Historical Writings

ON THE MORROW OF THE TRANSFIGURATION
(St. Matthew 17:9-21; St. Mark 9:9-29: St. Luke 9:37-43.)

IT was the early dawn of another summer's day when the Master and His disciples turned their steps once more towards the plain. They had seen His Glory; they had had the most solemn witness which, as Jews, the could have; and they had gained a new knowledge of the Old Testament. It all bore reference to the Christ, and it spake of His Decease. Perhaps on that morning better than in the previous night did they realise the vision, and feel its calm happiness. It was to their souls like the morning-air which they breathed on that mountain.

It would be only natural, that their thoughts should also wander to the companions and fellow-disciples whom, on the previous evening, they had left in the valley beneath. How much they had to tell them, and how glad they would be of the tidings they would hear! That one night had for ever answered so many questions about that most hard of all His sayings: concerning His Rejection and violent Death at Jerusalem; it had shed heavenly light into that terrible gloom! They - at least these three - had formerly simply submitted to the saying of Christ because it was His, without understanding it; but now they had learned to see it in quite another light. How they must have longed to impart it to those whose difficulties were at least as great, perhaps greater, who perhaps had not yet recovered from the rude shock which their Messianic thoughts and hopes had so lately received. We think here especially of those, whom, so far as individuality of thinking is concerned, we may designate as the representative three, and the counterpart of the three chosen Apostles: Philip, who ever sought firm standing-ground for faith; Thomas, who wanted evidence for believing; and Judas, whose burning Jewish zeal for a Jewish Messiah had already begun to consume his own soul, as the wind had driven back upon himself the flame that had been kindled. Every question of a Philip, every doubt of a Thomas, every despairing wild outburst of a Judas, would be met by what they had now to tell.

But it was not to be so. Evidently, it was not an event to be made generally known, either to the people or even to the great body of the disciples. They could not have understood its real meaning; they would have misunderstood, and in their ignorance misapplied to carnal Jewish purposes, its heavenly lessons. But even the rest of the Apostles must not know of it: that they were not qualified to witness it, proved that they were not prepared to hear of it. We cannot for a moment imagine, that there was favouritism in the selection of certain Apostles to share in what the others might not witness. It was not because these were better loved, but because they were better prepared 1 - more fully receptive, more readily acquiescing, more entirely self-surrendering. Too often we commit in our estimate the error of thinking of them exclusively as Apostles, not as disciples; as our teachers, not as His learners, with all the failings of men, the prejudices of Jews, and the unbelief natural to us all, but assuming in each individual special forms, and appearing as characteristic weaknesses.

And so it was that, when the silence of that morning-descent was broken, the Master laid on them the command to tell no man of this vision, till after the Son of Man were risen from the dead. This mysterious injunction of silence affords another presumptive evidence against the invention, or the rationalistic explanations, or the mythical origin of this narrative. It also teaches two further lessons. The silence thus enjoined was the first step into the Valley of Humiliation. It was also a test, whether they had understood the spiritual teaching of the vision. And their strict obedience, not questioning even the grounds of the injunction, proved that they had learned it. So entire, indeed, was their submission, that they dared not even ask the Master about a new and seemingly greater mystery than they had yet heard: the meaning of the Son of Man rising from the Dead. 2 Did it refer to the general Resurrection; was the Messiah to be the first to rise from the dead, and to waken the other sleepers - or was it only a figurative expression for His triumph and vindication? Evidently, they knew as yet nothing of Christ's Personal Resurrection as separate from that of others, and on the third day after His Death. And yet it was so near! So ignorant were they, and so unprepared! And they dared not ask the Master of it. This much they had already learned: not to question the mysteries of the future, but simply to receive them. But in their inmost hearts they kept that saying - as the Virgin-Mother had kept many a like saying - carrying it about 'with them' as a precious living germ that would presently spring up and bear fruit, or as that which would kindle into light and chase all darkness. But among themselves, then and many times afterwards, in secret converse, they questioned what the rising again from the dead should mean. 3

There was another question, and it they might ask of Jesus, since it concerned not the mysteries of the future, but the lessons of the past. Thinking of that vision, of the appearance of Elijah and of his speaking of the Death of the Messiah, why did the Scribes say that Elijah should first come - and, as was the universal teaching, for the purpose of restoring all things? If, as they had seen, Elijah had come, but only for a brief season, not to abide, along with Moses, as they had fondly wished when they proposed to rear them booths; if he had come not to the people but to Christ, in view of only them three - and they were not even to tell of it; and, if it had been, not to prepare for a spiritual restoration, but to speak of what implied the opposite: the Rejection and violent Death of the Messiah - then, were the Scribes right in their teaching, and what was its real meaning? The question afforded the opportunity of presenting to the disciples not only a solution of their difficulties, but another insight into the necessity of His Rejection and Death. They had failed to distinguish between the coming of Elijah and its alternative sequence. Truly 'Elias cometh first' - and Elijah had 'come already' in the person of John the Baptist. The Divinely intended object of Elijah's coming was to 'restore all things.' This, of course, implied a moral element in the submission of the people to God, and their willingness to receive his message. Otherwise there was this Divine alternative in the prophecy of Malachi: 'Lest I come to smite the land with the ban' (Cherem). Elijah had come; if the people had received his message, there would have been the promised restoration of all things. As the Lord had said on a previous occasion 4: 'If ye are willing to receive him, 5 this is Elijah, which is to come.' Similarly, if Israel had received the Christ, He would have gathered them as a hen her chickens for protection; He would not only have been, but have visibly appeared as, their King. But Israel did not know their Elijah, and did unto him whatsoever they listed; and so, in logical sequence, would the Son of Man also suffer of them. And thus has the other part of Malachi's prophecy been fulfilled: and the land of Israel been smitten with the ban. 6

Amidst such conversation the descent from the mountain was accomplished. Presently they found themselves in view of a scene, which only too clearly showed that unfitness of the disciples for the heavenly vision of the preceding night, to which reference has been made. For, amidst the divergence of details between the narratives of St. Matthew and St. Mark, and, so far as it goes, that of St. Luke, the one point in which they almost literally and emphatically accord is, when the Lord speaks of them, in language of bitter disappointment and sorrow, as a generation with whose want of faith, notwithstanding all that they had seen and learned, He had still to bear, expressly attributing 7 their failure in restoring the lunatick, to their 'unbelief.' 8

It was, indeed, a terrible contrast between the scene below and that vision of Moses and Elijah, when they had spoken of the Exodus of the Christ, and the Divine Voice had attested the Christ from out the luminous cloud. A concourse of excited people - among them once more 'Scribes,' who had tracked the Lord and come upon His weakest disciples in the hour of their greatest weakness - is gathered about a man who had in vain brought his lunatick son for healing. He is eagerly questioned by the multitude, and moodily answers; or, as it might almost seem from St. Matthew, 9 he is leaving the crowd and those from whom he had vainly sought help. This was the hour of triumph for these Scribes. The Master had refused the challenge in Dalmanutha, and the disciples, accepting it, had signally failed. There they were, 'questioning with them' noisily, discussing this and all similar phenomena, but chiefly the power, authority, and reality of the Master. It reminds us of Israel's temptation in the wilderness, and we should scarcely wonder, if they had even questioned the return of Jesus, as they of old did that of Moses.

At that very moment, Jesus appeared with the three. We cannot wonder that, 'when they saw Him, they were greatly amazed, 10 and running to Him saluted Him.' 11 He came - as always, and to us also - unexpectedly, most opportunely, and for the real decision of the question in hand. 12 There was immediate calm, preceding victory. Before the Master's inquiry about the cause of this violent discussion could be answered, the man who had been its occasion came forward. With lowliest gesture ('kneeling to Him' 13) he addressed Jesus. At last he had found Him, Whom he had come to seek; and, if possibility of help there were, oh! let it be granted. Describing the symptoms of his son's distemper, which were those of epilepsy and mania - although both the father and Jesus rightly attributed the disease to demoniac influence - he told, how he had come in search of the Master, but only found the nine disciples, and how they had presumptuously attempted, and signally failed in the attempted cure.

Why had they failed? For the same reason, that they had not been taken into the Mount of Transfiguration - because they were 'faithless,' because of their 'unbelief.' They had that outward faith of the 'probatum est' ('it is proved'); they believed because, and what, they had seen; and they were drawn closer to Christ - at least almost all of them, though in varying measure - as to Him Who, and Who alone, spake 'the words of eternal life,' which, with wondrous power, had swayed their souls, or laid them to heaven's rest. But that deeper, truer faith, which consisted in the spiritual view of that which was the unseen in Christ, and that higher power, which flows from such apprehension, they had not. In such faith as they had, they spake, repeated forms of exorcism, tried to imitate their Master. But they signally failed, as did those seven Jewish Priest-sons at Ephesus. And it was intended that they should fail, that so to them and to us the higher meaning of faith as contrasted with power, the inward as contrasted with the merely outward qualification, might appear. In that hour of crisis, in the presence of questioning Scribes and a wondering populace, and in the absence of the Christ, only one power could prevail, that of spiritual faith; and 'that kind' could 'not come out but by prayer.' 14

It is this lesson, viewed also in organic connection with all that had happened since the great temptation at Dalmanutha, which furnishes the explanation of the whole history. For one moment we have a glimpse into the Saviour's soul: the poignant sorrow of His disappointment at the unbelief of the 'faithless and perverse generation,' 15 with which He had so long borne; the infinite patience and condescension, the Divine 'need be' of His having thus to bear even with His own, together with the deep humiliation and keen pang which it involved; and the almost home-longing, as one has called it, 16 of His soul. These are mysteries to adore. The next moment Jesus turns Him to the father. At His command the lunatick is brought to Him. In the Presence of Jesus, and in view of the coming contest between Light and Darkness, one of those paroxysms of demoniac operation ensues, such as we have witnessed on all similar occasions. This was allowed to pass in view of all. But both this, and the question as to the length of time the lunatick had been afflicted, together with the answer, and the description of the dangers involved, which it elicited, were evidently intended to point the lesson of the need of a higher faith. To the father, however, who knew not the mode of treatment by the Heavenly Physician, they seemed like the questions of an earthly healer who must consider the symptoms before he could attempt to cure. 'If Thou canst do anything, have compassion on us, and help us.'

It was but natural - and yet it was the turning-point in this whole history, alike as regarded the healing of the lunatick, the better leading of his father, the teaching of the disciples, and that of the multitude and the Scribes. There is all the calm majesty of Divine self-consciousness, yet without trace of self-assertion, when Jesus, utterly ignoring the 'if Thou canst,' turns to the man and tells him that, while with the Divine Helper there is the possibility of all help, it is conditioned by a possibility in ourselves, by man's receptiveness, by his faith. Not, if the Christ can do anything or even everything, but, 'If thou canst believe, 17 all things are possible to him that believeth.' 18 The question is not, it can never be, as the man had put it; it must not even be answered, but ignored. It must ever be, not what He can, but what we can. When the infinite fulness is poured forth, as it ever is in Christ, it is not the oil that is stayed, but the vessels which fail. He giveth richly, inexhaustibly, but not mechanically; there is only one condition, the moral one of the presence of absolute faith - our receptiveness. And so these words have to all time remained the teaching to every individual striver in the battle of the higher life, and to the Church as a whole - the 'in hoc signo vinces' 19 over the Cross, the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.

It was a lesson, of which the reality was attested by the hold which it took on the man's whole nature. While by one great outgoing of his soul he overleapt all, to lay hold on the one fact set before him, he felt all the more the dark chasm of unbelief behind him, but he also clung to that Christ, Whose teaching of faith had shown him, together with the possibility, the source of faith. Thus through the felt unbelief of faith he attained true faith by laying hold on the Divine Saviour, when he cried out and said: 20 'Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief.' 21 These words have remained historic, marking all true faith, which, even as faith, is conscious of, nay implies, unbelief, but brings it to Christ for help. The most bold leap of faith and the timid resting at His Feet, the first beginning and the last ending of faith, have alike this as their watchword.

Such cry could not be, and never is, unheard. It was real demoniac influence which, continuing with this man from childhood onwards, had well-nigh crushed all moral individuality in him. In his many lucid intervals these many years, since he had grown from a child into a youth, he had never sought to shake off the yoke and regain his moral individuality, nor would he even now have come, if his father had not brought him. If any, this narrative shows the view which the Gospels and Jesus took of what are described as the 'demonised.' It was a reality, and not accommodation to Jewish views, when, as He saw 'the multitude running together, He rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to him: Dumb and deaf spirit, I command thee, come out of him, and no more come into him.'

Another and a more violent paroxysm, so that the bystanders almost thought him dead. But the unclean spirit had come out of him. And with strong gentle Hand the Saviour lifted him, and with loving gesture delivered him to his father.

All things had been possible to faith; not to that external belief of the disciples, which failed to reach 'that kind,' 22 and ever fails to reach such kind, but to true spiritual faith in Him. And so it is to each of us individually, and to the Church, to all time. 'That kind' - whether it be of sin, of lust, of the world, or of science falsely so called, of temptation, or of materialism - cometh not out by any of our ready-made formulas or dead dogmas. Not so are the flesh and the Devil vanquished; not so is the world overcome. It cometh out by nothing but by prayer: 'Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief.' Then, although our faith were only what in popular language was described as the smallest' - like a grain of mustard-seed' - and the result to be achieved the greatest, most difficult, seemingly transcending human ability to compass it - what in popular language was designated as 'removing mountains' 23 - 'nothing shall be impossible' unto us. And these eighteen centuries of suffering in Christ, and deliverance through Christ, and work for Christ, have proved it. For all things are ours, if Christ is ours.