Climbing Mount Sinai

Climbing Mount Sinai                       

For centuries, pilgrims have journeyed to Mount Sinai to climb to the summit as a pilgrimage. At the top of Sinai is where Moses received the Ten Commandments from God. Christians, Jews and Muslims consider this spot a holy place. When we arrived at Saint Catherine’s at the foot of Mount Sinai, six of us decided to take this pilgrimage to the summit.

One of the key aspects of this journey is to reach the summit of Sinai just before sunrise to experience the beginning of a new day on that holy mountain. In order to undertake this journey, we had to meet our guide at 1:30 a.m.

Our guide took us to the spot where the pilgrims would meet and we were shocked to see a huge throng of people waiting to begin. He said there would be over 1,000 people there and we assumed this was an exaggeration.  He probably underestimated the number of people. Around 2:00 a.m. we began the journey. The variety of people undertaking this hike was huge. Fit athletic folks were alongside couch potatoes in flip-flops carrying boxes of pastries. It was a staggering spectacle of humanity with one goal—to reach the summit of Moses’ Mountain, Sinai.

Since we began in the dark, we all carried flashlights. As we moved along it was eerie to look back at the stream of lights snaking up the mountain looking like the world’s longest strand of Christmas lights. The hike up the mountain was 5 miles  ( or so we were told) and the final elevation at the summit was over 7,000 feet. At several junctures along the trek were Bedouin huts where they sold water, juice, coffee and tea.

We arrived at the summit around 5:00 a.m. and got a good spot to watch the sunrise. Waiting in the darkness for a new day to dawn at the spot where God gave the commandments to Moses was a humbling and holy experience. Honestly, I am still working through and processing the experience.

The journey up the mountain in the darkness over rocky and uneven terrain was a thoughtful and meditative time I will never forget. The time to be still and wait for the sunrise at the summit gave me a deep awareness of how very small I am in this vast universe, but yet how very precious I am to the holy God who has created us. The details of those revelations can be pondered for quite awhile. I intend to do that.

Blessings,

Robert