Because God is There
Illustration
Stories
Then Moses went up on the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain. (v. 15)
Although the highest mountain in the world was known to those who lived within sight of it, and named, honored, and respected by those people, those people didn’t know it was the highest mountain the world, in part because it was often shrouded in cloud, and rarely visible.
Then, sometime around the middle of the nineteenth century – and the details of the events are as shrouded in clouds of faulty memory as thick as the nearly perpetual clouds that cover the mountain, it was given a totally inappropriate name.
Way back when the word computer was used for humans who performed the complex calculations for difficult problems, English engineers triangulated the entire Indian subcontinent in order to properly map the country that was at that time part of the British Empire. The computers who laboriously mapped out the Indian landscape based on the observations brought their results to the engineer in charge.
It was not an easy task. No doubt you’ve seen at one time or another surveyors along the roadside as you’ve driven in your neighborhood. One peers through a telescope-like device known as a theodolite affixed on a tripod in the direction of another person holding a post. The equipment looks very specialized, but it doesn’t look particularly heavy.
That was not the case when the Great Trigonometric Survey began laboriously surveying the Indian Subcontinent, a landmass which measures more than one and a quarter million square miles. Nor could the surveyors use the lightweight equipment we are used to seeing. The theodolites were massive, weighing eleven hundred pounds. Twelve men carried the equipment through what was often impossibly difficult and dangerous terrain. Those who carried the equipment, aligned the instruments, and took the measurements, battled malaria, sickness, and death.
Yet slowly, they made progress. By the 1930’s, the Great Trigonometric Survey had reached the Himalayans, which some suspected might harbor the world’s tallest mountain – but which one? It’s not like they were all lined up in a row so one could compare their heights by simply looking at them. This was further complicated by two factors – nine months of the year the Himalayans were entirely hidden by clouds and the remaining three months clouds continued to be a factor, and the Nepalese distrusted the British, and forbade any close approach to the mountains.
The work languished until 1849, when James Nicolson, whose work was hampered by the sickness he contracted working for the survey, finally oversaw the crucial measurements. In 1852, the calculations were undertaken by an Indian named Radhanath Sikdar. His calculations demonstrated that, despite appearances to the contrary, the mountain known as Peak XV was the highest in the world.
Andrew Waugh, who had replaced the previous head of the project, Sir George Everest, only a few years before, was then informed by one of his subordinates, “I believe we have found the tallest mountain on earth.” Sikdar calculated with the tools at hand the peak was 29,002 feet. Satellite observations involving precise laser measurements have improved on that figure only slightly, 29,032 feet.
Now the problem was, what to name Peak XV? Depending what side of the peak they lived on, the people who lived closest to the mountain knew it was Sagarmatha, Chomolungma, or Zhumulangma Feng, names variously translated as Holy Mother or Goddess of the Sky. British regulations encouraged the use of local names for features mapped in the survey, but Waugh decided to name it after his predecessor, Everest, anyway. Sir George himself was against the proposal, but Mount Everest it became.
And this cloud-covered mountain commanded it be climbed as surely as God commanded Moses to ascend the cloud-covered Mount Sinai. The most famous of those – before the mountain was actually summited in 1952 by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay – was the intrepid George Mallory, who ascended into those clouds on three separate British expeditions in the 1920’s. During this last attempt, on June 8th, 1924, Mallory and his climbing partner Andrew Irvine were spotted only 800 vertical feet from the summit when the clouds parted briefly by Noel Odell. He spotted two black spots moving up the crest. Then the clouds again covered the scene. The two never returned to camp and were given up for dead.
The question of whether the two summitted before they perished has still not be resolved, although Mallory’s body was discovered on May 1, 1999.
As dangerous as summiting Everest continues to be, even with modern climbing techniques and equipment (and over two hundred have died on its face) when Moses left his people behind to ascend the cloud-covered Mount Sinai, one suspects his ascent was even more dangerous, not because of any technical difficulty, or the danger of high altitude sickness, but because it is clear in scripture that ascending to the gates of heaven to stand in the presence of God can be blessedly fatal. It is, at the very least, life changing.
There are two other important differences. Mallory’s body was found. According to Deuteronomy 34:6 God buried Moses and “…no one knows his burial place to this day.” Also, Mallory attempted to climb Mount Everest, as he once famously said, “Because it’s there.” Moses climbed Mount Sinai because, of course, God is there.
Although the highest mountain in the world was known to those who lived within sight of it, and named, honored, and respected by those people, those people didn’t know it was the highest mountain the world, in part because it was often shrouded in cloud, and rarely visible.
Then, sometime around the middle of the nineteenth century – and the details of the events are as shrouded in clouds of faulty memory as thick as the nearly perpetual clouds that cover the mountain, it was given a totally inappropriate name.
Way back when the word computer was used for humans who performed the complex calculations for difficult problems, English engineers triangulated the entire Indian subcontinent in order to properly map the country that was at that time part of the British Empire. The computers who laboriously mapped out the Indian landscape based on the observations brought their results to the engineer in charge.
It was not an easy task. No doubt you’ve seen at one time or another surveyors along the roadside as you’ve driven in your neighborhood. One peers through a telescope-like device known as a theodolite affixed on a tripod in the direction of another person holding a post. The equipment looks very specialized, but it doesn’t look particularly heavy.
That was not the case when the Great Trigonometric Survey began laboriously surveying the Indian Subcontinent, a landmass which measures more than one and a quarter million square miles. Nor could the surveyors use the lightweight equipment we are used to seeing. The theodolites were massive, weighing eleven hundred pounds. Twelve men carried the equipment through what was often impossibly difficult and dangerous terrain. Those who carried the equipment, aligned the instruments, and took the measurements, battled malaria, sickness, and death.
Yet slowly, they made progress. By the 1930’s, the Great Trigonometric Survey had reached the Himalayans, which some suspected might harbor the world’s tallest mountain – but which one? It’s not like they were all lined up in a row so one could compare their heights by simply looking at them. This was further complicated by two factors – nine months of the year the Himalayans were entirely hidden by clouds and the remaining three months clouds continued to be a factor, and the Nepalese distrusted the British, and forbade any close approach to the mountains.
The work languished until 1849, when James Nicolson, whose work was hampered by the sickness he contracted working for the survey, finally oversaw the crucial measurements. In 1852, the calculations were undertaken by an Indian named Radhanath Sikdar. His calculations demonstrated that, despite appearances to the contrary, the mountain known as Peak XV was the highest in the world.
Andrew Waugh, who had replaced the previous head of the project, Sir George Everest, only a few years before, was then informed by one of his subordinates, “I believe we have found the tallest mountain on earth.” Sikdar calculated with the tools at hand the peak was 29,002 feet. Satellite observations involving precise laser measurements have improved on that figure only slightly, 29,032 feet.
Now the problem was, what to name Peak XV? Depending what side of the peak they lived on, the people who lived closest to the mountain knew it was Sagarmatha, Chomolungma, or Zhumulangma Feng, names variously translated as Holy Mother or Goddess of the Sky. British regulations encouraged the use of local names for features mapped in the survey, but Waugh decided to name it after his predecessor, Everest, anyway. Sir George himself was against the proposal, but Mount Everest it became.
And this cloud-covered mountain commanded it be climbed as surely as God commanded Moses to ascend the cloud-covered Mount Sinai. The most famous of those – before the mountain was actually summited in 1952 by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay – was the intrepid George Mallory, who ascended into those clouds on three separate British expeditions in the 1920’s. During this last attempt, on June 8th, 1924, Mallory and his climbing partner Andrew Irvine were spotted only 800 vertical feet from the summit when the clouds parted briefly by Noel Odell. He spotted two black spots moving up the crest. Then the clouds again covered the scene. The two never returned to camp and were given up for dead.
The question of whether the two summitted before they perished has still not be resolved, although Mallory’s body was discovered on May 1, 1999.
As dangerous as summiting Everest continues to be, even with modern climbing techniques and equipment (and over two hundred have died on its face) when Moses left his people behind to ascend the cloud-covered Mount Sinai, one suspects his ascent was even more dangerous, not because of any technical difficulty, or the danger of high altitude sickness, but because it is clear in scripture that ascending to the gates of heaven to stand in the presence of God can be blessedly fatal. It is, at the very least, life changing.
There are two other important differences. Mallory’s body was found. According to Deuteronomy 34:6 God buried Moses and “…no one knows his burial place to this day.” Also, Mallory attempted to climb Mount Everest, as he once famously said, “Because it’s there.” Moses climbed Mount Sinai because, of course, God is there.
