Echoes of the Mountain
In a previous post, I wrote about Moses and the elders of Israel climbing Mt. Sinai and seeing the God of Israel standing above a sapphire sea. I said that what they saw wasn’t some vague, symbolic presence of God. They saw the Lord Jesus Christ, resurrected, enthroned, and whole.
That might sound strange to some. Isn’t Jesus born in Bethlehem long after Sinai? Yes. But that is only if you are still thinking inside the frame of time. I tried to lay it out there. God doesn’t dwell in time. He isn’t watching the story unfold like we are. From His view, everything is present. The birth in Bethlehem, the cross on Golgotha, the empty tomb in the garden. All of it stands before Him as one living reality. That is why Moses sees a man on the mountain with a body. That is why I said if Moses had looked closely, he might have seen the nail scars already there.
And so, if that is true, if Jesus is not just in time but over it and beyond it, then I want to press a step further. What does that mean for the world we live in? What does it say about your life, your choices, your suffering, your joy?
John records Jesus saying, “I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in Me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit. For apart from Me, you can do nothing.”
We usually read that as a spiritual principle. But what if it is deeper than that?
What if it is not just spiritual, but also the nature of reality itself? What if “apart from Me you can do nothing” is not only about salvation or morality, but about existence itself?
What if the universe, not just Israel and not just the Church but the entire cosmos, is rooted in Him like branches from a vine?
Christ Before All Things: The Gospel as the Shape of Creation
We tend to imagine that Jesus enters into a world already in motion, as if God builds a stage, writes the rules of physics and history, and then, at some point, Jesus steps into the play. But that is not quite right. It is actually the reverse. The play exists because of Jesus; the stage was designed to hold Him, and the story bends around Him like light through a prism. We have to learn to think backward, or better yet, eternally. Christ is not a product of creation; creation is the product of Christ. And this isn’t Christ in the abstract, not just the eternal Logos as some disembodied force of reason. I mean Jesus of Nazareth – the one who preached the Beatitudes, who wept at Lazarus’s tomb, who bled on the cross, who walked out of the grave, the one with rough hands, a body of wounds, and eyes that have seen both death and glory. His life is the original pattern after which creation was fashioned. This means the Gospels are the blueprint of reality, not merely a response to reality. Yet, even within the church, we are often not formed to carefully consider this truth in how we approach our lives and decisions.
If Christ’s life is the original pattern, the source code of creation, then choosing a path contrary to His isn’t merely “sinful” in a religious sense. It’s choosing anti-reality, like trying to breathe water or build a house on quicksand. The structures you build will fail, not because God is punishing you, but because they defy the fundamental physics of existence as designed by Christ. Consider the operating system the world often runs on: a focus on self-preservation, prioritizing personal needs and comfort, hoarding resources, and seeking advancement above all. Relationships become transactional exchanges where love is conditional and forgiveness is granted only when personally beneficial. There’s a drive for control over circumstances, people, and image, meticulously managing perceptions. Life becomes a chase for instant gratification – the fleeting high of a purchase, praise, or pleasure, ignoring the long-term cost. Underlying much of this is fear: fear of lack, pain, insignificance, or missing out, allowing these fears to dictate boundaries and choices.
This worldly operating system feels pragmatic, even necessary for survival, but it runs directly contrary to the blueprint. Christ’s pattern is one of self-emptying (kenosis), sacrificial love, forgiveness extended before repentance, vulnerability, patient endurance, and trusting the Father even unto death. Therefore, when you choose the world’s way, the consequences are baked into the structure of reality itself. That relationship built on transaction will become hollow because reality is patterned on the self-giving love reflected in the Trinity and the Cross. That career climbed through ruthless ambition will feel empty because reality is patterned on service and fruitfulness for others, like the Vine and Branches. That carefully constructed image will inevitably shatter because reality is patterned on the vulnerability and truth revealed in Christ. That pursuit of fleeting pleasure will leave you barren because reality is patterned on the enduring joy found through, not around, suffering and sacrifice, as seen in the Passion and Resurrection. You see people desperately trying to patch these crumbling structures with more therapy, another self-help book, a new relationship, or a bigger purchase. But they are merely treating symptoms. The disease is living against the grain of reality itself. Jesus wasn’t exaggerating: “Apart from Me, you can do nothing” – not just nothing spiritual, but nothing lasting, nothing real, nothing that ultimately works according to the design.
So, what does it mean to live aligned with this blueprint today? It requires a conscious shift in your operating system. It’s not about adding “Jesus things” to your existing life; it’s about letting the logic of the Vine reshape every aspect of it. When making decisions, instead of asking “What’s best for me?”, the question becomes “What aligns with the pattern of Christ?” Does this choice lead toward self-giving, service, forgiveness, truth, and dependence on the Father, even if it looks like ‘losing’ by worldly standards? When suffering arrives, the temptation is to see it as meaningless or purely negative, but the blueprint reframes it as a potential opportunity to participate in the Cross, to be pruned, to depend more deeply on the Vine, or to discover resurrection life on the other side, infusing pain with meaning rooted in reality’s deepest pattern. Your work and creativity transform from mere paychecks into participation in Christ’s ordering and creative work; you begin building things – products, services, systems, families, meals – that reflect His goodness, truth, and beauty, stewarding resources according to abundance and generosity, not scarcity and hoarding. In relationships, you move beyond transaction to practice sacrificial love, preemptive forgiveness, burden-bearing, and speaking truth in love, aligning with the relational reality of the Trinity and the Church as Christ’s body – perhaps inefficient by worldly standards, but the only way to build connections that resonate with the design. Finally, the antidote to the world’s pervasive fear, especially the fear of missing out, is recognizing that abiding in the Vine is the reality you were made for. Anything else is the illusion, the shadowland. Choosing humility, mercy, and patience isn’t ‘missing out’ on fleeting thrills; it’s opting into the only way of life that is durable, fruitful, and deeply joyful because it aligns with the way things fundamentally are.
The Only Path That Is
This isn’t about striving harder to be “good.” It’s about recognition and alignment. Recognize the blueprint. See how the world’s frantic, self-defeating patterns clash with it. Then, choose moment by moment to align yourself with the Vine.
To abide in Him is to stop swimming against the fundamental current of the cosmos. It’s planting your feet on the bedrock reality of the resurrected Christ, the pattern through whom and for whom all things were made. It’s not a way to live, but the only way that leads to genuine, lasting life, because it’s the only way that is tuned to reality itself. The Christian life isn’t escaping the world; it’s engaging with the world as it truly is, beneath the noise and illusions, patterned after the Man on the mountain, the Lamb upon the throne.
Kern Keep 