The Transfiguration, with all its heavenly loveliness, its purity, its fellowship, and its glory, had evidently not been an unmixed enjoyment to the three men who were elected to see it. They were not yet capable of such a scene. It was a comfort and relief to them when it all passed away, and they awoke and lifted up their eyes, and saw "Jesus only."
I. Thus it has been, and it is and it will be, with the pageant of life. There are thousands of things in the world which glisten brightly, and they are about us a little while, and we feel it good to be there. But they were never made to stay. At the best, they are but the poor copies of some great original, for which we were created, and to which they are pointing. And presently, just when we least expect it, it is all withdrawn. And what is left? Truth, reality, simplicity, love, light, the eternal. And what are all these? Have they an embodiment? Jesus "Jesus only."
II. At the Transfiguration all the rest was only circumstance. It could come and go, wonderful and Divine as it was. But it was not essential; essence never goes, and the essence of everything which is good, and true, and happy, in all worlds, is Jesus. What we have continually to do is to separate circumstance from fact, the non-essential from the essential; to reduce everything to its first principles, to its germs; to see the "I Am" "Jesus only." (1) See it in the great plan of our salvation. So long as you allot a fraction of the work to yourself, you will never have peace. It is all and only Jesus. (2) Or see it in our sanctification. The Holy Spirit does His own proper work. We fight our great battle with sin. The righteousness of Christ is accounted to us, laid on us like a robe. (3) Or look at the rich and hallowed things with which God has provided, and decked, and endowed His Church its order, its ministry. They are all the visible expression of great, deep, invisible truths, which lie within them all like hidden mysteries.
III. Could you live upon the mountain of beatitude, and every scene be tipped with gladness, and all this dull existence be transformed into brilliancy, there would be a void. You would want something; you would not be quite happy never, till you have "Jesus only." Jesus is the soul's complement.
J. Vaughan, Sermons,13th series, p. 45.
References: Matthew 17:8. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xvi., No. 924; E. W. Shalders, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xvi., p. 187; E. D. Solomon, Ibid.,vol. xx., p. 378; H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, Sunday Sermonettes for a Year,pp. 79, 138; G. Matheson, Moments on the Mount,p. 253.Matthew 17:14-21. Preacher's Monthly,vol. iii., p. 344; S. D. Thomas, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxix., p. 102.Matthew 17:14-27. Parker, Inner Life of Christ,vol. iii., p. 29. Matthew 17:17. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xiv., No. 821.