How to become like Christ | Page 8

must go unto Jerusalem
and suffer many things, even of the men who ought chiefly to have recognised Him, and
to be raised again the third day.
Once before our Lord had been tempted in another way to the throne of the universal

dominion of men; again this temptation is pressed upon Him by the very men who should
have helped Him to resist it; His closest, His warmest, His most enlightened friends,
those who stand on quite a different plane from the world at large, are His tempters. Satan
found in them an adequate mouthpiece. They, who should have cheered and heartened
Him to face the terrible prospect, were hindrances, were an additional burden and anxiety
to Him.
Now, it is to this conversation that the incident known as the transfiguration is linked by
all the evangelists who relate it--the first three. It was six days after (or, as Luke says,
eight days after) this conversation that Jesus went up Mount Hermon for the sake of
retirement and prayer. Plainly He was aware that the great crisis of His life had come.
The time had come when He must cease teaching, and face His destiny. He had made
upon His disciples an impression which would be indelible. With deliberation they had
accepted Him as the Messiah; the Church was founded; His work, so far as His teaching
went, was accomplished. It remained that He should die. To consecrate Himself to this
hard necessity, He retired to the solitude of Mount Hermon. We start, then, from the
wrong point of view, if we suppose that Jesus climbed Hermon in order to enjoy spiritual
ecstasy, or exhibit His glory to those three men. Ecstasy of this kind must come unsought;
and the way to it lies through conflict, humiliation, self-mastery. It was not simply to pray
that Jesus retired; it was to engage in the great conflict of His life. And because He felt,
Himself so much in need of kindness and support, He took with Him the three
companions He could most depend upon. They were loyal friends; and their very
presence was a strength to Him. So human was Jesus, and now so heavily burdened, that
the devotedness of these three plain men--the sound of their voices, the touch of their
hands as they clambered the hill together, gave Him strength and courage. Let no one be
ashamed to lean upon the affection of his fellow-men. Let us, also, reverently, and with
sympathy, accompany our Lord and witness, and endeavour to understand, the conflict in
which He now engaged. It has been suggested that the transfiguration may best be
understood as a temptation. Undoubtedly there must have been temptation in the
experience of Jesus at this crisis. It was for the purpose of finally consecrating Himself to
death, with all its painful accompaniments, that He now retired. But the very difficulty of
this act of consecration consisted just in this: that He might, if He pleased, avoid death. It
was because Peter's words, "This be far from Thee," touched a deep chord in His own
spirit, and strengthened that within Himself which made Him tremble and wish that God's
will could in any other wise be accomplished--it was this which caused Him so sharply
and suddenly to rebuke Peter. Peter's words penetrated to what was lurking near at hand
as His normal temptation. We may very readily underrate the trial and temptation of
Christ, and thus have only a formal, not a real, esteem for His manhood. We always
underrate it when we do not fully apprehend His human nature, and believe that He was
tempted in all points as we are. But, on the other hand, we underrate it if we forget that
His position was wholly different from ours. That Jesus had abundant nerve and courage
no reader of the Gospels can, of course, doubt. He was calm in the midst of a storm
which terrified experienced boat-men; in riots that threatened His life, in the hands of
soldiers striving to torment Him and break Him down, in the presence of judges and
enemies, He maintained a dignity which only the highest courage could maintain. That
such a Person should have quailed at the prospect of physical suffering, which thousands
of men and women have voluntarily and calmly faced, is simply impossible to believe.

Neither was it entirely His perception of the spiritual significance of death which made it
to Him a far more painful prospect than to any other. Certainly this clear perception of
the meaning of death did add immensely to its terrors; but if we are even to begin to
understand His trial, and begin is all we can do--we must bear in mind what Peter had just
confessed, and what Jesus Himself knew--that He was