Matthew 17:1-13

Chapter 70

Prayer

Almighty God, we hasten unto thee as men who are chased by a great fear or driven by the necessity of pain. There is no rest but in thyself, nor is there any healing for the sore heart but in the grace that is all sufficient. We fly unto thee; yea, our hearts long with much yearning and pining of love to be for ever with the Lord. Place us where thou wilt, but be thou with us, and the place is heaven. We would never be without thee, we would have thee within us and without us, a crown upon the head, a fire in the heart, a voice filling the sanctuary of the whole life. Thou hast thyself given unto us this desire; and, behold, whilst we cherish it, it purifies the soul and lifts up the whole nature towards the shining and holy heavens.

Jesus Christ thy Son is our Saviour, mighty to save, able to save unto the uttermost; his mercy endureth for ever. He saved others, himself he did not save. He was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification, and he is now in heaven, turning our poor prayer into his all-inclusive and all-prevalent intercession. Whilst we look upon Jesus Christ, there is no pain in the heart because of sin: the blood of Jesus Christ thy Son cleanseth from all sin. Keep our hearts steadily fixed upon the cross, then shall the power of sin be broken within us, and out of our hearts there shall go one fervent desire to be like the Saviour himself. That we should have such thoughts as these is of the Lord's doing no creations of our own are these. This also cometh forth from the Lord of Hosts: we see his hand herein, and herein do we hear his voice.

Continue to establish us in the love of truth; may our desire be for the light that shineth from heaven, may our one purpose be to know thy will, and to do it with both hands earnestly, as men who have but one master to please and one will to consult.

For all thy mercy how shall we praise thee in song sweet and loud enough? We fail in our praise as we fail in all other duty and service; we cannot reach the height of our own gladness, it lies beyond all our power of speech; we pray thee, therefore, to look into our hearts and to read there the songs that cannot be uttered. We have nothing that we have not received: thy name is upon all that we have enjoyed, yea thou hast spread our table, thou hast anointed our head with oil, thou hast caused our cup to run over, and what we have to fear, the valley of the shadow of death, thou hast lighted up into a way leading homeward unto the Fatherland. Thou dost give us good desires; thou knowest how these are besieged by the enemy as citadels that must be overthrown. Thou hast again and again given unto us the spirit of prayer, and yet have we been called to sore contest and fierce wrestling in the wilderness because the enemy would not allow our whole prayer to rise up unto heaven and bring down the answer from thence.

We are filled with a sense of our own mysteriousness: surely thou hast made us, and not we ourselves: we are the creatures of thine hand, and though we cannot understand ourselves, yet dost thou give us occasional light: not altogether hast thou withheld the illuminating beam. We have seen somewhat of ourselves, of our greatness and littleness, of our possibilities of union with thyself, ami of the certainty of our disunion from thee. Show us thy truth, lead us into the mystery of thy grace, and wherever we are may the cross be the centre of our circle, and may all the light we work by stream from its head.

Thou seest us through and through, and there is nothing hidden from thee. How many days we have to spend upon the earth thou knowest; our pulses have been numbered in heaven, the time of the lengthening of the shadow is set down in thy book; we know nothing, for we are but of yesterday, and tomorrow is our great hope and our great fear. Help us to stand steadfastly in the confidence that God will do all things well.

Thou hast taken away from us the delight of our eyes, as if thou didst delight in our pain and find satisfaction in the greatness of our grief; thou hast dug many graves under our hearthstone, thou hast caused the foundations of the house to tremble, and the roof has not kept out the storm yet hast thou been merciful withal. Full of tenderness, thy solaces have followed the visitations of thy rod, and thy grace has been greater than our sin. Whilst we have been speaking of death thou hast been speaking of resurrection, and in the time of our sorest grief thou hast been preparing for us our gladdest surprises. Kindly look upon us all; let thy glance have nothing in it of the fire of judgment, but all the warmth and beauty of a tender smile.

Direct those who are perplexed and sore driven and often ill at ease, to whom night brings no rest and the day brings double care; show men that prosperity itself is an opportunity for humility and lowliness before God. Teach the rich man that his riches are but for a moment, and may at any time fall out of his hand and leave him poor indeed. Teach the poor man that his poverty may become a means of grace, and may lead him to the deepest considerations which can move and elevate human thought. Speak to the young comfortably and inspiringly, chastening their enthusiasm, sanctifying the passion of their fire, and make them servants of the altar.

Send out thy messages in all directions today. Give thine angels strength to carry them everywhere. Put into the tones of thy servants music that shall find and bless the heart. May the gospel of God our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Victim and the Priest, go forth, blessing all hearts, all homes, all lands. Be with those who are in trouble on the sea, with those who must travel that they may earn an honourable livelihood, with members of our families in far-away colonies and foreign lands unite us all by the bonds of tender sympathy, and in all our hearts may there be the sure and confident hope of reunion in the land on high. Oh that our prayer might be mighty, that it might prevail in heaven, that after its Amen there might come a great peace into the heart. Amen.

Mat 17:1-13

1. And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart,

2. And was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light.

3. And, behold (introducing a greater marvel than even the metamorphosis) there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with him.

4. Then answered Peter, and said unto Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here: if thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles (arbours, forest-tents, hermitages), one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias.

5. While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them (as the Sheckinah overshadowed the Virgin), and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.

6. And when the disciples heard it, they fell on their face, and were sore afraid.

7. And Jesus came and touched them, and said, Arise, and be not afraid.

8. And when they had lifted up their eyes they saw no man, save Jesus only.

9. And as they came down from the mountain, Jesus charged them, saying, Tell the vision (Greek: what they had seen) to no man, until the Son of man be risen again from the dead.

10. And his disciples asked him, saying, Why then say the scribes that Elias must first come?

11. And Jesus answered and said unto them, Elias truly shall first come (cometh) and restore (re-establish) all things.

12. But I say unto you, That Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Likewise shall also the Son of man suffer of them.

13. Then the disciples understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist.

The Transfiguration and Revelation

There are three accounts of the transfiguration of Jesus Christ. One in the chapter we have read. Another in the ninth chapter of Mark in the tenth verse of Mark's account we read, "And they kept that saying with themselves, questioning with one another what the rising from the dead should mean." Luke has a somewhat different account, but substantially the same. He tells us that Moses and Elias spake of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem.

"And after six days." Does not everything truly religious happen after six days? Is there a measure or a subtle poetry in time? And the Lord rested the seventh day and the Lord was metamorphosed on the seventh day. Let us take note of time and of the succession of events; whilst men in other sections of life are noting laws of averages, singular points of recurrence and coincidence, let us who live in the Temple also have our eyes open towards the methods and periods of revelation, that we may be well read in the time-bill of Heaven. O fools and slow of heart, to read all the literature of the six days and understand it, and all the signs of the weather and comprehend them, and yet to leave unread and unpenetrated the secret which is the glory of all things! Luke has "after eight days." It is the same thing the two days are counted which began and ended. The three evangelists concur in stating that is was after six days the Lord was metamorphosed before three of his chosen ones. After six days we need something: after six days' toil and weariness, exhausted in strength, cast down in spirit, struck by a thousand crossing darts, we require protection, security, revelation, uplifting, an experience and gladness of better worlds.

"Jesus taketh Peter, and James, and John." He was always taking those men somewhere. He always had his three mighties as for the rest of us, it is said, "They did not attain unto the first three." We cannot understand these divine and human trinities: things duplicate one another, and are full of subtle and bewildering typologies. Similitudes that are round about us, the unwritten yet ever vivid parables, do but distress our poor weak thinking and make fools of us. Yet is there music in the mystery as there are stars hidden in the darkness. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob Peter, James, John the Old Testament and the New Testament each has its trinity of manhood. Let those who are curious about such matters and the curiosity is permissible and instructive consider the different characteristics and temperaments of these men, and see how the three are one and the one three, on earth as in heaven, and on earth as certainly as in heaven. God made man in his own image and likeness, and it takes three of us to make up the whole man. Why be little, separated, isolated creatures, having no connection with counterparts and complements? Why not answer the hunger of the heart, which says, "I am not self-complete," and go out in the direction of fellowship, union, and integrity?

"Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John, and bringeth them up into a high mountain apart." High places should bring high thoughts; matter should help spirit; no man should be vulgar on the top of a mountain. Our pulses should "be throbbing with the fulness of the spring." This is the purpose of having consecrated houses, churches set apart for one object, whose very air is full of blessing. A man ought to lose all his lower nature in the face of a sunset. It should make him religious, if not Christian. At such a farewell he should tremble with the desire to ascend himself to a purer clime. So in the church he should be alone, though urged by the crowd; he should give himself up to the genius of the place and be a child at home.

We are mountain-born, if we did but know it; we are all hill-men. There be those who take us to the high mountains to show us our littleness, and they do well. They say, "Look up, there are three thousand feet of rock above you; do you not feel small a grasshopper in the presence of such hugeness?" Partly I do, yet not wholly. Watch me as, with staff in hand, I climb, and as I climb I grow, and by-and-by I stand above the rock, and ask it if it be not a pedestal for a monument. Were I rooted in the ground and could only look at the huge elevation, I might faint in heart and say, "How little I am;" but, knowing that I can put the loftiest mountain of the earth under my feet, stand upon it and lift my hand to a height it never climbed, I am greater than the mountain. We should all betake ourselves to high places and secret temples; we should often meet God on the top of the mountain, and especially early in the morning, the time when Moses went to see the Lord. Then should we come back with the dew of heaven upon our lives, baptized anew, refreshed, and jewelled, and blessed; and the day, how thick soever should be its trials, and fierce soever its rights, should give way before us, recognising the shining of our face and the sanctity of our whole mien.

"And was transfigured before them," metamorphosed, changed into another being. He was three in one, he was one in three. Before this they had not seen their Lord, they had but seen their teacher; one ray of his glory fell upon them and startled them with a wondrous surprise. There are occasional moments when a man sees himself, when he is, so to say, metamorphosed to his own vision. Usually we live dull, gray, languid, commonplace lives; we are not often roused to our fullest strength yet now and again things occur in life which reveal us to ourselves. So also with others. We do not see one another, except it may be on a seventh day now and then, a Sabbath, a jubilee, a funeral day, when fear seizes the life and makes us show our true resources and the very roots of our strength, which are often but the roots of our weakness, a joy-day, whose air vibrates with clanging bells, a wedding day, a birthday, an emancipation day, and then from our very faces there radiates a light which never shone there in the vision of man before. We are all conscious of waking-up times, when we lay hold upon our whole strength and realize every fibre and element and force of our manhood. That is always after six days of troubled wonder, bewildering study, distracted, often shattered, often disappointed exercise of love.

Some persons we never have seen but once, though we have associated with them for years. You must keep your eye always on the face of your friend if you would really know him. When you are not looking, he may be himself it was when you did not see him that he gave the revealing look, it was when you did not hear him that the revealing tone entered into his voice a word, a cry, a glance, a touch, and the vision is past, for ever.

Jesus talked to Moses and Elias, and they spake to him of the decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem. The English word decease does not hold all the meaning of that profound, most mysterious interview. They talked of the decessus , the exodus of Moses, the exodus which Moses left unaccomplished, the outgoing which seemed to have no corresponding incoming. They spoke of the decessus , the exodus of the nobler Moses, who would bring to perfectness of accomplishment the outgoing and the homecoming, for he should accomplish the decessus at Jerusalem, mayhap not the death only, coming back into resurrection, but the other part of the decessus , the outgoing, the uprising, the ascension, the whole tragedy a subject worthy of such speakers.

Why do we detach ourselves from our ancestry above? We belong to the grand heroic days. We never meet in God's house without coming to an innumerable company of angels, and the spirits of the just made perfect. We also are compassed about with a great cloud of witnesses; why let our eyes plunge themselves in the cold walls as terminal lines? We are not come to the mount that might be touched, but to Mount Zion, more a life than a mountain, the church of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. When these reflections seize the mind and fill it with all their poetry and stir it with all their ineffable passion, we too are metamorphosed, our hymn is not sung by ourselves alone; or, if we have a hymn of our own, they have a hymn of theirs, and the hymns melt and blend, and being transfused, strength to strength, passion to passion, "They sing the Lamb in hymns above, And we in hymns below." We are limited and humbled by our weakness, they are conscious of immortality and imperishable strength. They in the kingdom of his light, we in the kingdom of his trial the kingdoms are but one. Why do we detach ourselves from the grand unity of humanity, why do we set up ourselves in petty self-completeness? Thus we lose everything: we are scattered pebbles, not a massive and sacred temple. Adam and Moses, Elias and Isaiah, Peter and Paul these are my ancestors. Thus "the dead loom upon us large and solemn, not to dwarf our stature, but to show to what bigness we may grow." And when I see to what company I belong, the blood of a thousand generations quickens within me, and I say, "They that are with me are more than they that are against me."

Realize the unity of history, far outstretching lines that begin apparently in the cross and that do really begin there, if we make the cross the first of figures, set up before the foundation of the world, and then see how in Christ all things are united that are in heaven above or on earth beneath, in the far-away twilight of history, in its present sinning and fighting, and in its last developments and completions. He is Alpha and Omega, the First, the Last, the Beginning and the End, the Root and the Offspring of David, the bright and Morning Star. The Root and the Offspring always contradicting himself in words; always putting the world's pedantry to vexation; and yet always, in a large reconciliation of thought, finding a nobler eloquence than in the smooth nothings of men who would rather perish than be literally inconsistent. He himself is a contradiction, the contradiction of all history, the puzzle of all life what wonder therefore that in words he should oftentimes appear to be a paradox and a self-contradiction, at once a root and an offspring?

This metamorphosis probably happened at night. Probably, because Luke says, "And the next day," and probably, also, because of the overwhelming sleep which the disciples felt. Perhaps it was not what we call now sleep, perhaps it was a clairvoyant state. It was no slothful sleep, otherwise the purpose of the Lord had been frustrated in taking them up the mountain to behold the metamorphosis. It was a singular stupefaction a bewilderment, an almost insanity and incoherence, a strange shaking and inspiration of the inner nature, in which the men saw and heard and lived as they never saw and heard and lived before. How the light shone upon the background of the dark firmament, the great arch one gleam, and on it a shining figure, white as the light, and the raiment streaming with rays. "I am the light of the world" all light concentred in that shining Figure, coming out of it and returning to it. That was the true light that lighted every man that cometh into the world. Do not blame the disciples as if they had fallen into a slothful sleep: there are times when we cannot give a correct account of ourselves or an account that is socially satisfactory we know not what we say or what we do. Unless a man has been in some such high moods as these he cannot read the New Testament: he does but babble its alphabet, he does not articulate tunefully and in all the pathos of its music the inner eloquence of heaven.

They came down from the mountain: they were not made to live high up in the air or to pine in solitary places. We must not always be in the formal church. One day in seven, then down again! But, in going down, always take the mountain with you. It is possible to take the mountain home for what other purpose have we our vacations, holidays, times of change and rest? Do we leave the Alps out yonder, or do we bring them to the towns and live upon them all the year, till the next time comes for the seventh day of metamorphosis and revelation and up-looking? If persons can go to Alpine lands and traverse Alpine heights and come back without bringing the Alps with them, what wonder if they can read the New Testament through without its touching their hearts? Bring the sea home with you, and the great mountain and the cooling snow, and the bracing air and the blue heaven, and the singing birds and the summers of various lands, and these will be the very roots and sources of sustenance during the whole period of service and suffering and divers ministries. Take the church home with you, carry Sunday all through the week, and you will find how wondrously adapted it is to measure the whole span of the intervening time between itself and itself. Never leave the church, take it take it home!

They were to tell no man what they had seen. We cannot tell all we know: we have secrets that make the heart throb double life, and we should be poor if we parted with them. We have all had experiences of Christ which we could not tell, for no words have been invented for such experiences. Such looks he has thrown upon us, such warmth he has communicated to us, such promises he has whispered to the heart we have laid our head upon his shoulder and cried like little children, and we have been stronger for the sweet sorrow. When we have told all we have to tell, we have not begun the tale: we have secret faiths, secret hopes, secret delights all in keeping with the central truth, but each with an accent unintelligible to the general ear.

Hard lesson "Tell no man." Who does not like to speak when he has seen great sights or heard sounds of unusual music? Christ has here given the disciples one of their first lessons in the cross. He has just told us, "If any man will follow Me, he must take up his cross daily." In this injunction, Jesus causes the disciples to feel the first pressure of what will become a great weight, namely, the cross of crucifixion. Learn the lesson of self-suppression, learn the mystery of silence; the wild-talking man never comes to any rich maturity of life. We must always know more than we have ever told: every author must be greater than his books, every singer greater than his song, every preacher more than his sermon. Do not babble: think. Keep all these things and ponder them in your heart the uses of all will be seen presently. Does Jesus Christ ever tune the instrument for the purpose of hanging it up on the wall? What musician would do so? He tunes it that he may discourse eloquent music upon it. So when he grants us white and shining revelations of himself and his purpose, it is that we may go down the mountain and heal the lunatic that is raving at its base.

"They questioned with one another what the rising from the dead should mean." The Lord always gives us a problem to save us from intellectual stagnation. Read the life of Jesus Christ, and find how oftentimes he challenges the understanding, the genius, the intellectual penetration and sagacity of man. "What think ye of Christ?" "What is a man profited, if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" And here the disciples wonder what the rising from the dead should mean. Death had not entered into their calculations, death was an element which they had excluded from all their reckoning and thinking. We do exclude from our narrow sums the figures which would first contract and afterwards expand and glorify them. We are still wondering what the rising of the dead shall mean. We are still wondering what our departed ones are doing they are never sick, they are never in pain, they are never weary thanks for knowledge so much, but I want to know more: are they ever here? how much do they see? what do they know? do they think about us, pray for us, pluck fruit for us from the upper trees, and convey it to the heart by secret messages? Here we are left with a great wonder, walking up the mountain, walking down, wonder follows wonder, and still we live a life of wild or chastened sorrow.

When he came down from the mountain how did he use his exalted and ennobled passion? Did Jesus Christ contemn the people, or did he neglect them? Nay, he rebuked unbelief and he healed affliction. That is to be our work. After our mountain meetings and high festivals of rapture, our supreme hours of joy, let us go down the mountain to reaffirm and to heal.