I. Not for the Apostles' sake only was the glory of the Lord thus revealed. In them the whole Church since saw it, and to us, as to them, it is given as a support of faith, a kindling of our hope. To us, too, it is a witness of our Lord's Divinity; nay, more, of His Divinity and humanity together; it is to us a faint gleam of that ineffable mystery, how man can be taken into God, how God can dwell in man, and fill him with the glory of the Father. Great is the comfort to us that He, our High Priest, our Intercessor, is thus glorified, is thus present with God, and is God. Yet does this mystery, in a still more definite way, open to us the greatness of our future hopes; it gives a glimpse of that which we have no thought to conceive, "the good things" which God has, in His boundless mercy, in store for those who love Him.
II. We have been made partakers of Christ's death, passion, resurrection, life; we also, if we be faithful, are being made partakers of His glory, for this the Apostle expressly says, that "we with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord," contemplating Him and seeking, by prayer and daily diligence, to have His image, line by line, retraced in us, are being changed into the same image from glory to glory, through the Lord the Spirit. Through that indwelling glory did the face of St. Stephen shine like the face of an angel. Even now do we sometimes see the faces of God's saints gleam with unearthly purity and love; even now, as the parting spirit sometimes sees heaven open, and hears and almost feels the brushing by of the angels' wings who shall carry it, or knows the room to be full of angels, or sees the Redeemer Himself, so does the body catch the light it is approaching; even now, ere. we resign the sacred remains to be sown in dishonour, the solemn peace and holy calm spread over them seem to tell us by whom they were inhabited; they seem yet, like the parted spirit, to live to Him; the evening, so closed in, seems the dawning of the resurrection.
III. Our Lord stretcheth forth His hands to bless us, but it is in the form of His cross. The transfiguration is our glory; it sets forth that glory to us, but also how it was to be won for us, by bearing the cross for us; by us, by bearing ours, after Him, in His strength and following Him.
Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times,"vol. iii., p. 223.
References: Matthew 17:1. Preacher's Monthly,vol. x., p. 92.Matthew 17:1; Matthew 17:2. S. A. Brooke, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xvi., p. 376. Matthew 17:1-3. R. C. Trench, Studies in the Gospels,p. 184; Preacher's Monthly,vol. i., p. 37. Matthew 17:1-8. Homiletic Quarterly,vol. i., p. 476. Matthew 17:1-9. J. C. Jones, Studies in St. Matthew,p. 274.Matthew 17:1-13. A. B. Bruce, The Training of the Twelve,p. 196; Preacher's Monthly,vol. iii., p. 339; Parker, Inner Life of Christ,vol. iii., p. 19.