Accidentally or by design, the gospels for the
first two Sundays in Lent commemorate the two peak moments in the earthly
experience of God Incarnate—the Passion always excepted. The Temptation and the
Transfiguration are a pair of companion pictures. On both occasions, the veil
which parts the natural from the supernatural is lifted; on both occasions (if
we will allow the evangelists to tell their own story) a demonstration was made,
not so much for our Lord's sake as for the sake of those who shared his
solitude. In order that the devil might test the strength of this new
Champion's armor, our Lord would be seen at his most human, accessible though
not attentive to suggestions of evil. In order that the chief apostles might be
fortified against the scandal of the Cross, our Lord would be seen in a
humanity so glorified that divinity shone through.
And in either case, the manifestation was
transitory. The devil left him for a season—there was to be no other open trial
of his constancy till Gethsemane. They saw no man any more—the vision had faded
into the less dazzling sunlight. Christ would be the pattern of the Christian
life, so far as that was possible, in the experiences he underwent. For him, as
for his servants, there should be an alternation; now he would be dragged down,
now he would be lifted up, in man's fashion, to prove that he was really
man.
For many, perhaps for most, of those who have been
conformed, right through, to his likeness, there has been a long apprenticeship
of discouragement, when they were assaulted by temptations not felt, or not
felt as temptations, by us others. It seemed as if it would last, but did not
last, for a lifetime. Afterwards, they were admitted to a sense of the Divine
presence, even more beyond our compass. Yet this, too, was transitory; it is
good for us to be here. Yes, but not indefinitely; there must be a return to
the multitudes and to the plain. Light and darkness, bless ye the Lord.
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