The Scottish town of Stirling is built around a castle. It's a real castle, going back to the Middle Ages. It wasn't built as a tourist attraction and it has been the site of many major battles in Scottish history. The location of Stirling is such that whoever controlled Stirling Castle controlled Scotland. Anyone who has ever been to the castle would immediately see why it is so important. The castle is built on a huge rock standing in the middle of a plain. To the north, the Scottish highlands dramatically appear, great hills standing like sentinels, with passes disappearing between them, leading to the north of Scotland. To the south, the plain stretches out to smaller hills. Beyond them, lies England. Every invasion from the south was won or lost at Stirling. Looking down from the castle, it is possible to see where William Wallace defeated the English army at Stirling Bridge.

I wonder if anyone who heard today's gospel, while in the castle during one of the innumerable sieges it endured, would have seen the irony of the reading. To stand in the great stone castle, looking out from the battlements and feeling the sheer power and safety that the cliffs provided, while looking forwards to a messianic age, when 'God has ordered that every high mountain and the everlasting hills be made low and the valleys filled up, to make level ground, so that Israel may walk safely in the glory of God'.