You Don't Have to Climb the Mountain

Isaiah 65:1-9

In Susan Trott’s novel The Man on the Mountain, people line up to see a guru known only as “Holy Man Joe.” He lives way up on a mountain, and the idea is: if you want something — wisdom, healing, maybe even forgiveness — you’d better start climbing. The effort is part of the deal. No climb, no blessing.

That’s how many of us think about God. We think God’s way up there, waiting for us to get it together, climb the mountain, and show we’re serious. And maybe, just maybe, we’ll get a moment with him if we make it to the top.

But Isaiah 65 tells a different story.

"I was ready to be sought by those who did not ask for me," God says. "I was ready to be found by those who did not seek me." It's not the holy climbers who find God; it's the people who weren't even looking. The people who were wandering in the opposite direction. The ones who weren't interested.

That sounds backwards, doesn’t it?

But this is grace. And it’s shocking to hear that God doesn’t play hard to get. He doesn’t hide behind stained glass or in the pages of a devotional you forgot to read. He comes looking for you. Jesus is proof of that. He is God made flesh. And he walks into our mess, sits at our tables, touches the untouchable. He doesn’t wait for us to get our act together or for us to take the first step. Instead, he calls out, “Here I am.”

The surprise is that God comes to us. He always takes the first step. He does this out of love.

That kind of love can feel off-putting. It’s too available. It shows up in the lives of people we’d rather write off. It reaches out to people we’d never invite to Bible study. Isaiah’s audience had a hard time with it too. God was showing up in places they didn’t expect, among people they didn’t approve of.

But God wasn’t done with them, either. We see that in a strange, short phrase that Isaiah uses: “the wine is found in the cluster . . .” What he’s saying is that even when everything feels dried up, mercy is still there. Even when it seems like there's nothing good left, God is still at work.

So if you’re feeling far from holy, that’s okay. If your spiritual life feels like a dried-up grape, don’t write yourself off. God hasn’t.

You don’t have to climb the mountain today. You don’t even have to know the way. The good news is, God comes down. He finds you where you are. And he’s already saying, “Here I am.”