And when Jesus came down from the mountain great multitudes followed him.
(St. Matthew 8:1)

Charlie Brown's nemesis Lucy famously declared that she wanted only ups and higher ups in life, never any downs.

Collectively speaking, my generation, the baby boomers, have tried to live lives focused only on every higher "highs". Whether one speaks of sex, drugs or rock 'n roll, of mortgaging future generations so we can live our lifestyle even of discarding the biblical teaching and historic worship of the church so we can feel comfortable, we have done it.

We want government to solve every problem and cushion every blow. We are more than willing to surrender liberty for the promise of security.

We want to live on the mountaintop and never deal with the valley of the shadow.

But we can't spend our lives on the mountain – to be fully human we must live in this world – come to grips with the fact of it's pain and suffering as well as its joys and happiness. Both are a fact of our humanity and the "fallen-ness" of the world.

Evil is not the fault of God, but of man's rebellion. It is those who see the world painted from the viewpoint of bureaucrats who invariably ask why a good god will permit suffering to pervade the world.

In the Old Testament, both Moses and Christ (and in the New Testament, Jesus) are living testimony that we cannot spend all our lives up on the mountain. Buddhism purports to teach its devotees how to live outside of this world. Judaism teaches how men can separate themselves from other peoples and claim to be God's chosen through the works of the law, but, significantly, only Christianity contains the formula for overcoming the evils of this world by living in it without either guilt or fear.

Remember Jesus' words, "In the world ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world."

The truth of the matter is that at some level most people are lost, and don't know it. Do we notice in others, ourselves, or in friends, how we always seem to search the faces of the crowd, looking or seeking for something or someone? But what and why are we seeking? Somewhere in life did we take the wrong turn? Why, at times, do we feel we are lost and part of us is missing? We can't seem to put it all together. Should our image be on the little white cards we find in mailboxes along with the ads, "Have you seen this person?" Many years ago our Lord taught, "Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven."

The fact that we search the faces in a crowd is substantial evidence that we might be seeking for the lost innocence we possessed when we were in the Garden with Adam - ever seeking our lost paradise on earth – as Marx tried to do – like every utopian dreamer before or since .

But think a minute. Marx was not first; Eve was the first person to say, "I have my own ideas about how I should live." Adam heard those words, and to please his wife, wrote his own declaration of independence from God. "I'll make my own rules, thank you," he said.

Do you still recall the first time you told your father or mother you were now grown up and didn't need their rules? Most of us did so at some point. This kind of adolescent rebellion by Adam and Eve, which seems so right when you are fifteen, looks ridiculous from the mature perspective of fifty years or so.

Plainly, Eve wanted a do-it-yourself religion. In reality, Eve wanted that which no one can have – Eve wanted Easter without Good Friday. She wanted blessing without covenant. So she convinced Adam to attempt to usurp the authority that belongs to God (declaring what is good and evil without God) and to this day, every sin that man has committed has been an attempt to escape God's rule.

We sometimes hear that we should "attend the church of our choice" but what is important is that we attend the church of God's choice. A church that proclaims the Word of God, faithfully administers the sacraments, teaches Christian virtue and morality, and worships according to the ancient standards of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church as given to us by Christ.

I am reminded of the story in which the Baptist preacher and the Episcopal priest had a rather strenuous discussion over worship with no apparent resolution. Finally, the priest said "well I guess it's settled. You worship the Lord your way and we will worship the Lord His way."

What happens when we discover we are not God? It comes as a shock. We discover we are lost. At Eden's gate, God set His Cherubim with flaming swords to bar the way so that Adam could not return to the paradise he rejected – a perfect life of companionship and communion with God. Instead Adam and Eve had to live the life they chose to live. Sin separates us from the Lord.

God lives in eternity, and you and I must live in time, which is the present moment, the passing present moment. The word "contemporary" means "with the passing of time" The key part of the word is "temporary".

I suspect Adam must have invented the cliche, "Boy, weren't those the good old days?" Despite all evidence that "you can't go home" – even though those good old days cannot be recreated, you and I will still try to dominate and control the future. So, we spend our lives trying to control that over which we have no power – earthquakes, air crashes, stock market falls.

Jesus tried to explain the futility of our anxiety over lack of control of the future, but did we listen? "Take therefore no thought for the morrow; for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself." Why worry about that over which ye have no control? One of the big problems we have today lies in the false sense of power and security promised by the bureaucracy and the courts who offer us a vision of secular socialism as the new Eden. We are promised rights and benefits and privileges, but never told the cost we will be expected to pay.

We are promised a place where the burden will be borne by the nameless "rich" and where God will never pass judgment. The fundamental notion of socialism is that all men are fatherless orphans who need the state to take care of them. However, Margaret Thatcher once observed that the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of being able to live by spending other people's money.

I would add that the problem with secularism is that you eventually end up spending all the moral, ethical, and spiritual capital in society and are left with a black hole – a spreading darkness that sucks all the joy out of life, which makes us feel lost in our own imploding culture.

I compare it with winter. What is it about the winter that is so mysteriously disturbing – even depressing? The gray skies, the short days of darkness ,or the bare trees and brown grass? A person can feel winter. Depression and illness increase in the winter months. The death rate is highest in January and February.

And yet when we are in darkness, we are more willing to seek God. When times are tough we acknowledge that we need God.

St. Augustine observed that our souls are restless until we find our rest in Thee. Scripture tells us that Moses "went into the thick darkness where God was." So often God is where we least expect Him to be – in our own thick darkness of the soul.

David, in his 23rd psalm writes "ye though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me."

Thy rod and staff: the rod of justice and the staff of mercy – they comfort us.

In life's darkest moments God meets us. In the darkness of Golgotha, Satan did his worst – the world did its worst on that darkest of Fridays in an attempt to destroy Jesus.

Matthew writes, "There was darkness upon the face of the earth from the sixth until the ninth hour," as Jesus hung on the Cross, but from out of that thick darkness came the resurrection – Christ, who is the New Adam who dieth no more, enfolded us in His arms and, taking us with Him, has made us new men and new women.

We are no longer fatherless, but are restored to fellowship with God the Father. This is the message of new life that you and I are charged by Jesus to preach to all men as we journey through life with the Lord as our strength. Jesus came down from the mountain so that we might truly know God and know peace.

And when Jesus came down from the mountain great multitudes followed him.