Preached at Lilleshall, 1860.
“And after six days, Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John, his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart, and was transfigured before them.”—Matthew xvii. 1, 2.
I have heard strange things in the second lesson. Let me try to recall them to you, and let us then think what they have to do with us, who are met in this church to-day.
Three fishermen, who are called here Peter, James, and John, had left their father’s ship and their nets. A person had said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” They had felt that they must follow Him. He had a right to call them. Their business was to obey. They had gone with Him wherever He went. He had explained to them the world in which they were dwelling. It seemed as if they had never known the commonest thing before. Yet He spoke of very common things—of sowers sowing corn; of husbandmen hiring themselves out for the day; of fishermen getting good and bad fish into their nets. These old things became new to them, when He spoke of them. And what was more, through these things He enabled them to understand what was passing in themselves. He showed them what a wonderful world was within them. And He spoke to them of a Father who had created the world which they saw with their eyes, and who ruled over that inner world which they could not see. He called that especially God’s kingdom. His Father watched over the ravens and the lilies; but their hearts were His own dearest treasure.
These poor men had listened to these discourses of Jesus, and they had seen His acts. They had been with Him when He healed the sick, and raised the dead, and cast out devils. They had these proofs that He was a king; and moreover He had given them power to do as He did. They were sent to preach the Kingdom of God, and to heal the sick. So their countrymen were to find out what kind of kingdom that was; so they were to see that their King was their friend and deliverer.
But there was nothing in the appearance of their teacher which marked Him out from other men. He was not clothed more gorgeously. He stood aloof from none, even the poorest. They were not the wise nor the great who were His chosen companions. He hungered and was weary, as they were. He seemed to feel the sicknesses which He took away. He had told them that He should die, and die by a shocking death, the death of slaves and criminals.
On a certain day, St. Matthew says, He led these fishermen to a lonely place in a high mountain; and then a sudden change came over Him. His garments became white. His face became bright and glorious, like no face they had ever looked upon; and presently there were companions with Him, who had not come up the mountain. They were men who had dwelt on the earth ages before. One was the old lawgiver and deliverer of the Israelites, that Moses who had brought them out of Egypt, and had died before they entered the promised land. The other was Elijah the prophet, who bore witness for the Lord God, when the king and the people had forsaken Him. The fishermen were not left in doubt who they were. They talked with Jesus. They spoke not of the law, nor of the wandering of the Israelites, nor of Elijah’s chariot of fire; they spoke of the death that Jesus should die in Jerusalem—that they seemed to care for more, and account more wonderful than all that they had known while they walked the earth, and all they had known since they left the earth.
It was a marvellous vision; the eyes of the Apostles were dazzled. Peter wanted to stay always on the mountain, and to build tabernacles for his Master, and for Moses, and for Elijah. But he knew not what he said. While he was speaking, a cloud overshadowed them; a voice was heard, saying to them, “This is my Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased: hear ye Him.” They fell on their faces, and were sore afraid, till another voice said to them, “Arise, and be not afraid.” It was their Master. He was with them still.
But the strangers were gone. The brightness had passed away.
We find them next coming down from the mount. They are wondering as you may suppose. He, with whom they spoke so freely, so familiarly, is then a very awful being. Moses and Elijah do Him homage. The voice spoke of Him as a Son. Are they to proclaim Him by that name? Not yet! the time will come. But He must first die and rise again; till then they are to tell the vision to no man. Must they not now ask questions of their Master, as they did before? They cannot help asking Him questions; the sight they have seen obliges them to ask Him. Who else can give them an answer? They had been always told that some divine person was to come. But their teachers had said that Elijah would come first to prepare His way. They had seen Elijah on the Mount. Was he coming into the world again? Their Master tells them that one had come in the spirit and power of Elijah, to prepare His way. In John the Baptist, clad in camel’s hair and with a leathern girdle, they had seen God’s prophet. But he had been beheaded; and the Son of God would not have better, but worse treatment.
So they converse as they come down the slope of the hill. At the bottom of it they find a great crowd; some of their companions are in it. There is loud disputing. In the midst of it is a boy, tossed about in a fit, foaming at the mouth, not to be held; his father has been begging Christ’s Apostles to cure him. They have tried and failed. Here is a change from that still mountain, with the white garments, and the glorious face, and the holy men of the old world. Nothing but clamour and anguish and helplessness; at first it seems as if the boy’s case were indeed hopeless. The voice of Christ only increases his raving, but at last he becomes quiet; the spirit that tormented him departs; he is cured from that hour.
All this history is contained in a few verses. You can read it over in two or three minutes. But for eighteen centuries it has had hold of people’s hearts. It has been written of, spoken of, turned into beautiful pictures. Every man who has thought about it seriously has felt that it was a message for him and for all men, and not only for Peter, James, and John, for the disciples below the mountain, for the boy, and his father. Why have they thought so? What message has it for us?
I have told you that Jesus called these poor fishermen, and that He walked with them, and opened their minds to truths that had been hidden from them. Was not that a special privilege of theirs? No, brethren; Jesus called Himself the Son of Man. He selected these disciples from the humblest class of men, that they might be specimens to all men of what He is doing for them. It was not because the disciples saw Christ with their eyes, that they were able to receive His instruction. He spoke to something within them which could not see it. He spoke to their hearts; they understood Him better after they had ceased to see Him than when they could look into His face, and when His lips moved to answer their questions. And therefore do not doubt me when I say He is teaching you and me, even as He taught them. He is walking with us, as He walked with them. Every one of us may believe that. As you sow, or reap, or go gleaning, you may be sure there is an eye upon you, and that eye is the eye of the Son of Man; you may be sure that a teacher is with you, and that teacher is the Son of Man; you may be sure that there are parables in your fields, as there were in the fields of Galilee through which He walked, parables in all your doings as servants or masters, which He can draw out of them, as He drew them out of the common tasks which His disciples were engaged in.
Whatever we are busy about, God has set us that business. And there is a way of doing it which is the right way, which is His way; and the Son of Man would open our hearts to understand that right way, and to shun the wrong way; and when we learn the right way from Him, then He shows us more. He enables us to see that God governs us, and governs the world according to that right and true way which He has marked for us in our little pursuits and toils.
My friends, if we did think that we have this secret friend and teacher with us at all times, and that He is the secret friend and teacher of our neighbours too, it would be a mighty help to us. And then we should understand that, if we ourselves or our friends fall sick and we recover, it is Christ who raises up, as He raised up the palsied men and the lepers in the cities of Galilee; that when a man who was possessed with all bad thoughts and was running on in a bad way, a drunkard and a fornicator, a man full of spite and malice, comes to his right mind, it is because Christ drives the devil out of him. And then we begin to believe that when men go out of the world, He does not leave them, but raises them again, as truly as He raised Lazarus in this world. We are dull in our faith just as the disciples were. But Christ can kindle it in us all by His Spirit, and we should ask that He will.
And sometimes it comes to pass that He makes men now-a-days, as He made Peter and James and John, feel that He who has been speaking to them in their private walks, and teaching them things they would never have learned but for Him, and curing their sicknesses, is indeed the King of glory, the Prince of all the earth. Sometimes men have felt, perhaps when they were kneeling at the Lord’s Supper, eating the bread and drinking the wine—perhaps when they were in lonely chambers, or in prisons for righteousness’ sake—that they were not with Him only, but with His saints, with those who had left the world, with the noble men of other days, with the friends whom they had lost out of their sight. All these have been drawn together by His cross; all have owned Him as their common Lord, who has died, and who lives.
Only three of the disciples were on the Mount. And only two or three, just at rare times, may feel as if they were carried into a brighter world, and as if they beheld things as they are, not hidden by the mists of our earth. I do not know to whom God grants such manifestations; but I have no doubt from what I have read that there are some, probably those who have some special work or suffering to go through—humble people, I dare to say, of whom the world takes no note. But this also we should remember, these bright visions soon pass away. A cloud comes over those who have enjoyed them; and to them, too, there comes a voice out of the cloud, ‘This is my Son, hear Him.’ That is to say, what you are to learn from the vision is to be more meek and gentle, as the Son of Man is; to observe more what He is saying to you in all common things; to be more thoughtful about other people, because He is thoughtful about them. Hear His commandment to be true and faithful in all your transactions with your fellow-men; hear Him warning you, when you are tempted to be vain and greedy; hear His voice checking you when you are exalted, and bidding you arise and be not afraid when you are downcast. You know it is the voice of the Son of God. And He tells you not to speak much of anything that merely concerns yourself, if you have ever so much reason to be thankful for it. Speak of His resurrection from the dead which concerns all persons living as well as you.
And now you see how the remaining part of the story also belongs to us. Men who have had hours of quietness and peace and bright visions, do not like the noise and clatter of the crowd. They find it very distracting. They would rather forget that people are disputing, and that ministers of God are proving their weakness, and that men are tormented with all kinds of plagues and sorrows. But God does not let them forget it. In this world they are to live and work. If they are Christ’s disciples, these are the sights they must witness continually, not those on the Mount. They must be continually taught, which is harder still, their own folly, and ignorance, and incapacity; and if they will get these lessons by heart, there are others and more cheering ones for them. Christ is in the crowd, as He was in the Mount. He is showing His power in the midst of noisy, disputatious men. He is doing what His disciples cannot do. He is at work to help fathers and children to whom no mortal can bring help. The disciples got at least a diviner teaching, they knew more of Christ, from what they saw below the mountain, than from what they saw upon it. They learnt more fully that Christ was the Son of Man, and that He cares for all men; they learnt more that He was the Son of God, and that He had come into the world to do His Father’s work. And so may all of us learn more of the Son of Man and the Son of God from our own sufferings, and from the sufferings of others, than we could learn if we were carried out of the world and saw His countenance shining like the light, and Moses and Elias talking with Him.
But that vision was not granted to the disciples for nothing; and it is not for nothing that we are permitted to read of it in this distant land, so long after it has departed. It was to tell the disciples, and to tell us that one day He who appeared on earth as a poor man, walking with poor men, and dying the death of a slave, would appear in the glory of His Father and of His holy angels; that Moses and Elijah, and every one of those who had done His work on earth, would be with Him. It was to tell them, and to tell us that every human creature shall see Him when He is manifested in His glory; that all the mists which have hidden Him from us shall be scattered; that the quick and the dead shall alike hear His voice. It was to tell them and us that this glory will only confound us and overwhelm us if we are not listening to Him now, living for Him now; that if we are, if we are asking Him to purge us from our sins and make us true men, we shall long for His appearing to end the conflict and anguish of the world, and to set all things right.