Present in all great praying, making and marking it, is the man. It is impossible to separate the praying from the man. The constituent elements of the man are the constituents of his praying. The man flows through his praying. Only the fiery Elijah could do Elijah’s fiery praying. We can get holy praying only from a holy man. Holy being can never exist without holy doing. Being is first, doing comes afterward. What we are gives being, force and inspiration to what we do. Character, that which is graven deep, ineradicably, imperishably within us, colours all we do.
The praying of Christ, then, is not to be separated from the character of Christ. If He prayed more unweariedly, more self-denyingly, more holily, more simply and directly than other men, it was because these elements entered more largely into His character than into that of others.
The transfiguration marks another epoch in His life, and that was pre-eminently a prayer epoch. Luke gives an account with the animus and aim of the event:
“And it came to pass about an eight days after these sayings, he took Peter and John and James, and went up into a mountain to pray.
“And as he prayed, the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his raiment was white and glistering.
“And, behold, there talked with him two men, which were Moses and Elias:
“Who appeared in glory, and spake of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem.”
The selection was made of three of His disciples for an inner circle of associates, in prayer. Few there be who have the spiritual tastes or aptitude for this inner circle. Even these three favoured ones could scarcely stand the strain of that long night of praying. We know that He went up on that mountain to pray, not to be transfigured. But it was as He prayed, the fashion of His countenance was altered and His raiment became white and glistering. There is nothing like prayer to change character and whiten conduct. There is nothing like prayer to bring heavenly visitants and to gild with heavenly glory earth’s mountain to us, dull and drear. Peter calls it the holy mount, made so by prayer.
Three times did the voice of God bear witness to the presence and person of His Son, Jesus Christ—at His baptism by John the Baptist, and then at His transfiguration the approving, consoling and witnessing voice of His Father was heard. He was found in prayer both of these times. The third time the attesting voice came, it was not on the heights of His transfigured glory, nor was it as He was girding Himself to begin His conflict and to enter upon His ministry, but it was when He was hastening to the awful end. He was entering the dark mystery of His last agony, and looking forward to it. The shadows were deepening, a dire calamity was approaching and an unknown and untried dread was before Him. Ruminating on His approaching death, prophesying about it, and forecasting the glory which would follow, in the midst of His high and mysterious discourse, the shadows come like a dread eclipse and He bursts out in an agony of prayer:
“Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour.
“Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it and will glorify it again.
“The people therefore that stood by, and heard it, said that it thundered: others said, An angel spake to him.
“Jesus answered and said, This voice came not because of me, but for your sakes.”
But let it be noted that Christ is meeting and illuminating this fateful and distressing hour with prayer. How even thus early the flesh reluctantly shrank from the contemplated end!