'Let him hear.' In all regions, as I need not remind you, capacity
and responsibility go together; and the power that we possess is the
measure of the obligation under which we come. All our natural
faculties, for instance, are given to us with the implied command,
'See that you make the best use of them.' So that even these bodily
organs of ours, much more the higher faculties and capacities of the
spirit of which the body is partly the symbol and partly the
instrument, are intrusted to us on terms of stewardship. And just as
it is criminal for a man to go through life with a pair of ears on
his head, and a pair of eyes in his forehead, neither of which he
educates and cultivates, so is it criminal for a man having the
capacity of grasping the great Revelation of God, who 'at sundry
times and in divers manners hath spoken unto the Fathers by the
prophets, but in these last days hath spoken unto us by the Son,' to
turn away from that Voice, and pay no heed to it.
It is universally true that obligation goes with capacity. It is
especially true with regard to our relation to Jesus Christ. We are
all bound to 'hear Him,' as the great Voice said on the Mount of
Transfiguration. The upshot of all that manifestation of the divine
glory welling up from the depths of Christ's nature, and
transfiguring His countenance, the upshot of all that solemn and
mysterious communion with the mighty dead, Moses and Elias, the end
of all that encompassing glory that wrapped Him, was the Voice from
Heaven which proclaimed, 'This is My beloved Son; hear ye Him.'
Moses with his Law, Elijah with his Prophecy, faded away and were
lost. But there stood forth singly the one Figure, relieved against
the background of the glory-cloud, the Christ to whom we are all
bound to turn with the vision of longing eyes, with the listening of
docile ears, with the aspiration of yearning affection, with the
submission of absolute obedience.
'Hear ye Him.' For just as truly as light is meant for the eye, so
truly are the words of the Incarnate Word, and the life which is
speech and revelation, meant to be the supreme objects of our
attention, of our contemplative regard, and of our practical
submission. We are bound to hear because we have ears; and of all
the voices that are candidates for our attention, and of all the
music that sounds through the universe, no voice is so sweet and
weighty, no words so fundamental and all-powerful, no music so
melodious, so deep and thunderous, so thrilling and gracious, as are
the words of that Word who was made flesh and dwelt among us. We are
bound to hear, and we hear to most profit when it is Him that we
hear.