The Transfiguration.
“And after six days Jesus taketh with Him Peter, and James, and
John, and bringeth them up into a high mountain apart by
themselves: and He was transfigured before them: and His garments
became glistering, exceeding white: so as no fuller on earth can
whiten them. And there appeared unto them Elijah with Moses: and
they were talking with Jesus. And Peter answered and saith to
Jesus, Rabbi, it is good for us to be here: and let us make three
tabernacles; one for Thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah.
For He wist not what to answer; for they became sore afraid. And
there came a cloud overshadowing them: and there came a voice out
of the cloud, This is My beloved Son: hear ye Him. And suddenly
looking round about, they saw no one any more, save Jesus only
with themselves.”—MARK ix. 2-8 (R.V.).
The Transfiguration is an event without a parallel in all the story of our
Lord. This breaking forth of unearthly splendour in a life of
self-negation, this miracle wrought without suffering to be relieved or
want supplied, and in which He seems to be not the Giver of Help but the
Receiver of Glory, arrests our attention less by the greatness of the
marvel than by its loneliness.
But if myth or legend had to do with the making of our Gospels, we should
have had wonders enough which bless no suppliant, but only crown the
sacred head with laurels. They are as plentiful in the false Gospels as in
the later stories of Mahomed or Gautama. Can we find a sufficient
difference between these romantic tales and this memorable event—causes
enough to lead up to it, and ends enough for it to serve?
An answer is hinted by the stress laid in all three narratives upon the
date of the Transfiguration. It was “after six days” according to the
first two. St. Luke reckons the broken portions of the first day and the
last, and makes it “about eight days after these sayings.” A week has
passed since the solemn announcement that their Lord was journeying to a
cruel death, that self pity was discordant with the things of God, that
all His followers must in spirit endure the cross, that life was to be won
by losing it. Of that week no action is recorded, and we may well believe
that it was spent in profound searchings of heart. The thief Iscariot
would more than ever be estranged. The rest would aspire and struggle and
recoil, and explain away His words in such strange ways, as when they
presently failed to understand what the rising again from the dead should
mean (ver. 10). But in the deep heart of Jesus there was peace, the same
which He bequeathed to all His followers, the perfect calm of an
absolutely surrendered will. He had made the dread announcement and
rejected the insidious appeal; the sacrifice was already accomplished in
his inner self, and the word spoken, Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God. We
must steadily resist the notion that the Transfiguration was required to
confirm His consecration; or, after six days had passed since He bade
Satan get behind Him, to complete and perfect His decision. Yet doubtless
it had its meaning for Him also. Such times of more than heroic
self-devotion make large demands upon the vital energies. And He whom the
angels more than once sustained, now sought refreshment in the pure air
and solemn silence of the hills, and above all in communion with His
Father, since we read in St. Luke that He went up to pray. Who shall say
how far-reaching, how all-embracing such a prayer would be? What age, what
race may not hope to have shared its intercessions, remembering how He
once expressly prayed not for His immediate followers alone. But we need
not doubt that now, as in the Garden, He prayed also for Himself, and for
support in the approaching death-struggle. And the Twelve, so keenly
tried, would be especially remembered in this season. And even among these
there would be distinctions; for we know His manner, we remember that when
Satan claimed to have them all, Jesus prayed especially for Peter, because
his conversion would strengthen his brethren. Now this principle of
benefit to all through the selection of the fittest, explains why three
were chosen to be the eye-witnesses of His glory. If the others had been
there, perhaps they would have been led away into millennarian day-dreams.
Perhaps the worldly aspirations of Judas, thus inflamed, would have spread
far. Perhaps they would have murmured against that return to common life,
which St. Peter was so anxious to postpone. Perhaps even the chosen three
were only saved from intoxicating and delusive hopes by the sobering
knowledge that what they had seen was to remain a secret until some
intervening and mysterious event. The unripeness of the others for special
revelations was abundantly shown, on the morrow, by their failure to cast
out a devil. It was enough that their leaders should have this grand
confirmation of their faith. There was among them, henceforth, a secret
fountain of encouragement and trust, amid the darkest circumstances. The
panic in which all forsook Him might have been final, but for this vision
of His glory. For it is noteworthy that these three are the foremost
afterwards in sincere though frail devotion: one offering to die with Him,
and the others desiring to drink of His cup and to be baptized with His
baptism.
While Jesus prays for them, He is Himself made the source of their
revival. He had lately promised that they who willed to lose their life
should find it unto life eternal. And now, in Him who had perfectly so
willed, they beheld the eternal glory beaming forth, until His very
garments were steeped in light. There is no need of proof that the spirit
has power over the body; the question is only of degree. Vile passions can
permanently degrade human comeliness. And there is a beauty beyond that of
line or colour, seen in vivid hours of emotion, on the features of a
mother beside her sleeping babe, of an orator when his soul burns within
him, of a martyr when his face is as the face of an angel, and often
making fairer than youthful bloom the old age that has suffered long and
been kind. These help us, however faintly, to believe that there is a
spiritual body, and that we may yet bear the image of the heavenly. And so
once, if only once, it is given to sinful men to see how a perfect spirit
can illuminate its fleshly tabernacle, as a flame illuminates a lamp, and
what the life is like in which self-crucifixion issues. In this hour of
rapt devotion His body was steeped in the splendour which was natural to
holiness, and which would never have grown dim but that the great
sacrifice had still to be carried out in action. We shall best think of
the glories of transfiguration not as poured over Jesus, but as a
revelation from within. Moreover, while they gaze, the conquering chiefs
of the Old Testament approach the Man of Sorrows. Because the spirit of
the hour is that of self-devotion, they see not Abraham, the prosperous
friend of God, nor Isaiah whose burning words befit the lips that were
touched by fire from an unearthly altar, but the heroic law-giver and the
lion-hearted prophet, the typical champions of the ancient dispensation.
Elijah had not seen death; a majestic obscurity veiled the ashes of Moses
from excess of honour; yet these were not offended by the cross which
tried so cruelly the faith of the apostles. They spoke of His decease, and
their word seems to have lingered in the narrative as strangely
appropriate to one of the speakers; it is Christ’s “exodus.”(11)
But St. Mark does not linger over this detail, nor mention the drowsiness
with which they struggled; he leans all the weight of his vivid narrative
upon one great fact, the evidence now given of our Lord’s absolute
supremacy.
For, at this juncture Peter interposed. He “answered,” a phrase which
points to his consciousness that he was no unconcerned bystander, that the
vision was in some degree addressed to him and his companions. But he
answers at random, and like a man distraught. “Lord, it is good for us to
be here,” as if it were not always good to be where Jesus led, even though
men should bear a cross to follow Him. Intoxicated by the joy of seeing
the King in His beauty, and doubtless by the revulsion of new hope in the
stead of his dolorous forebodings, he proposes to linger there. He will
have more than is granted, just as, when Jesus washed his feet, he said
“not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.” And if this might be,
it was fitting that these superhuman personages should have tabernacles
made for them. No doubt the assertion that he wist not what to say, bears
specially upon this strange offer to shelter glorified bodies from the
night air, and to provide for each a place of separate repose. The words
are incoherent, but they are quite natural from one who has so impulsively
begun to speak that now he must talk on, because he knows not how to stop.
They are the words of the very Peter whose actions we know so well. As he
formerly walked upon the sea, before considering how boisterous were the
waves, and would soon afterwards smite with the sword, and risk himself in
the High Priest’s palace, without seeing his way through either adventure,
exactly so in this bewildering presence he ventures into a sentence
without knowing how to close it.
Now this perfect accuracy of character, so dramatic and yet so unaffected,
is evidence of the truth of this great miracle. To a frank student who
knows human nature, it is a very admirable evidence. To one who knows how
clumsily such effects are produced by all but the greatest masters of
creative literature, it is almost decisive.
In speaking thus, he has lowered his Master to the level of the others,
unconscious that Moses and Elijah were only attendants upon Jesus, who
have come from heaven because He is upon earth, and who speak not of their
achievements but of His sufferings. If Peter knew it, the hour had struck
when their work, the law of Moses and the utterances of the prophets whom
Elijah represented, should cease to be the chief impulse in religion, and
without being destroyed, should be “fulfilled,” and absorbed in a new
system. He was there to whom Moses in the law, and the prophets bore
witness, and in His presence they had no glory by reason of the glory that
excelleth. Yet Peter would fain build equal tabernacles for all alike.
Now St. Luke tells us that he interposed just when they were departing,
and apparently in the hope of staying them. But all the narratives convey
a strong impression that his words hastened their disappearance, and
decided the manner of it. For while he yet spake, as if all the vision
were eclipsed on being thus misunderstood, a cloud swept over the
three—bright, yet overshadowing them—and the voice of God proclaimed their
Lord to be His beloved Son (not faithful only, like Moses, as a steward
over the house), and bade them, instead of desiring to arrest the flight
of rival teachers, hear Him.
Too often Christian souls err after the same fashion. We cling to
authoritative teachers, familiar ordinances, and traditional views, good
it may be, and even divinely given, as if they were not intended wholly to
lead us up to Christ. And in many a spiritual eclipse, from many a cloud
which the heart fears to enter, the great lesson resounds through the
conscience of the believer, Hear Him!
Did the words remind Peter how he had lately begun to rebuke his Lord? Did
the visible glory, the ministration of blessed spirits and the voice of
God, teach him henceforth to hear and to submit? Alas, he could again
contradict Jesus, and say Thou shalt never wash my feet. I never will deny
Thee. And we, who wonder and blame him, as easily forget what we are
taught.
Let it be observed that the miraculous and Divine Voice reveals nothing
new to them. For the words, This is My beloved Son, and also their drift
in raising Him above all rivalry, were involved in the recent confession
of this very Peter that He was neither Elijah nor one of the prophets, but
the Son of the Living God. So true is it that we may receive a truth into
our creed, and even apprehend it with such vital faith as makes us
“blessed,” long before it grasps and subdues our nature, and saturates the
obscure regions where impulse and excitement are controlled. What we all
need most is not clearer and sounder views, but the bringing of our
thoughts into subjection to the mind of Jesus.
The Descent From The Mount.
“And as they were coming down from the mountain, He charged them
that they should tell no man what things they had seen, save when
the Son of man should have risen again from the dead. And they
kept the saying, questioning among themselves what the rising
again from the dead should mean. And they asked Him, saying, The
scribes say that Elijah must first come. And He said unto them,
Elijah indeed cometh first, and restoreth all things: and how is
it written of the Son of man, that He should suffer many things
and be set at nought? But I say unto you, that Elijah is come, and
they have also done unto him whatsoever they listed, even as it is
written of Him.”—MARK ix. 9-13 (R.V.).
In what state of mind did the apostles return from beholding the glory of
the Lord, and His ministers from another world? They seem to have been
excited, demonstrative, ready to blaze abroad the wonderful event which
ought to put an end to all men’s doubts.
They would have been bitterly disappointed, if they had prematurely
exposed their experience to ridicule, cross-examination, conjectural
theories, and all the controversy which reduces facts to logical form, but
strips them of their freshness and vitality. In the first age as in the
nineteenth, it was possible to be witnesses for the Lord without exposing
to coarse and irreverent handling all the delicate and secret experiences
of the soul with Christ.
Therefore Jesus charged them that they should tell no man. Silence would
force back the impression upon the depths of their own spirits, and spread
its roots under the surface there.
Nor was it right to make such a startling demand upon the faith of others
before public evidence had been given, enough to make scepticism
blameworthy. His resurrection from the dead would suffice to unseal their
lips. And the experience of all the Church has justified that decision.
The resurrection is, in fact, the centre of all the miraculous narratives,
the sun which keeps them in their orbit. Some of them, as isolated events,
might have failed to challenge credence. But authority and sanction are
given to all the rest by this great and publicly attested marvel, which
has modified history, and the denial of which makes history at once
untrustworthy and incoherent. When Jesus rose from the dead, the whole
significance of His life and its events was deepened.
This mention of the resurrection called them away from pleasant
day-dreams, by reminding them that their Master was to die. For Him there
was no illusion. Coming back from the light and voices of heaven, the
cross before Him was as visible as ever to His undazzled eyes, and He was
still the sober and vigilant friend to warn them against false hopes. They
however found means of explaining the unwelcome truth away. Various
theories were discussed among them, what the rising from the dead should
mean, what should be in fact the limit to their silence. This very
perplexity, and the chill upon their hopes, aided them to keep the matter
close.
One hope was too strong not to be at least hinted to Jesus. They had just
seen Elias. Surely they were right in expecting his interference, as the
scribes had taught. Instead of a lonely road pursued by the Messiah to a
painful death, should not that great prophet come as a forerunner and
restore all things? How then was murderous opposition possible?
And Jesus answered that one day this should come to pass. The herald
should indeed reconcile all hearts, before the great and notable day of
the Lord come. But for the present time there was another question. That
promise to which they clung, was it their only light upon futurity? Was
not the assertion quite as plain that the Son of Man should suffer many
things and be set at nought? So far was Jesus from that state of mind in
which men buoy themselves up with false hope. No apparent prophecy, no
splendid vision, deceived His unerring insight. And yet no despair
arrested His energies for one hour.
But, He added, Elias had already been offered to this generation in vain;
they had done to him as they listed. They had re-enacted what history
recorded of his life on earth.
Then a veil dropped from the disciples’ eyes. They recognised the dweller
in lonely places, the man of hairy garment and ascetic life, persecuted by
a feeble tyrant who cowered before his rebuke, and by the deadlier hatred
of an adulterous queen. They saw how the very name of Elias raised a
probability that the second prophet should be treated “as it is written
of” the first.
If then they had so strangely misjudged the preparation of His way, what
might they not apprehend of the issue? So should also the Son of man
suffer of them.
Do we wonder that they had not hitherto recognised the prophet? Perhaps,
when all is made clear at last, we shall wonder more at our own refusals
of reverence, our blindness to the meaning of noble lives, our moderate
and qualified respect for men of whom the world is not worthy.
How much solid greatness would some of us overlook, if it went with an
unpolished and unattractive exterior? Now the Baptist was a rude and
abrupt person, of little culture, unwelcome in kings’ houses. Yet no
greater had been born of woman.
The Demoniac Boy.
“And when they came to the disciples, they saw a great multitude
about them, and scribes questioning with them. And straightway all
the multitude, when they saw Him, were greatly amazed, and running
to Him saluted Him. And He asked them, What question ye with them?
And one of the multitude answered Him, Master, I brought unto Thee
my son, which hath a dumb spirit; and wheresoever it taketh him,
it dasheth him down: and he foameth, and grindeth his teeth, and
pineth away: and I spake to Thy disciples that they should cast it
out; and they were not able. And He answered them and saith, O
faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall
I bear with you? bring him unto Me. And they brought him unto Him:
and when He saw him, straightway the spirit tare him grievously;
and he fell on the ground, and wallowed foaming. And He asked his
father, How long time is it since this hath come unto him? And he
said, From a child. And oft-times it hath cast him both into the
fire and into the waters, to destroy him: but if Thou canst do
anything, have compassion on us, and help us. And Jesus said unto
him, If thou canst! All things are possible to him that believeth.
Straightway the father of the child cried out, and said, I
believe; help Thou mine unbelief. And when Jesus saw that a
multitude came running together, He rebuked the unclean spirit,
saying unto him, Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I command thee, come
out of him, and enter no more into him. And having cried out, and
torn him much, he came out: and _the child_ became as one dead;
insomuch that the more part said, He is dead. But Jesus took Him
by the hand, and raised him up; and he arose! And when He was come
into the house, His disciples asked Him privately, _saying_, We
could not cast it out. And He said unto them, This kind can come
out by nothing, save by prayer.”—MARK ix. 14-29 (R.V.).
Peter soon had striking evidence that it would not have been “good” for
them to linger too long upon the mountain. And our Lord was recalled with
painful abruptness from the glories of transfiguration to the scepticism
of scribes, the failure and shame of disciples, and the triumph of the
powers of evil.
To the Twelve He had explicitly given authority over devils, and even the
Seventy, venturing by faith to cast them out, had told Him of their
success with joy. But now, in the sorrow and fear of these latter days,
deprived of their Master and of their own foremost three, oppressed with
gloomy forebodings, and infected with the worldliness which fails to pray,
the nine had striven in vain. It is the only distinct repulse recorded,
and the scribes attacked them keenly. Where was their Master at this
crisis? Did not they profess equally to have the necessary power? Here was
a test, and some failed, and the others did not present themselves. We can
imagine the miserable scene, contrasting piteously with what passed on the
summit of the hill. And in the centre was an agonized father and a
tortured lad.
At this moment the crowds, profoundly moved, rushed to meet the Lord, and
on seeing Him, became aware that failure was at an end. Perhaps the
exceeding brightness lingered still upon His face; perhaps it was but the
unearthly and victorious calm of His consecration, visible in His mien;
what is certain is that they were greatly amazed, and ran to Him and did
homage.
Jesus at once challenged a renewal of the attack which had been too much
for His apostles. “What question ye with them?” But awe has fallen upon
the scribes also, and misery is left to tell its own tale. Their attack by
preference upon the disciples is very natural, and it by no means stands
alone. They did not ask Him, but His followers, why He ate and drank with
sinners, nor whether He paid the half-shekel (Mark ii. 16; Matt. xvii.
24). When they did complain to the Master Himself, it was commonly of some
fault in His disciples: Why do Thy disciples fast not? Why they do on the
Sabbath day that which is not lawful? Why do they eat with defiled hands?
(Mark ii. 18, 24; vii. 5). Their censures of Himself were usually muttered
or silent murmurings, which He discerned, as when He forgave the sins of
the palsied man; when the Pharisee marvelled that He had not washed His
hands; when He accepted the homage of the sinful woman, and again when He
spoke her pardon (Mark ii. 8; Luke xi. 38; vii. 39-49). When He healed the
woman whom a spirit of infirmity had bent down for eighteen years, the
ruler of the synagogue spoke to the people, without venturing to address
Jesus. (Luke xiii. 14).
It is important to observe such indications, unobtrusive, and related by
various evangelists, of the majesty and impressiveness which surrounded
our Lord, and awed even His bitter foes.
The silence is broken by an unhappy father, who had been the centre of the
group, but whom the abrupt movement to meet Jesus has merged in the crowd
again. The case of his son is among those which prove that demoniacal
possession did not imply the exceptional guilt of its victims, for though
still young, he has suffered long. The demon which afflicts him is dumb;
it works in the guise of epilepsy, and as a disease it is affected by the
changes of the moon; a malicious design is visible in frequent falls into
fire and water, to destroy him. The father had sought Jesus with him, and
since He was absent had appealed to His followers, but in vain. Some
consequent injury to his own faith, clearly implied in what follows, may
possibly be detected already, in the absence of any further petition, and
in the cold epithet, “Teacher,” which he employs.
Even as an evidence the answer of Jesus is remarkable, being such as human
ingenuity would not have invented, nor the legendary spirit have
conceived. It would have seemed natural that He should hasten to vindicate
His claims and expose the folly of the scribes, or else have reproached
His followers for the failure which had compromised Him.
But the scribes were entirely set aside from the moment when the Good
Physician was invoked by a bleeding heart. Yet the physical trouble is
dealt with deliberately, not in haste, as by one whose mastery is assured.
The passing shadow which has fallen on His cause only concerns Him as a
part of the heavy spiritual burden which oppresses Him, which this
terrible scene so vividly exhibits.
For the true importance of His words is this, that they reveal sufferings
which are too often forgotten, and which few are pure enough even to
comprehend. The prevalent evil weighed upon Him. And here the visible
power of Satan, the hostility of the scribes, the failure of His own, the
suspense and agitation of the crowd, all breathed the spirit of that evil
age, alien and harsh to Him as an infected atmosphere. He blames none more
than others; it is the “generation,” so faithless and perverse, which
forces Him to exclaim: “How long shall I be with you? how long shall I
bear with you?” It is the cry of the pain of Jesus. It bids us to consider
Him Who endured such contradiction of sinners, who were even sinners
against Himself. So that the distress of Jesus was not that of a mere
eye-witness of evil or sufferer by it. His priesthood established a closer
and more agonizing connection between our Lord and the sins which tortured
Him.
Do the words startle us, with the suggestion of a limit to the forbearance
of Jesus, well-nigh reached? There _was_ such a limit. The work of His
messenger had been required, lest His coming should be to smite the world.
His mind was the mind of God, and it is written, Kiss the Son, lest He be
angry.
Now if Jesus looked forward to shame and anguish with natural shrinking,
we here perceive another aspect in which His coming Baptism of Blood was
viewed, and we discover why He was straitened until it was accomplished.
There is an intimate connection between this verse and His saying in St.
John, “If ye loved Me, ye would rejoice, because I go unto My Father.”
But swiftly the mind of Jesus recurs to the misery which awaits help; and
He bids them bring the child to Him. Now the sweet influence of His
presence would have soothed and mitigated any mere disease. It is to such
influence that sceptical writers are wont to turn for an explanation, such
as it is, of the works He wrought. But it was the reverse in cases of
possession. There a wild sense of antagonism and revolt was wont to show
itself. And we might learn that this was something more than epilepsy,
even were it left doubtful otherwise, by the outburst of Satanic rage.
When he saw Him, straightway the spirit convulsed him grievously, and he
fell wallowing and foaming.
Yet Jesus is neither hurried nor agitated. In not one of His miracles does
precipitation, or mere impulse, mingle with His grave and self-contained
compassion. He will question the scribes while the man with a withered
hand awaits His help. He will rebuke the disciples before quelling the
storm. At Nain He will touch the bier and arrest the bearers. When He
feeds the multitude, He will first command a search for loaves. He will
stand still and call Bartimæus to Him. He will evoke, even by seeming
harshness, the faith of the woman of Canaan. He will have the stone rolled
away from the sepulchre of Lazarus. When He Himself rises, the
grave-clothes are found folded up, and the napkin which bound His head
laid in a place by itself, the last tribute of mortals to His mortality
not being flung contemptuously aside. All His miracles are authenticated
by the stamp of the same character—serene, not in haste nor tardy, since
He saw the end from the beginning. In this case delay is necessary, to
arouse the father, if only by interrogation, from his dull disappointment
and hopelessness. He asks therefore “How long time is it since this came
upon him?” and the answer shows that he was now at least a stripling, for
he had suffered ever since he was a child. Then the unhappy man is swept
away by his emotions: as he tells their sorrows, and thinks what a
wretched life or miserable death lies before his son, he bursts into a
passionate appeal. If Thou canst do anything, do this. Let pity for such
misery, for the misery of father as well as child, evoke all Thy power to
save. The form is more disrespectful than the substance of his cry; its
very vehemence is evidence that some hope is working in his breast; and
there is more real trust in its wild urgency than in many a reverential
and carefully weighed prayer.
Yet how much rashness, self-assertion, and wilfulness (which is really
unbelief) were mingled with his germinant faith and needed rebuke.
Therefore Christ responded with his own word: “If _thou_ canst: thou
sayest it to Me, but I retort the condition upon thyself: with thee are
indeed the issues of thine own application, for all things are possible to
him that believeth.”
This answer is in two respects important. There was a time when popular
religion dealt too much with internal experience and attainment. But
perhaps there are schools among us now which verge upon the opposite
extreme. Faith and love are generally strongest when they forget
themselves, and do not say “I am faithful and loving,” but “Christ is
trustworthy, Christ is adorable.” This is true, and these virtues are
becoming artificial, and so false, as soon as they grow self-complacent.
Yet we should give at least enough attention to our own attainments to
warn us of our deficiencies. And wherever we find a want of blessedness,
we may seek for the reason within ourselves. Many a one is led to doubt
whether Christ “can do anything” practical for him, since private prayer
and public ordinances help him little, and his temptations continue to
prevail, whose true need is to be roused up sharply to the consciousness
that it is not Christ who has failed; it is he himself: his faith is dim,
his grasp on his Lord is half hearted, he is straitened in his own
affections. Our personal experiences should never teach us confidence, but
they may often serve to humble and warn us.
This answer also impresses upon us the dignity of Him who speaks. Failure
had already come through the spiritual defects of His disciples, but for
Him, though “meek and lowly of heart,” no such danger is even
contemplated. No appeal to Him can be frustrated except through fault of
the suppliant, since all things are possible to him that believeth.
Now faith is in itself nothing, and may even be pernicious; all its effect
depends upon the object. Trust reposed in a friend avails or misleads
according to his love and his resources; trust in a traitor is ruinous,
and ruinous in proportion to its energy. And since trust in Jesus is
omnipotent, Who and what is He?
The word pierces like a two-edged sword, and reveals to the agitated
father the conflict, the impurity of his heart. Unbelief is there, and of
himself he cannot conquer it. Yet is he not entirely unbelieving, else
what drew him thither? What impulse led to that passionate recital of his
griefs, that over-daring cry of anguish? And what is now this burning
sense within him of a great and inspiring Presence, which urges him to a
bolder appeal for a miracle yet more spiritual and Divine, a cry well
directed to the Author and Finisher of our faith? Never was medicine
better justified by its operation upon disease, than the treatment which
converted a too-importunate clamour for bodily relief into a contrite
prayer for grace. “I believe, help Thou mine unbelief.” The same sense of
mixed imperfect and yet real trust should exist in every one of us, or
else our belief being perfect should be irresistible in the moral sphere,
and in the physical world so resigned, so confident in the Love which
governs, as never to be conscious of any gnawing importunate desire. And
from the same sense of need, the same cry for help should spring.
Miraculous legends have gathered around the lives of many good and
gracious men within Christendom and outside it. But they cannot claim to
weigh against the history of Jesus, until at least one example can be
produced of such direct spiritual action, so profound, penetrating and
effectual, inextricably interwoven in the tissue of any fable.
All this time the agitation of the people had increased. A multitude was
rushing forward, whose excitement would do more to distract the father’s
mind than further delay to help him. And Jesus, even in the midst of His
treatment of souls, was not blind to such practical considerations, or to
the influence of circumstances. Unlike modern dealers in sensation, He can
never be shown to have aimed at religious excitement, while it was His
custom to discourage it. Therefore He now rebuked the unclean spirit in
the lad, addressing it directly speaking as a superior. “Thou deaf and
dumb spirit, I command thee, come out of him,” and adding, with
explicitness which was due perhaps to the obstinate ferocity of “this
kind,” or perhaps was intended to help the father’s lingering unbelief,
“enter no more into him.” The evil being obeys, yet proves his reluctance
by screaming and convulsing his victim for the last time, so that he,
though healed, lies utterly prostrate, and “the more part said, He is
dead.” It was a fearful exhibition of the disappointed malice of the pit.
But it only calls forth another display of the power and love of Jesus,
Who will not leave the sufferer to a gradual recovery, nor speak, as to
the fiend, in words of mere authority, but reaches forth His benign hand,
and raises him, restored. Here we discover the same heart which provided
that the daughter of Jairus should have food, and delivered her son to the
widow of Nain, and was first to remind others that Lazarus was encumbered
by his grave-clothes. The good works of Jesus were not melodramatic
marvels for stage effect: they were the natural acts of supernatural power
and love.
Jesus And The Disciples.
“And when He was come into the house, His disciples asked Him
privately, _saying_, We could not cast it out. And He said unto
them, This kind can come out by nothing, save by prayer. And they
went forth from thence, and passed through Galilee; and He would
not that any man should know it. For He taught His disciples, and
said unto them, The Son of man is delivered up into the hands of
men, and they shall kill Him; and when He is killed, after three
days He shall rise again. But they understood not the saying, and
were afraid to ask Him. And they came to Capernaum: and when He
was in the house He asked them, What were ye reasoning in the way?
But they held their peace: for they had disputed one with another
in the way, who was the greatest. And He sat down, and called the
twelve; and He saith unto them, If any man would be first, he
shall be last of all, and minister of all. And He took a little
child, and set him in the midst of them: and taking him in His
arms, He said unto them, Whosoever shall receive one of such
little children in My name, receiveth Me; and whosoever receiveth
Me, receiveth not Me but Him that sent Me.”—MARK ix. 28-37 (R.V.).
When the apostles had failed to expel the demon from the child, they gave
a very natural expression to their disappointment. Waiting until Jesus was
in private and in the house, they said, “We for our parts were unable to
cast it out.” They take no blame to themselves. The tone is rather of
perplexity and complaint because the commission formerly received had not
held good. And it implies the question which is plainly expressed by St.
Matthew, Why could we not cast it out? Their very unconsciousness of
personal blame is ominous, and Jesus replies that the fault is entirely
their own. They ought to have stimulated, as He did afterwards, what was
flagging but not absent in the father, what their failure must have
daunted further in him. Want of faith had overcome them, says the fuller
account: the brief statement in St. Mark is, “This kind (of demon) can
come out by nothing but by prayer”; to which fasting was added as a second
condition by ancient copyists, but without authority. What is important is
to observe the connection between faith and prayer; so that while the
devil would only have gone out if they had prayed, or even perhaps only if
they had been men of prayer, yet their failure was through unbelief. It
plainly follows that prayer is the nurse of faith, and would have
strengthened it so that it should prevail. Only in habitual communion with
God can we learn to trust Him aright. There, as we feel His nearness, as
we are reminded that He bends to hear our cry, as the sense of eternal and
perfect power blends with that of immeasurable love, and His sympathy
becomes a realized abiding fact, as our vainglory is rebuked by
confessions of sin, and of dependence, it is made possible for man to
wield the forces of the spiritual world and yet not to be intoxicated with
pride. The nearness of God is inconsistent with boastfulness of man. For
want of this, it was better that the apostles should fail and be humbled,
than succeed and be puffed up.
There are promises still unenjoyed, dormant and unexercised powers at the
disposal of the Church to-day. If in many Christian families the children
are not practically holy, if purity and consecration are not leavening our
Christian land, where after so many centuries license is but little
abashed and the faith of Jesus is still disputed, if the heathen are not
yet given for our Lord’s inheritance nor the uttermost parts of the earth
for His possession—why are we unable to cast out the devils that afflict
our race? It is because our efforts are so faithless. And this again is
because they are not inspired and elevated by sufficient communion with
our God in prayer.
Further evidences continued to be given of the dangerous state of the mind
of His followers, weighed down by earthly hopes and fears, wanting in
faith and prayer, and therefore open to the sinister influences of the
thief who was soon to become the traitor. They were now moving for the
last time through Galilee. It was a different procession from those glad
circuits, not long before, when enthusiasm everywhere rose high, and
sometimes the people would have crowned Him. Now He would not that any man
should know it. The word which tells of His journey seems to imply that He
avoided the main thoroughfares, and went by less frequented by-ways.
Partly no doubt His motives were prudential, resulting from the treachery
which He discerned. Partly it was because His own spirit was heavily
weighed upon, and retirement was what He needed most. And certainly most
of all because crowds and tumult would have utterly unfitted the apostles
to learn the hard lesson, how vain their daydreams were, and what a trial
lay before their Master.
We read that “He taught them” this, which implies more than a single
utterance, as also perhaps does the remarkable phrase in St. Luke, “Let
these sayings sink into your ears.” When the warning is examined, we find
it almost a repetition of what they had heard after Peter’s great
confession. Then they had apparently supposed the cross of their Lord to
be such a figurative one as all His followers have to bear. Even after the
Transfiguration, the chosen three had searched for a meaning for the
resurrection from the dead. But now, when the words were repeated with a
naked, crude, resolute distinctness, marvellous from the lips of Him Who
should endure the reality, and evidently chosen in order to beat down
their lingering evasive hopes, when He says “They shall kill Him, and when
He is killed, after three days He shall rise again,” surely they ought to
have understood.
In fact they comprehended enough to shrink from hearing more. They did not
dare to lift the veil which covered a mystery so dreadful; they feared to
ask Him. It is a natural impulse, not to know the worst. Insolvent
tradesmen leave their books unbalanced. The course of history would have
run in another channel, if the great Napoleon had looked in the face the
need to fortify his own capital while plundering others. No wonder that
these Galileans recoiled from searching what was the calamity which
weighed so heavily upon the mighty spirit of their Master. Do not men
stifle the voice of conscience, and refuse to examine themselves whether
they are in the faith, in the same abject dread of knowing the facts, and
looking the inevitable in the face? How few there are, who bear to think,
calmly and well, of the certainties of death and judgment?
But at the appointed time, the inevitable arrived for the disciples. The
only effect of their moral cowardice was that it found them unready,
surprised and therefore fearful, and still worse, prepared to forsake
Jesus by having already in heart drawn away from Him, by having refused to
comprehend and share His sorrows. It is easy to blame them, to assume that
in their place we should not have been partakers in their evil deeds, to
make little of the chosen foundation stones upon which Christ would build
His New Jerusalem. But in so doing we forfeit the sobering lessons of
their weakness, who failed, not because they were less than we, but
because they were not more than mortal. And we who censure them are
perhaps indolently refusing day by day to reflect, to comprehend the
meaning of our own lives and of their tendencies, to realize a thousand
warnings, less terrible only because they continue to be conditional, but
claiming more attention for that very reason.
Contrast with their hesitation the noble fortitude with which Christ faced
His agony. It was His, and their concern in it was secondary. Yet for
their sakes He bore to speak of what they could not bear to hear.
Therefore to Him there came no surprise, no sudden shock; His arrest found
Him calm and reassured after the conflict in the Garden, and after all the
preparation which had already gone forward through all these latter days.
One only ingredient in His cup of bitterness is now added to those which
had been already mentioned: “The Son of man is delivered up into the hands
of men.” And this is the same which He mentioned in the Garden: “The Son
of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.”
It was that from which David recoiled when he said, “Let me fall into the
hands of God, but let me not fall into the hands of men.” Suffering has
not reached its height until conscious malice designs the pang, and says,
“So would we have it.” Especially true was this of the most tender of all
hearts. Yet this also Jesus foreknew, while He steadfastly set His face to
go toward Jerusalem.
Faithless inability to grapple with the powers of darkness, faithless
unreadiness to share the cross of Jesus, what was to be expected next?
Estrangement, jealousy and ambition, the passions of the world heaving in
the bosom of the Church. But while they fail to discern the spirit of
Judas, the Lord discerned theirs, and asked them in the house, What were
ye reasoning in the way? It was a sweet and gentle prudence, which had not
corrected them publicly nor while their tempers were still ruffled, nor in
the language of severe rebuke, for by the way they had not only reasoned
but disputed one with another, who was the greatest.
Language of especial honour had been addressed to Peter. Three had become
possessed of a remarkable secret on the Holy Mount, concerning which hints
on one side, and surmises on the other, may easily have excited jealousy.
The failure of the nine to cast out the devil would also, as they were not
humbled, render them irritable and self-asserting.
But they held their peace. No one asserted his right to answer on behalf
of all. Peter, who was so willingly their spokesman at other times, did
not vindicate his boasted pre-eminence now. The claim which seemed so
reasonable while they forgot Jesus, was a thing to blush for in His
presence. And they, who feared to ask Him of His own sufferings, knew
enough to feel the contrast between their temper, their thoughts and His.
Would that we too by prayer and self-examination, more often brought our
desires and ambitions into the searching light of the presence of the
lowly King of kings.
The calmness of their Lord was in strange contrast with their confusion.
He pressed no further His inquiry, but left them to weigh His silence in
this respect against their own. But importing by His action something
deliberate and grave, He sat down and called the Twelve, and pronounced
the great law of Christian rank, which is lowliness and the lowliest
service. “If any man would be the first, he shall be the least of all, and
the servant of all.” When Kaisers and Popes ostentatiously wash the feet
of paupers, they do not really serve, and therefore they exhibit no
genuine lowliness. Christ does not speak of the luxurious nursing of a
sentiment, but of that genuine humility which effaces itself that it may
really become a servant of the rest. Nor does He prescribe this as a
penance, but as the appointed way to eminence. Something similar He had
already spoken, bidding men sit down in the lowest room, that the Master
of the house might call them higher. But it is in the next chapter, when
despite this lesson the sons of Zebedee persisted in claiming the highest
places, and the indignation of the rest betrayed the very passion it
resented, that Jesus fully explains how lowly service, that wholesome
medicine for ambition, is the essence of the very greatness in pursuit of
which men spurn it.
To the precept, which will then be more conveniently examined, Jesus now
added a practical lesson of amazing beauty. In the midst of twelve rugged
and unsympathetic men, the same who, despite this action, presently
rebuked parents for seeking the blessing of Christ upon their babes, Jesus
sets a little child. What but the grace and love which shone upon the
sacred face could have prevented this little one from being utterly
disconcerted? But children have a strange sensibility for love. Presently
this happy child was caught up in His arms, and pressed to His bosom, and
there He seems to have lain while John, possibly conscience-stricken,
asked a question and received an unexpected answer. And the silent
pathetic trust of this His lamb found its way to the heart of Jesus, who
presently spoke of “these little ones who believe in Me” (v. 42).
Meanwhile the child illustrated in a double sense the rule of greatness
which He had laid down. So great is lowliness that Christ Himself may be
found in the person of a little child. And again, so great is service,
that in receiving one, even one, of the multitude of children who claim
our sympathies, we receive the very Master; and in that lowly Man, who was
among them as He that serveth, is manifested the very God: whoso receiveth
Me receiveth not Me but Him that sent me.
Offences.
“John said unto Him, Master, we saw one casting out devils in Thy
Name: and we forbade him, because he followed not us. But Jesus
said, Forbid him not: for there is no man which shall do a mighty
work in My name, and be able quickly to speak evil of Me. For he
that is not against us is for us. For whosoever shall give you a
cup of water to drink, because ye are Christ’s, verily I say unto
you, he shall in no wise lose his reward. And whosoever shall
cause one of these little ones that believe on Me to stumble, it
were better for him if a great millstone were hanged about his
neck, and he were cast into the sea. And if thy hand cause thee to
stumble, cut it off: it is good for thee to enter into life
maimed, rather than having thy two hands to go into hell, into the
unquenchable fire. And if thy foot cause thee to stumble, cut it
off: it is good for thee to enter into life halt, rather than
having thy two feet to be cast into hell. And if thine eye cause
thee to stumble, cast it out: it is good for thee to enter into
the kingdom of God with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be
cast into hell; where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not
quenched. For every one shall be salted with fire. Salt is good:
but if the salt have lost its saltness, wherewith will ye season
it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace one with
another.”—MARK ix. 38-50 (R.V.).
When Jesus spoke of the blessedness of receiving in His name even a little
child, the conscience of St. John became uneasy. They had seen one casting
out devils in that name, and had forbidden him, “because he followeth not
us.” The spirit of partizanship which these words betray is somewhat
softer in St. Luke, but it exists. He reports “because he followeth not
(Jesus) with us.”
The behaviour of the disciples all through this period is unsatisfactory.
From the time when Peter contradicted and rebuked Jesus, down to their
final desertion, there is weakness at every turn. And this is a curious
example of it, that immediately after having failed themselves,(12) they
should rebuke another for doing what their Master had once declared could
not possibly be an evil work. If Satan cast out Satan his house was
divided against itself: if the finger of God was there no doubt the
kingdom of God was come unto them.
It is interesting and natural that St. John should have introduced the
question. Others were usually more forward, but that was because he was
more thoughtful. Peter went first into the sepulchre; but he first, seeing
what was there, believed. And it was he who said “It is the Lord,”
although Peter thereupon plunged into the lake to reach Him. Discerning
and grave: such is the character from which his Gospel would naturally
come, and it belongs to him who first discerned the rebuke to their
conduct implied in the words of Jesus. He was right. The Lord answered,
“Forbid him not, for there is no man which shall do a mighty work in My
name, and be able quickly to speak evil of Me:” his own action would seal
his lips; he would have committed himself. Now this points out a very
serious view of human life, too often overlooked. The deed of to-day rules
to-morrow; one is half enslaved by the consequences of his own free will.
Let no man, hesitating between two lines of action, ask, What harm in
this? what use in that? without adding, And what future actions, good or
evil, may they carry in their train?
The man whom they had rebuked was at least certain to be for a time
detached from the opponents of truth, silent if not remonstrant when it
was assailed, diluting and enfeebling the enmity of its opponents. And so
Christ laid down the principle, “He that is not against us is for us.” In
St. Luke the words are more plainly pointed against this party spirit, “He
that is not against you is for you.”
How shall we reconcile this principle with Christ’s declaration elsewhere,
“He that is not with Me is against Me, and he that gathereth not with Me
scattereth”?
It is possible to argue that there is no contradiction whatever, for both
deny the existence of a neutral class, and from this it equally follows
that he who is not with is against, and he who is not against is with us.
But this answer only evades the difficulty, which is, that one passage
reckons seeming neutrality as friendship, while the other denounces it as
enmity.
A closer examination reveals a more profound reconciliation. In St.
Matthew, Christ announced His own personal claim; in St. Mark He declares
that His people must not share it. Towards Christ Himself, indifference is
practical rejection. The manifestation of God was not made to be
criticised or set aside: He loves them who love Him; He demands the hearts
He died for; and to give Him less is to refuse Him the travail of His
soul. Therefore He that is not with Christ is against Him. The man who
boasts that he does no harm but makes no pretence of religion, is
proclaiming that one may innocently refuse Christ. And it is very
noteworthy that St. Matthew’s aphorism was evoked, like this, by a
question about the casting out of devils. There the Pharisees had said
that He cast out devils by Beelzebub. And Jesus had warned all who heard,
that in such a controversy, to be indifferent was to deny him. Here, the
man had himself appealed to the power of Jesus. He had passed, long ago,
the stage of cool semi-contemptuous indifference. Whether he was a
disciple of the Baptist, not yet entirely won, or a later convert who
shrank from the loss of all things, what is plain is that he had come far
on the way towards Jesus. It does not follow that he enjoyed a saving
faith, for Christ will at last profess to many who cast out devils in His
name, that He never knew them. But intellectual persuasion and some active
reliance were there. Let them beware of crushing the germs, because they
were not yet developed. Nor should the disciples suppose that loyalty to
their organization, although Christ was with them, was the same as loyalty
to Him. “He that is not against _you_ is for you,” according to St. Luke.
Nay more, “He that is not against us is for us,” according to St. Mark.
But already He had spoken the stronger word, “He that is not for _Me_ is
against Me.”
No verse has been more employed than this in sectarian controversy. And
sometimes it has been pressed too far. The man whom St. John would have
silenced was not spreading a rival organization; and we know how the same
Apostle wrote, long afterwards, of those who did so: “If they had been of
us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might
be made manifest how all they are not of us” (1 John ii. 19). This was
simply a doer of good without ecclesiastical sanction, and the warning of
the text is against all who would use the name of discipline or of order
to bridle the zeal, to curb the energies, of any Christian soul. But it is
at least as often the new movement as the old organization that would
silence all who follow not with it.
But the energies of Christ and His gospel can never be monopolized by any
organization whatsoever. Every good gift and every perfect gift, wherever
we behold it, is from Him.
All help, then, is to be welcomed; not to hinder is to speed the cause.
And therefore Jesus, repeating a former saying, adds that whosoever, moved
by the name of Christ, shall give His followers one cup of water, shall be
rewarded. He may be and continue outside the Church; his after life may be
sadly inconsistent with this one action: that is not the question; the
sole condition is the genuine motive—one impulse of true respect, one
flicker of loyalty, only decided enough to speed the weary ambassador with
the simplest possible refreshment, should “in no wise lose its reward.”
Does this imply that the giver should assuredly enter heaven? Alas, no.
But this it says, that every spark of fire in the smoking flax is tended,
every gracious movement is answered by a gift of further grace, to employ
or to abuse. Not more surely is the thirsty disciple refreshed, than the
feverish worldliness of him who just attains to render this service is
fanned and cooled by breezes from heaven, he becomes aware of a deeper and
nobler life, he is melted and drawn towards better things. Very blessed,
or very miserable is he who cannot remember the holy shame, the yearning,
the sigh because he is not always thus, which followed naturally upon some
deed, small in itself perhaps, but good enough to be inconsistent with his
baser self. The deepening of spiritual capacity is one exceeding great
reward of every act of loyalty to Christ.
This was graciously said of a deed done to the apostles, despite their
failures, rivalries, and rebukes of those who would fain speed the common
cause. Not, however, because they were apostles, but “because ye are
Christ’s.” And so was the least, so was the child who clung to Him. But if
the slightest sympathy with these is thus laden with blessing, then to
hinder, to cause to stumble one such little one, how terrible was that.
Better to die a violent and shameful death, and never sleep in a peaceful
grave.
There is a worse peril than from others. We ourselves may cause ourselves
to stumble. We may pervert beyond recall things innocent, natural, all but
necessary, things near and dear and useful to our daily life as are our
very limbs. The loss of them may be so lasting a deprivation that we shall
enter heaven maimed. But if the moral evil is irrevocably identified with
the worldly good, we must renounce it.
The hand with its subtle and marvellous power may well stand for harmless
accomplishments now fraught with evil suggestiveness; for innocent modes
of livelihood which to relinquish means crippled helplessness, yet which
have become hopelessly entangled with unjust or at least questionable
ways; for the great possessions, honestly come by, which the ruler would
not sell; for all endowments which we can no longer hope to consecrate,
and which make one resemble the old Chaldeans, whose might was their god,
who sacrificed to their net and burned incense to their drag.
And the foot, with its swiftness in boyhood, its plodding walk along the
pavement in maturer age, may well represent the caprices of youth so hard
to curb, and also the half-mechanical habits which succeed to these, and
by which manhood is ruled, often to its destruction. If the hand be
capacity, resource, and possession, the foot is swift perilous impulse,
and also fixed habitude, monotonous recurrence, the settled ways of the
world.
Cut off hand and foot, and what is left to the mutilated trunk, the
ravaged and desolated life? Desire is left; the desire of the eyes. The
eyes may not touch the external world; all may now be correct in our
actions and intercourse with men. But yet greed, passion, inflamed
imagination may desecrate the temple of the soul. The eyes misled Eve when
she saw that the fruit was good, and David on his palace roof. Before the
eyes of Jesus, Satan spread his third and worst temptation. And our Lord
seems to imply that this last sacrifice of the worst because the deepest
evil must be made with indignant vehemence; hand and foot must be cut off,
but the eye must be cast out, though life be half darkened in the process.
These latter days have invented a softer gospel, which proclaims that even
the fallen err if they utterly renounce any good creature of God, which
ought to be received with thanksgiving; that the duty of moderation and
self-control can never be replaced by renunciation, and that distrust of
any lawful enjoyment revives the Manichean heresy. Is the eye a good
creature of God? May the foot be received with thanksgiving? Is the hand a
source of lawful enjoyment? Yet Jesus made these the types of what must,
if it has become an occasion of stumbling, be entirely cast away.
He added that in such cases the choice is between mutilation and the loss
of all. It is no longer a question of the full improvement of every
faculty, the doubling of all the talents, but a choice between living a
life impoverished and half spoiled, and going complete to Gehenna, to the
charnel valley where the refuse of Jerusalem was burned in a continual
fire, and the worm of corruption never died. The expression is too
metaphorical to decide such questions as that of the eternal duration of
punishment, or of the nature of the suffering of the lost. The metaphors
of Jesus, however, are not employed to exaggerate His meaning, but only to
express it. And what He said is this: The man who cherishes one dear and
excusable occasion of offence, who spares himself the keenest spiritual
surgery, shall be cast forth with everything that defileth, shall be
ejected with the offal of the New Jerusalem, shall suffer corruption like
the transgressors of whom Isaiah first used the tremendous phrase, “their
worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched,” shall endure at
once internal and external misery, as of decomposition and of burning.
Such is the most terrible menace that ever crossed the lips into which
grace was poured. And it was not addressed to the outcast or the Pharisee,
but to His own. They were called to the highest life; on them the
influences of the world was to be as constant and as disintegrating as
that of the weather upon a mountain top. Therefore they needed solemn
warning, and the counter-pressure of those awful issues known to be
dependent on their stern self-discipline. They could not, He said in an
obscure passage which has been greatly tampered with, they could not
escape fiery suffering in some form. But the fire which tried would
preserve and bless them if they endured it; every one shall be salted with
fire. But if they who ought to be the salt of the world received the grace
of God in vain, if the salt have lost its saltness, the case is desperate
indeed.
And since the need of this solemn warning sprang from their rivalry and
partizanship, Jesus concludes with an emphatic charge to discipline and
correct themselves and to beware of impeding others: to be searching in
the closet, and charitable in the church: to have salt in yourselves, and
be at peace with one another.