The disciples did not understand their Master - a common experience. Why was this saying so difficult? It seems plain enough to us. But then we look at it after its accomplishment; they before that. And their rabbinic training taught them to look for something very different from what Christ seemed to be referring to. He spoke as if he alone was to rise again. They had been taught to think of the resurrection as universal, and altogether; not an experience of one here and another there. Moreover, their teachers had told them that Elias must first come. In fact, their habits of thought were all going in one direction, and this saying of Christ's in another. Yet, like fair and candid men, they did not dismiss the words as impossible of accomplishment or interpretation; but they "kept the saying."

I. HOW ARE WE TO EXPLAIN THE HOLD WHICH THE HARD SAYINGS OF CHRIST HAVE UPON THE DEVOUT MIND? Their "keeping" the saying was doubtless for the most part a voluntary thing, yet there was also a sense in which it was involuntary. The subject it concerned awed and interested them, and they could not, if they had wished to do it, throw off its fascination. And so it is with the other hard sayings; that which is to be said of this may be said of them.

1. Because of relation with similar experiences. Many a time had the actions of Christ, or their own spiritual history, presented enigmas that refused to be summarily explained. They were continually stumbling upon some new, strange thing. They had just come out of a scene of which the wisest and soberest of them might well wonder whether it was fairyland or fact. And they were conscious of deep yearnings and aspirations to which the Savior's words seemed to answer as the key to the lock. These had evidently something in common. The doctrines of Christianity may be difficult for the carnal mind to construe, but they appeal to a deep, universal, albeit depraved, human consciousness, which forbids their being at once dismissed from the thought.

2. And the sense of mystery is itself an element of fascination. The mind goes forth freely after the infinite and eternal in speculation and fancy, if not in serious moral interest. If there be but a substratum of apparent fact upon which thought can build, the sense of a mystery lying beyond is congenial to man; and he will continually return to it in efforts to penetrate it. This is why - at least, one reason why - the world around us never pails upon our senses. Its commonest things are steeped in wonder of the unknowable, if we but take one or two steps onward in the study of them.

3. In addition to this, the disciples knew that no mystery was uttered by their Master without some gracious meaning in it, which would sooner or later be made known. The hardest doctrine was, they felt, closely connected with their welfare, and would be seen to be so by-and-by. And Christians have experienced the same ever since. Our daily life is, if we be thoughtful, the best expositor of the deep things of grace, and keeps hovering within our horizon many an angel of revelation ready to deliver his message in due time.

II. HOW SHOULD THESE BE DEALT WITH? The disciples "kept," i.e. held fast, the saying; thus affording an example to all true Christians.

1. We should continually endeavor to understand or learn their meaning. Sometimes simple communion with one's own heart will be enough; or, again, it may be necessary to discuss them with others of a kindred spirit. Many of the happiest hours of life are so spent. Not that we shall always succeed; very often there will remain an element of the infinite or the unknown that will trouble us.

2. But when human wisdom fails, Divine wisdom may be invoked. "They asked him," and he cleared away the difficulty to the extent to which they made it known. To the praying soul the light will come in ever-increasing fullness. More light will break forth from the book of earthly experience, and from the written Word of comfort and revelation. And when the mystery still remains insoluble, the Spirit of Jesus will give us faith and patience until "the day dawn, and the day-star arise in our hearts," and we know even as we are known. - M.

I. When the workman is tempted to waste his employer's substance, or the time which is his property, and says to himself, "There is nobody to see; nobody will know," he would be checked if he remembered and realized that in absolute fact he owes his duty to no man, save to Jesus only, Jesus who for thirty years shared the workman's lot, and put dignity forever upon honest handiwork.

II. But not alone for this world's business and behaviour, and temperament, is this thought true: in the matter of the soul's salvation blessed are they who see no man save Jesus only.

1. There is danger for the young in letting their religion be based on mere love or regard for a minister or a religious friend.

2. Others there are who allow their religion to be unduly influenced by particular places and circumstances.

3. In the days when we feel burdened with a sense of our sin, may we then look to no man, save to Jesus only.

4. In the hour of death you will have the one Friend to go with you, when all others must leave you.

(Canon Erskine Clarke.)

When Bishop Beveredge was on his death bed, his memory so failed that he did not know even his nearest relative. His chaplain said, "Do you know me?" "Who are you?" was the answer. His own wife asked him, "Do you know me?" "Who are you?" was the only answer. On being told that it was his wife he said that he did not know her. Then one standing by said, "Do you know Jesus Christ?" "Jesus Christ," he replied, reviving as if the name acted on him like a cordial, "yes, I have known Him these forty years: He is my only hope." Brethren, when our time cometh to depart to the place of peace, may we in like manner see no man, save Jesus only. But if the presence of Jesus is to abide with us when flesh and heart and mind are failing, it must be cherished in the days of health and strength and vigour.

Love brings to the Saviour a flaming heart; obedience comes on willing feet; patience bows down to receive its load: while faith stretches out an empty hand, to be filled with His free gifts. A faithful Sunday school teacher lay dying. The light of heaven was in his eye, and seraphic smiles played upon his thin lids, as he thought of his mighty Redeemer. Just before he sank away, he turned to his daughter, who was trying to anticipate his every wish by her loving care, and said, "Bring —." More he could not say, for strength was too far gone. "What shall I bring, dear father?" asked the anxious child. "Bring —." "Dear, precious father, do tell me what to bring!" The dying man rallied for a last effort, and feebly murmured —

"Bring forth the royal diadem,

And crown Him Lord of all!"If, in the closing hour of life, the Saviour is as near to us, we cannot complain of the lack of other comforters. We shall be sure to awake at last to His likeness, and shall shine forth as the sun, in our Father's kingdom.

(J. H. Norton.)

Whoever and whatever vanishes, Jesus remains with His disciples.

I. THOUGH PHYSICAL HEALTH DEPARTS, HE ABIDES. When heart and flesh fail, He is present to succour and strengthen the soul, and to bear it to one of the many mansions He has prepared.

II. THOUGH WORLDLY POSSESSIONS DISAPPEAR, HE REMAINS. Secular wealth, rightly used, is an incalculable blessing; it not only serves to relieve from all worldly anxieties, and minister to bodily comfort and intellectual enjoyment, but also gives us power to help our fellowmen both temporally and spiritually. But how often do riches take wings and fly away! But Christ is the true riches: He is of more value than untold gold; and nothing can deprive us of Him.

III. THOUGH DEAREST FRIENDS DEPART, HE ABIDES. Good men are constantly losing from their social sphere those who have charmed them with their presence, and inspired them with their talk. When listening to them either in the sanctuary, the club, or on the domestic hearth, they have felt it good to be there. But one by one they vanish; the time comes when the best is gone, and all is social desolation; and like the disciples, they look around, and see no man any more, save Jesus only, with themselves. He is the abiding Friend, and having Him we have all.

(D. Thomas, D. D.)

I. It was a symbolical intimation that WHEN HE THAT IS PERFECT AND ETERNAL HAD COME, ALL THAT WAS IMPERFECT AND PREPARATORY SHOULD VANISH AWAY. And that this latter was the character both of the Law and the Prophets is obvious. Moses had Christ constantly in view, and the entire scheme of Levitical worship which he was inspired to draw up, looked forward to Him. So, too, the prophets in various ways predicted an age of surpassing glory, which should culminate at the Messiah's coming.

II. Not only was all prophecy fulfilled in Christ, BUT THE PROPHETIC CHARACTER ALSO RECEIVED ITS PERFECT DEVELOPMENT IN HIM. He not only announced, He was, the Word of God. The lesson of this mysterious scene was this: that Moses and Elias and Christ were three no longer, no more separated, but made one by God. Legislator and prophet both were summoned to the scene of the transfiguration, and both symbolically (by vanishing away, leaving Jesus only with the disciples) consigned their finished work into Christ's hands, knowing that henceforth there was but one dispensation, one tabernacle, one gospel.

(H. M. Luckock, D. D.)

Elias, Elijah, James, Jesus, John, PeterCaesarea Philippi, Capernaum, Galilee, High MountainAnyone, Charged, Commanded, Dead, Declare, Descended, Except, Forbad, Mount, Mountain, Orders, Relate, Rise, Risen, Rose, Save, Strictly, Till, Unless1. Jesus is transfigured.
11. He instructs his disciples concerning the coming of Elijah;
14. casts forth a deaf and mute spirit;
30. foretells his death and resurrection;
33. exhorts his disciples to humility;
38. bidding them not to prohibit such as are not against them,
42. nor to give offense to any of the faithful.

Mark 9:9

     2060   Christ, patience of
     2221   Christ, Son of Man
     2560   Christ, resurrection
     9311   resurrection, of Christ

Mark 9:2-13

     5092   Elijah

Mark 9:9-11

     2580   Christ, transfiguration

February 2 Evening
One star differeth from another star in glory.--I COR. 15:41. By the way they had disputed among themselves, who should be the greatest. And he sat down, and called the twelve, and saith unto them, If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all.--Be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who …
Anonymous—Daily Light on the Daily Path

Christ's Lament Over Our Faithlessness
'He answereth him and saith, O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you?'--Mark ix. 19. There is a very evident, and, I think, intentional contrast between the two scenes, of the Transfiguration, and of this healing of the maniac boy. And in nothing is the contrast more marked than in the demeanour of these enfeebled and unbelieving Apostles, as contrasted with the rapture of devotion of the other three, and with the lowly submission and faith of Moses and Elias. …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Omnipotence of Faith
Jesus said unto him, If them canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.'--Mark ix. 23. The necessity and power of faith is the prominent lesson of this narrative of the healing of a demoniac boy, especially as it is told by the Evangelist Mark, The lesson is enforced by the actions of all the persons in the group, except the central figure, Christ. The disciples could not cast out the demon, and incur Christ's plaintive rebuke, which is quite as much sorrow as blame: 'O faithless …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Unbelieving Belief
'And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief.'--Mark ix. 24. We owe to Mark's Gospel the fullest account of the pathetic incident of the healing of the demoniac boy. He alone gives us this part of the conversation between our Lord and the afflicted child's father. The poor man had brought his child to the disciples, and found them unable to do anything with him. A torrent of appeal breaks from his lips as soon as the Lord gives …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

An Unanswered Question
'What was it that ye disputed among yourselves by the way?'--Mark ix. 33. Was it not a strange time to squabble when they had just been told of His death? Note-- I. The variations of feeling common to the disciples and to us all: one moment 'exceeding sorrowful,' the next fighting for precedence. II. Christ's divine insight into His servants' faults. This question was put because He knew what the wrangle had been about. The disputants did not answer, but He knew without an answer, as His immediately …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Salted with Fire
Every one shall be salted with fire.'--Mark ix. 49. Our Lord has just been uttering some of the most solemn words that ever came from His gracious lips. He has been enjoining the severest self-suppression, extending even to mutilation and excision of the eye, the hand, or the foot, that might cause us to stumble. He has been giving that sharp lesson on the ground of plain common sense and enlightened self-regard. It is better, obviously, to live maimed than to die whole. The man who elects to …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

'Salt in Yourselves'
'Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another.'--Mark ix. 50. In the context 'salt' is employed to express the preserving, purifying, divine energy which is otherwise spoken of as 'fire.' The two emblems produce the same result. They both salt--that is, they cleanse and keep. And if in the one we recognise the quick energy of the Divine Spirit as the central idea, no less are we to see the same typified under a slightly different aspect in the other. The fire transforms into its own substance …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

'This is My Beloved Son: Hear Him'
'And there was a cloud that overshadowed them: and a voice came out of the cloud, saying, This is My beloved Son: hear Him.'--Mark ix. 7. With regard to the first part of these words spoken at the Transfiguration, they open far too large and wonderful a subject for me to do more than just touch with the tip of my finger, as it were, in passing, because the utterance of the divine words, 'This is My beloved Son,' in all the depth of their meaning and loftiness, is laid as the foundation of the two …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Jesus Only!
'They saw no man any more, save Jesus only with themselves.'--Mark ix. 8. The Transfiguration was the solemn inauguration of Jesus for His sufferings and death. Moses, the founder, and Elijah, the restorer, of the Jewish polity, the great Lawgiver and the great Prophet, were present. The former had died and been mysteriously buried, the latter had been translated without 'seeing death.' So both are visitors from the unseen world, appearing to own that Jesus is the Lord of that dim land, and that …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Transfiguration
'And after six days Jesus taketh with Him Peter, and James, and John, and leadeth them up into an high mountain apart by themselves: and He was transfigured before them. 3. And His raimemt became shining, exceeding white as snow; so as no fuller on earth can white them. 4. And there appeared unto them Elias with Moses: and they were talking with Jesus. 5. And Peter answered and said to Jesus, Master, it is good for us to be here: and let us make three tabernacles; one for Thee, and one for Moses, …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Receiving and Forbidding
'And He came to Capernaum: and being in the house He asked them, What was it that ye disputed among yourselves by the way? 34. But they held their peace: for by the way they had disputed among themselves, who should be the greatest. 35. And He sat down, and called the Twelve, and saith unto them, If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all, and servant of all. 36. And He took a child, and set him in the midst of them: and when He had taken him in His arms, He said unto them, 37. …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

July the Ninth Scholars in Christ's School
"He taught His disciples." --MARK ix. 30-37. And my Lord will teach me. He will lead me into "the deep things" of God. There is only one school for this sort of learning, and an old saint called it the Academy of Love, and it meets in Gethsemane and Calvary, and the Lord Himself is the teacher, and there is room in the school for thee and me. But the disciples were not in the mood for learning. They were not ambitious for heavenly knowledge, but for carnal prizes, not for wisdom, but for place. …
John Henry Jowett—My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year

The Lenten Fast.
"This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer."--ST. MARK ix. 29. You remember the narrative from which I have taken this verse. Jesus, as we read, had just come down from the Mount of Transfiguration, and when He was come to the multitude, a certain man besought him saying, "Have mercy on my son, for he is lunatic and sore vexed, and I brought him to Thy disciples, but they could not cure him." Then Jesus rebuked the devil, and the child was cured from that hour. Thereupon His disciples …
John Percival—Sermons at Rugby

The Child in the Midst.
"And He took a child and set Him in the midst of them: and when He had taken him in His arms, He said unto them, Whosoever shall receive one of such children in My name, receiveth Me: and whosoever shall receive Me, receiveth not Me, but Him that sent Me."--ST. MARK ix. 36, 37. It is one of the characteristics of our time, one of its most hopeful and most encouraging signs, that men are awaking to higher and purer conceptions of the Christian life and what it is that constitutes such a life. We …
John Percival—Sermons at Rugby

Of Hell
"Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched." Mark 9:48. 1. Every truth which is revealed in the oracles of God is undoubtedly of great importance. Yet it may be allowed that some of those which are revealed therein are of greater importance than others, as being more immediately conducive to the grand end of all, the eternal salvation of men. And we may judge of their importance even from this circumstance, -- that they are not mentioned once only in the sacred writings, but are repeated …
John Wesley—Sermons on Several Occasions

A Caution against Bigotry
"And John answered him, saying, Master, we saw one casting out devils in Thy name: and he followeth not us: and we forbad him, because he followeth not us. But Jesus said, Forbid him not." Mark 9:38, 39. 1. In the preceding verses we read, that after the Twelve had been disputing "which of them should be the greatest," Jesus took a little child, and set him in the midst of them, and taking him in his arms, said unto them, "Whosoever shall receive one of these little children in My name, receiveth …
John Wesley—Sermons on Several Occasions

Faith's Dawn and Its Clouds
In the text there are three things very clearly. Here is true faith; here is grievous unbelief; here is a battle between the two. I. Very clearly in the text there is TRUE FAITH. "Lord, I believe," says the anxious father. When our Lord tells him that, if he can believe, all things are possible to him, he makes no demur, asks for no pause, wishes to hear no more evidence, but cries at once, "Lord, I believe." Now, observe we have called this faith true faith, and we will prove it to have been so. …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 18: 1872

The Child in the Midst.
And he came to Capernaum: and, being in the house, he asked them, What was it that ye disputed among yourselves by the way? But they held their peace: for by the way they had disputed among themselves who should be the greatest. And he sat down, and called the twelve, and saith unto them, If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all, and servant of all. And he took a child, and set him in the midst of them: and when he had taken him in his arms, he said unto them, Whosoever shall …
George MacDonald—Unspoken Sermons

Absolute Surrender
"And Ben-hadad the king of Syria gathered all his host together: and there were thirty and two kings with him, and horses, and chariots: and he went up and besieged Samaria, and warred against it. And he sent messengers to Ahab king of Israel into the city, and said unto him, Thus saith Ben-hadad, Thy silver and thy gold is mine; thy wives also and thy children, even the goodliest, are mine. And the king of Israel answered and said, My lord, O king, according to thy saying, I am thine and all that …
Andrew Murray—Absolute Surrender

Thoughts Upon Striving to Enter at the Strait Gate.
AS certainly as we are here now, it is not long but we shall all be in another World, either in a World of Happiness, or else in a World of Misery, or if you will, either in Heaven or in Hell. For these are the two only places which all Mankind from the beginning of the World to the end of it, must live in for evermore, some in the one, some in the other, according to their carriage and behaviour here; and therefore it is worth the while to take a view and prospect now and then of both these places, …
William Beveridge—Private Thoughts Upon a Christian Life

The Three Tabernacles
And Peter answered and said to Jesus, Master, it is good for us to be here: and let us make three tabernacles, one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias. MARK ix. 5. Caught up in glory and in rapture, the Apostle seems to have forgotten the world from which he had ascended, and to which he still belonged, and to have craved permanent shelter and extatic communion within the mystic splendors that brightened the Mount of Transfiguration. But it was true, not only as to the confusion of his …
E. H. Chapin—The Crown of Thorns

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