For whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he shall come in his own glory, and in his Father’s, and of the holy angels. But I tell you of a truth, there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God.— St. Luke, ix. 26, 27.
In every one of the three Gospels which record the Transfiguration, these words, or words nearly identical with these, introduce the narrative of it. We should not forget them if we wish to know how the Evangelists regarded that event. But they are equally important for the illustration of every other passage in this chapter; how important they are for the life of each one of us—of each minister of Christ especially ——may He enable us to consider.
We have seen how closely the Kingdom of God is connected in the New Testament with an Epiphany or manifestation of the divine glory in human weakness, The Son of Man in His cradle, the Son of Man in His baptism, the Son of Man in all His acts of healing power, was shewing forth, through the veil of His flesh, His glory and His Father’s, and the glory of the holy angels. He was shewing that glory not to be destructive, but life-giving and restoring. What He says here is, that a time would come when this glory, which was discovering itself here and there to a few Galilean fishermen, or to a few poor lepers and lunatics, would be revealed to the universe. Here on earth there should be authentic proofs that the Kingdom of God was mightier than all which opposed it. Some were present who should not taste of death till they had evidence of its triumph.
St. Luke certainly does not intimate to us, nor do any of the Evangelists, that this promise was fulfilled in the Transfiguration. That they represent as transitory. The cloud was lifted for a moment to shew what was behind it. Then it descended again. But the voice which came out of the cloud, ‘This is ’my beloved Son,’ was the same that had been heard at the beginning. That did not pass away; that was to be the hidden strength of the Apostles while they were fulfilling their Master’s commission here; that was to be their conscious strength hereafter. If we go through the different incidents of the chapter, we shall see how they were learning the lesson; how difficult it was; how one side of it seemed to clash with another; how necessary it was that they should have glimpses and foretastes of the glory; how necessary it was that they should be led to it through ever fresh humiliation.
(1.) The opening of their work as Apostles is grand. It is spoken of in the first verse of this chapter. ‘He gave them power and authority over all devils, and to cure diseases.’ I have told you that I am obliged to take the language literally, that I cannot explain it away. I think the whole Gospel is the news of a battle of the Spirit of good against the spirits of evil, of man’s Deliverer against man’s tormentors… These poor Galileans were to enter into that battle, to bear arms in it. If they could not contend with invisible foes, they had no work to do at all. They had no weapons against visible oppressors. If these are all that disturb the peace of men’s minds or the health of their bodies, the message which the Apostles carried was, from first to last, a mockery; the power which that message has exerted over mankind has been the power of a lie. That there was no magic in them to encounter diseases or death, their preaching proved. They preached of the Kingdom of God. They declared that the God of Abraham was delivering the children of Abraham from plagues which tormented them. The Apostles were witnesses of His presence, of His care for those who had most excuse for fancying that He had forgotten them or that he hated them.
But along with these great powers were the tokens of their poverty. They were to go forth taking nothing for their journey, neither staves nor scrip, neither bread, neither money; they were not to have two coats apiece. Visible insignificance accompanied Invisible energy. And yet that invisible energy was not to make them in the least independent of ordinary mortal support; it was not to make them independent even of the persons to whom they ministered. Those who received them would give them what they needed; they were to trust their fellow-creatures as well as God. But they were to abide in the house into which they went at first, not seeking better entertainment elsewhere; if they were rejected in any city, they were to bear witness, in the ordinary Jewish way, that a divine blessing had been proclaimed and offered to its inhabitants, and that they would not have the blessing.
(2.) This message concerning a kingdom, and these exercises of royal power to attest it, could not be indifferent to the rulers who were reigning in Palestine as creatures of the Roman Empire, by its appointment and authority. Herod hears strange tidings of one who, as the people suppose, may be a reappearance of John the Baptist lately beheaded, who may be Elijah, who may be some other of the prophets. He is puzzled; all these opinions are possible; perhaps the supposed king may be less formidable in actual presence than in a vague report. Herod desires to see Him. The curiosity is not gratified at that time. When the Apostles return from their mission, Jesus takes them into a desert place, near the city which is called Bethsaida. Men who have been doing any unusual work need retirement. In the crowd these poor peasants might have spoken of the great things they could do, how much mightier they were than Herod. Quietness with their Master may restore the balance of their minds.
(3.) Retirement is good, but not as a luxury. The people pursue Jesus; He speaks to them of the Kingdom of Heaven. He heals those that have need of healing. Then follows the story of His feeding the five thousand men with the five loaves and fishes. All four Evangelists speak of it. From St. John’s narrative we discover that this act made a kind of impression on the multitude which the cures had not made. They wished to take Jesus by force and make Him a king. They were reminded of the manna which had fallen upon the Jewish camp. This man must have some power of dispensing gifts from heaven—not upon one here and there but upon great bodies of men. ’Was not this the monarch they were looking for? St. Luke does not report the discourse which took off the edge of this admiration. The message concerning One who could give them better bread than the bread that perisheth, who would give His flesh for the life of the world, concerns the purpose of St. John’s Gospel. It would have been out of place here. But St. Luke does relate a conversation with the disciples, which seems to have been suggested by the remarks of the people who had been eating of the loaves. Like the discourse reported by the other Evangelist, it raised and yet depressed their thoughts and hopes respecting His kingdom.
(4.) ‘And it came to pass as he was alone praying, his disciples were with him: and he asked them, saying, Whom say the people that I am?’ They had heard the surmises which perplexed Herod, and which were common, no doubt, in Galilee. The spirit of some old prophet had passed into Him; of which prophet there were different opinions. ‘He said unto them, But whom say ye that I am? Peter answering said, The Christ of God,’
‘It is not the spirit of some prophet which has taken possession of Thee. It is the Spirit of God Himself. He has anointed Thee.’ That is involved in the very name Christ, even if we do not join to it the words which St. Matthew ascribes to St. Peter, ‘The Son of the living God’ The fact that ‘He had been praying,’ which St. Luke gives us, may have added strength to the conviction. There may have been an illumination in the countenance at that moment which will have come to the fishermen with the force of a revelation. That it was a revelation not an outward one, even if there were some sign which fixed and attracted the Apostle as the burning bush did the old lawgiver—our Lord Himself, according to St. Matthew, declared. ‘Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.’ The Spirit who is in the Christ has taught thee of Him, The Father has brought thee to confess the Son.
(5.) But then comes the other aspect, the reverse side, of the discovery. ‘And he straitly charged them, and commanded them to tell no man that thing; saying, The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be raised the third day.’ The glory of the Christ, the Son of God, could not be manifested in the most august words. It could only come forth in suffering. Only the Cross could make it known, Only in enduring death and overcoming death could He shew what His oneness with God was; only so could it be shewn what His oneness with men was.
(6.) Here is the foundation of Christian theology, here is the foundation of Christian morality. My friends, a frightful attempt has been made in our days to put asunder what God has joined inseparably, eternally together. It has been said that the sacrifice of Christ to his Father has nothing to do with our sacrifice of ourselves. It has been said that to bring the thoughts together is little short of blasphemy. But our Lord Himself brings them together here and everywhere. He makes His sacrifice the very ground of all other sacrifices, the only power in which they can be offered, that which alone interprets and blesses them. ‘And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life (or his soul) shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life (or his soul) for my sake, the same shall save it.’ The absolute giving up of Himself—His life or soul-—to His Father on the Cross, is declared to be the consummate act of the Christ, the Son of the living God. And those who would follow Him are told that they must do the same. They must not seek to save their lives or souls. They must give them up to Him. The Son of Man, not their own souls, must be the object which they set before them if they would really have His salvation.
A mighty paradox, surely! yet one which every day and hour of human experience establishes as a fundamental truth. The self-seeker must lose his heart, soul, all his faculties, in that base pursuit. He who loses himself rises to a higher life. You repeat the lesson continually. You cannot help reverencing the man who gives himself for his family, his country, his convictions. You cannot help despising the man who gives up his family, his country, his convictions, to save himself. You are sure the one attains the blessings which he seems to abandon, that the other abandons the blessings which he seems to attain. Alas! alas! it has been supposed that in our religious life the doctrine is reversed. There, it is said, we are to be self-seekers. Everything is to give way to the object of saving ourselves. Men even dare to plead our Lord’s authority in this very passage for that contradiction of His example. They quote the question, ‘What is a man advantaged if he shall gain the whole world and lose himself, or be cast away.’ They tear it from its context. They refuse to read it by the light of the sentence which has immediately preceded. They deny what has just been solemnly declared, that every man must lose himself who would be saved.’ My friends! Christ does not set aside the verdict which He has taught our consciences to give respecting every instance of self-sacrifice. He ratifies it. He shews the true principle of it. We are created to give up ourselves for the Son of Man, the Head and King of our race. It is our privilege to lose in Him these miserable selves which have been our torments, which have always divided us from each other, which have always come between us and every high object. And therefore the words of my text have this blessed and this terrible signification. ‘Whosoever seeks something for himself, and not that salvation which I the Son of Man have revealed to mankind, shall not know what my glory is, the glory of the Father, the glory of His holy angels. But those who seek me shall, even before they die, have a vision of my Kingdom. They shall know that I am the Lord of the whole earth.’
(7.) To sustain them in the expectation of this future revelation, to shew them that the glory was real, although their eyes could not bear the sight of it, was surely a reason—if we might dare to assign a reason—for that vision upon Tabor, which so soon passed away. ‘It is described in a few simple words. The anxiety of the Evangelists seems not to fix our minds upon it, but to shew that it could not stay. He who said, ’It is good for us to be here, and let us make three tabernacles, knew not what he said’ And yet the Transfiguration has lived on through ages, and has shed its light upon all ages. It has brought the past into union with the present. Moses and Elijah have been felt to be not dead forms, but living men, because the Son of God and the Son of Man lives. The decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem has been owned as the bond of fellowship between those who walk the earth, and suffer in it, and those who are departed from it. In the light of that countenance which was altered, of that raiment which was white and glistering, all human countenances have acquired a brightness, all common things have been transfigured. A glimpse of the divine beauty has broken through the darkness, and has cheered the humblest pilgrims. They have been unable to pierce the gloom of their own destinies, perhaps to shake off the coil of their own unbelief. But they have had a sense of a Son of Man who was higher than they; who could see farther than they saw; who could unravel all threads; who could discover beneath all that appeared most hopeless, the glory of Himself and His Father and the holy angels.
(8.) Greatly has this impression been deepened by the story of the boy in epilepsy, which follows so immediately upon the Tabor vision. The spirit which rent and tore him, the crowd of spectators, the questioning of the scribes, the impotency of the disciples, the agony of the father—who would not hold these to be the most flagrant contrasts to the brightness, stillness, awfulness of the scene above? Thanks be to God! such contrasts form the harmony of the Gospel. Thanks be to God, the ugliest facts are never in that Gospel softened or kept out of sight, that there may be more room for celestial contemplation. Thanks be to God, those ugly facts are never, while that Gospel lasts, able to conceal the divine love, but are penetrated by it, are the means of discovering it to poor men. For we have not here the picture of a lazy benevolence, looking down from a serene region of enjoyment upon a world of misery and wishing it well. We have the history of a divine descent into the misery to wrestle with it, to bring back the victims of it into the home of peace from which they had wandered.
(9.) ‘And they were all amazed at the mighty power of God. But, while they wondered every one at all things which Jesus did, he said unto his disciples, Let these sayings sink down into your ears: for the Son of man shall be delivered into the hands of men.’ He whom they had seen in that glory, He who had done these works at which they were amazed, would be given up in weakness and helplessness into the power of men, to be scorned and crucified. Was it wonderful that they understood not this saying, and it was hid from them, that they perceived it not, and they feared to ask him of that saying?
(10.) They had something to learn before that saying could become intelligible to them. ‘Then there arose a reasoning among them, which of them should be greatest. And Jesus, perceiving the thought of their heart, took a child, and set him by him, and said unto them, Whosoever shall receive this child in my name receiveth me: and whosoever shall receive me receiveth him that sent me: for he that is least among you all, the same shall be great.’ While the dispute who should be the greatest went on among them, they could not enter into the humiliation of the Son of Man; therefore they could not enter into His glory. When they saw Him in every little child, they would begin to have some apprehension of His royalty and Divinity. But that they might receive Him and His Father in the little child, they must cease to be proud men.