, both physically and spiritually.

In fact, mountains feature prominently throughout the Bible. You don’t hear much about beaches, though Peter was a fisherman on Lake Galilee. And perhaps rivers are mentioned more.

Before I get to the Bible, let me think of secular songs with mountains and beaches. I’ll just list one of each. By the way, Climb Every Mountain is sung by a nun, but I think that it still counts as a secular song 😀.

What about Christian songs? I don’t know any about beaches. The closest I can get is rivers, but there’s a good number about mountains.

Psalm 90:2
“Before the mountains were born or You gave birth to the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God.”

Micah 4:1
“In the last days the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established as chief among the mountains; it will be raised above the hills, and peoples will stream to it.”

And here are some that mention rivers:

To close, I’d like to mention one incident from John’s Gospel. All too often, religion is a tribal thing that divides people even Christians from each other. It divided the Jews and Samaritans, as is indicated in the parable of the Good Samaritan and this incident where Jesus spoke to a Samaritan woman.

John 4:19
¹⁹ “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. ²⁰ Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
²¹ “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. ²² You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. ²³ Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. ²⁴ God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

So, mountains might inspire us to worship God, but it seems that there are no sacred mountains or places in the world anymore. God is more concerned with what’s going on in our hearts and minds. He does mention truth, meaning that we just don’t worship in a mystical way, but that we should seek to know and love God’s word and worship the God that we know and who knows us.