Matthew 17:2

Matthew 17:2

The portion of St. Matthew's Gospel from which the text is taken may be called the Section of the Transfiguration. In it the Church is led by her Lord to a creed, to a worship, and to a work.

I. The Church is led to a creed. The time has now come for estimating the effects of the ministry of Jesus. "Whom do men say that I, the Son of man, am?" The object of the Saviour's education of His Apostles was twofold to teach them that He is Messiah; to prepare them for the truth that Messiah is to be a sorrowing, bleeding, crucified man. The Church is led to the creed of the Divinity and Atonement as the prelude to the Transfiguration.

II. In the Transfiguration itself the Church is led on to a foretaste of glorious worship and high communion the meeting for a while of the Church militant with the Church triumphant.

III. In the Transfiguration Jesus leads His Church to a work a work which at first, indeed, they could not perform. On the next day, as they come down from the hill, they find a sufferer below. Strange contrast. Above, the pure heaven; the words of Divine attestation; the form of saints floating in light; the glory, and honour, and majesty given to Jesus. Below, the reproach; the well-meant but baffled effort; the foam on the cut lip; the withered body; the sullen muteness, broken by epileptic cries the sad lines drawn by St. Mark in four pictorial words. Yet there is a fresh unselfish joy in the energy which Jesus throws into that victorious work. "And Jesus rebuked the devil; and he departed out of him: and the child was cured from that very hour." It would not be difficult to point out in the Transfiguration (1) a remarkable prophetic symbol of the history of the Church, (2) a summary of the forms of her varied life.

IV. I conclude by drawing two lessons for the spiritual life of each of us: (1) Our individual life must follow and summarize the Section of the Transfiguration. (a) We must lay the foundation deep and strong in the confession of Peter. (b) There must be the love of prayer, of communion with the world unseen; there must be the sacramental feeding upon Christ, the Bread of life; there must be the upward drawing by Christ into the eternal hills. (2) Think of our transfiguration as the result of His. Even our fallen humanity affords hints of this. Each face and form aspires to an ideal which it is the work of art to find. High thoughts and pure emotions ennoble ordinary features. Dying believers catch a radiance from a hidden glory. Such as Christ is in His Transfiguration, such in their measure shall His faithful servants one day be. "Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of the Father."

Bishop Alexander, The Great Question,p. 213.

References: Matthew 17:2; Matthew 17:3. W. J. Keay, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxi., p. 397. Matthew 17:2; Matthew 17:9. C. Kingsley, Village Sermons,p. 207. Matthew 17:4. H. P. Liddon, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxii., p. 145.Matthew 17:5. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xvi., No. 909; see also Three Hundred Outlines on the New Testament,p. 22; H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit,No. 2,459. Matthew 17:5. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxix., No. 1727. Matthew 17:6; Matthew 17:7. J. Jackson Wray, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxiii., p. 90.