One last hike (All Saints, 2026)
Texts: Dt. 34.1-12; Ps. 90.1-17; Hebrews 11 Over the past few years, I’ve done quite a bit of hiking, in all types of conditions, from the sweltering summer heat to the bone-chilling temperatures of late January. I get a kick out of being outside with friends, toiling to the top of a mountain, taking in the view and then hurrying down and driving off to a good restaurant. Not a bad way to spend a Saturday. In today’s first reading, we see Moses undertake one last hike – to experience his ultimate “mountaintop moment”. And what a moment it must have been. There’s Moses – alone at the summit of Mt. Nebo, on the eastern side of the Jordan River. What does he see as he looks to the West, and the South, and the North? He beholds – somehow – “the whole land”, he even glimpses the waves of the Mediterranean (the “Western sea”) lapping against the coastline of what we now call Gaza. ...