The pure King, the Son of Justice, the Prince of Peace, the Son of Man sent by God, the Saviour, the Anointed, whom the prophets had foretold in the twilight of sorrow and affliction; who had been seen by apocalyptic writers descending upon the earth like lightning, in the fullness of victory and glory; for whom the poor, the wounded, the hungry, the afflicted, had been waiting from century to century, as dry grass waits for rain, as the flower waits for the sun, as the mouth awaits the kiss, and the heart, consolation; the Son of God and of Man, the Man who hid God in human flesh, the God who cloaked His divinity in Adam’s clay, it is He, the dear Brother of every day, who looks quietly into the astounded eyes of those chosen ones!
The period of waiting is done; ended is the vigil! Why had they not recognized Him until that day? Whence did it come in those simple souls, the first notion of the true name of Him who so many times had taken them by the hand, and had spoken for their ears to hear? They could never think that one of them—a common man like them, a workman and poor as they were—could be the Saviour Messiah announced and awaited by saints and by the centuries. With the intellect alone they could never have discovered Him, nor with the mere bodily senses, nor with the teachings of the scriptures; only with the inspiration, the intuition, the sudden flaming illumination of the heart, as it happened that day in the soul of Peter. “Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona; for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in Heaven.” Fleshly eyes would not have been able to see what they saw without a revelation from on high.
But weighty consequences flow from the choice of Peter for this proclamation. It is a reward which calls for other recompense, “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in Heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in Heaven.”
Weighty words from which have emerged, through the patient germination of long centuries, helped by the fire of faith and by the blood of witnesses, one of the greatest Kingdoms which men have ever established upon the earth; the only one of the old kingdoms which still lives on in the same city which saw the rise and fall of the proudest and most pompous of earthly kingdoms. For these words many men suffered, many were tortured, many were killed. To deny or uphold, to interpret or cancel these words, thousands of men have been killed in city squares and in battles; kingdoms have been divided, societies have been shaken and rent, nations have waged war, emperors and beggars have given their all. But their meaning in Christ’s mouth is plain and simple. He means to say, “Thou, Peter, shalt be hard and staunch as a rock, and upon the staunchness of thy faith in me, which thou wast the first to profess, is founded the first Christian society, the humble seed of the Kingdom. Against this Church which to-day has only Twelve citizens but which will be spread to the limits of the earth, the forces of evil cannot prevail, because you are the Spirit and the Spirit cannot be overcome and dimmed by Matter. Thou shalt close forever—and when I speak to thee I am speaking to all those who shall succeed thee united in the same certainty—the Gates of Hell; and thou shalt open to all those who are chosen the Gates of Heaven. Thou shalt bind and thou shalt unloosen in my name. What thou shalt forbid after my death shall be forbidden to-morrow also for that new humanity which I will find on my return; what thou shalt command shalt be justly commanded because thou wilt be only repeating in other words what I have told and taught thee. Thou shalt be, in thy person and in that of thy legitimate heirs, the shepherd of the interregnum, the temporary and provisional guide who shalt prepare, together with comrades obedient to thee, the Kingdom of God and of Love.
“In requital for this revelation and for this promise I lay on you a hard command: to keep silence; for the present you must tell no one who I am. My day is near, but has not yet come; you will be witness to events which you do not expect, which will even be the contrary of what you expect. I know the hour in which I shall speak and in which you shall speak. And when we break our silence, my cry and your cry shall be heard in the most distant realms of Heaven and Earth.”
SUN AND SNOW
A man’s voice, the voice of Peter the Rock, had called Him the Son of Man; another voice issuing from a cloud was to call Him the Son of God.
Very high is the three-peaked mountain of Hermon, covered with snow even in the hot season, the highest mountain of Palestine, higher than Mount Tabor. The Psalmist says, “It is the dew of Hermon that descends upon the mountains of Zion.” Jesus became incarnate light on this mountain, the highest mountain in the life of Christ, that life which marks its different stages by great heights—the mountain of the Temptation, the mountain of the Beatitudes, the mountain of the Transfiguration, the mountain of the Crucifixion.
Three Disciples alone were with Him: he who was called Peter, and the Sons of Thunder,—the man with the rugged, mountainous character, and the stormy men—fitting company for the place and hour. He prayed alone, apart from them, higher than all of them, perhaps kneeling in the snow. All of us have seen in winter how the snow on a mountain makes any other whiteness seem dull and drab. A pale face seems strangely dark, white linen seems dingy, paper looks like dry clay. The contrary of all this was seen on that day up in the gleaming, deserted height alone in the sky.
Jesus prayed by Himself apart from the others. Suddenly His face shone like the sun and His raiment became as white as snow in the sunshine, white “as no fuller on earth can white them.” Over the whiteness of the snow a more brilliant whiteness, a splendor more powerful than all known splendors, outshone all earthly light.