The singular eminence of the religion of Jesus depends upon a right apprehension of the principle just illustrated. The Christian life is and must be a Via Crucis, yet at the same time is the way that leadeth unto life. The principle of dying to live as enunciated by Christ differs from that of even the greatest of His predecessors in the recognition that true gladness is conditioned by self-crucifixion. Human nature has been slow to learn the lesson. The great renunciation of Gautama Buddha, for example, consisted in the repression of individuality and the destruction of the natural desires. The effect of his system was negative; the higher life was to be one of self-suppression, a very different thing, surely, from self-crucifixion. Gautama placed the ideal in ceasing to live; Christ, on the other hand, taught His followers to live more deeply, truly and grandly than before. To follow Jesus, now as always, means to feel more and not less, to add to the sum of our interests, and not to take from them, to raise the standard of our hopes, not to depress it. Like Gautama, He calls for a renunciation, but that renunciation is the gateway into larger life. The solemn gladness of Christian experience finds its parallel in no other teaching that the world has ever received. How can we be surprised that ascetics and hedonists within the bosom of the Christian Church itself have so frequently and lamentably mistaken the spirit of their Master's teaching? The ideal of Thomas à Kempis, in spite of its beauty, is no more that of Jesus than was the ideal of Gautama. How slowly men come to learn that peace and tribulation, joy and suffering, gladness and the Cross, are not incompatible, but the very conditions of each other!
Before we visit Peter with our censures because of his unmistakable reluctance to accept Christ's vision of the cross let us give heed to ourselves. The same mistakes may take very different form. With many of us the ideal of human felicity which we call Christian is essentially Pagan. Our very thanksgivings show it. We are grateful to God for troubles averted, happiness preserved, fortune assured; we tacitly assume that the opposite of these things would have been an evil. We praise the goodness of God in shielding us from the untoward and calamitous, and though it may seem hardly worth while to say it, some naturally amiable characters with a bias toward holy things have lost their faith and lost their sweetness at one and the same time with the arrival of sorrow. Far be it from me to insist that men should cease to thank God for the sweetness and the joy of life, but if we lay the stress here and refuse to take the cross when it is presented to us we have shut ourselves off from the attainment of that highest good, which is to know the fellowship of the sufferings of Christ. "Strait is the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." If the clear truth of the necessary connection between the assumption of the cross and the attainment of true blessedness were to be grasped by those who seek to follow Christ, there would be fewer of the sad failures so frequently apparent amongst those who are disappointed with the result of their faith in God.
I do believe, what you call trust
Was self-delusion at the best: for, see!
So long as God would kindly pioneer
A path for you, and screen you from the world,
Procure you full exemption from man's lot,
Man's common hopes and fears, on the mere pretext
Of your engagement in His service—yield you
A limitless licence, make you God, in fact,
And turn your slave—you were content to say
Most courtly praises! What is it, at last,
But selfishness without example? None
Could trace God's will so plain as you, while yours
Remained implied in it; but now you fail,
And we, who prate about that Will, are fools!
In short, God's service is established here
As He determines fit, and not your way,
And this you cannot brook.[[2]]
Peter's remonstrance here is but an example of a very common human feeling in regard to the things of Christ. It exhibited a certain immaturity of character and crudeness of perception such as, in spite of his genuine affection for his Master, disqualified him at this stage from understanding Him.
[[1]] Matt. xvi. 16, Mark viii. 29, Luke ix. 20.
[[2]] Browning, "Paracelsus."
V.
Simon Peter Witnesses the Transfiguration.
At the close of the conversation referred to above our Lord stated, "There be some here of them that stand by which shall in no wise taste of death till they see the kingdom of God come with power." About a week after this promise—Mark says "six days" and Luke "about eight days"—"Jesus took with Him Peter and James and John, and went with them to a high mountain apart by themselves, and was transfigured before them." Matthew (chapter xvii.) says that "His face did shine as the sun and his garments became white as the light." Luke beautifully states that "as he was praying the fashion of His countenance was altered and His raiment became white and dazzling. And behold there talked with Him two men, which were Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory, and spake of His decease which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem." The three Apostles were in some danger of missing the vision, for, as happened afterwards in the hour of His agony, they slept, or at least were "heavy with sleep." However, as Luke continues, "when they were fully awake they saw His glory, and the two men who stood with Him." The three Galileans were awed by the sight, and Peter in his perturbation broke out with an offer to build three tabernacles. Mark says, "He wist not what to answer, for they became sore afraid." Matthew writes that, "While He was yet speaking, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them; and behold, a voice out of the cloud, saying, This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye Him. And when the disciples heard it, they fell on their face, and were sore afraid. And Jesus came and touched them, and said, Arise, and be not afraid. And lifting up their eyes, they saw no one, save Jesus only." In the Second Epistle of Peter (i. 16-18), we have a further account, purporting, indeed, to be the direct statement of Peter himself, in regard to this extraordinary vision. He says, "For we did not follow cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty. For He received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to Him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased: and this voice we ourselves heard come out of heaven, when we were with Him in the holy mount."