Mark 9:2-29

Rapture and Service

Mark 9:2-29

The Apostles had been gladdened by the promise of the coming Kingdom. The transfiguring light that shone from our Lord's face differed from the shining of Moses' face. With Moses the light was from without, and faded; but with Christ the light shone from within. Surely at that moment He might have stepped back into heaven by the open door, through which the representatives of the Law and the prophets had come; but He turned His back on the joy of the Father's home, and set His face to endure the cross, that He might become, not the example only, but the Redeemer of men.

What a contrast between that scene on Hermon's slopes, where the glory of Jesus was brighter than the glistening snows about Him, and that below, where the demoniac child writhed in pain! Raphael does well to group these two incidents in one picture, for we are shown here that the duty of the Church is not to build tabernacles on the mount of vision, but to take her way into the haunts of crime and misery and cope with the power of Satan.

Faith is the channel through which the divine power passes. Its quantity is of less importance than its quality. It may be minute as a mustard seed, but, like it, must contain the principle of life.