Today's reading includes two events that, at first glance, are connected only chronologically: the Transfiguration and the healing of the possessed son of an unnamed man. And yet the Evangelist does not connect these two stories by accident. It would seem...
Today's reading includes two events that, at first glance, are connected only chronologically: the Transfiguration (vv. 28-36) and the healing of the possessed son of an unnamed man (vv. 38-45). And yet the Evangelist does not connect these two stories by accident. It would seem that, against the background of what had just happened, another healing, even one unsuccessful for the apostles, was an ordinary enough event that one might not even mention it.
Meanwhile Jesus' reaction to it was unusually harsh (v. 41). Commentators, of course, have still not come to a single opinion about whom Jesus' words primarily concern: the man who brought his son to Him, or the apostles. But against this background an important detail is the mention that, precisely after the unsuccessful healing, Jesus again and again reminds His disciples of His suffering and death (vv. 43-44), while they cannot understand Him at all: something hides from the apostles the meaning of what the Savior has said (v. 45). It is especially noteworthy that they were even afraid to ask the Teacher again. Until then He had never left their questions unanswered, and not once had He become angry at any question; what, then, could the disciples have been afraid of?
Of course, it was frightening to hear about the Teacher's death from His own lips, but the apostles were not children or cowards ready to hide their heads in the sand at the sight of danger. Apparently they did not simply fail to understand; rather, they did not accept Jesus' words, hoping that they were only a slip, a misunderstanding, or some image, a parable whose meaning would in time be explained. For on the day of the Transfiguration the apostles saw the Kingdom already in all its fullness; one could say that they came home to their Teacher, who had invited them to Himself in order to show them His true home. And there, on that day of triumph, He suddenly begins to speak to them about His death, which for them could only be defeat and catastrophe.
Such a thing, of course, could not fit into their consciousness: for the resurrection, in which the apostles of course believed, was still something too distant for them to become real within their own lives. And so they still did not trust Jesus to the end. But distrust destroys relationships, and when the moment of healing came, the moment of witness to the Kingdom, the apostles failed. Seeing this distrust, which had gone so far, Jesus may well have judged the situation with utmost severity. And no wonder: for the unreadiness mentioned here by the Evangelist to accept Jesus' words about His death and resurrection would later become the cause both of Peter's denial and of Judas' betrayal.
5
5:1 Our earthly house - Which is only a tabernacle, or tent, not designed for a lasting habitation.
5:2 Desiring to be clothed upon - This body, which is now covered with flesh and blood, with the glorious house which is from heaven. Instead of flesh and blood, which cannot enter heaven, the rising body will be clothed or covered with what is analogous thereto, but incorruptible and immortal.Macarius speaks largely of this.
5:3 If being clothed - That is, with the image of God, while we are in the body. We shall not be found naked - Of the wedding garment.
5:4 We groan being burdened - The apostle speaks with exact propriety. A burden naturally expresses groans.And we are here burdened with numberless afflictions, infirmities, temptations. Not that we would be unclothed - Not that we desire to remain without a body. Faith does not understand that philosophical contempt of what the wise Creator has given. But clothed upon - With the glorious, immortal, incorruptible, spiritual body. That what is mortal - This present mortal body. May be swallowed up of life - Coveredwith that which lives for ever.
5:5 Now he that hath wrought us to this very thing - This longing for immortality. Is God - For none but God, none less than the Almighty, could have wrought this in us.
5:6 Therefore we behave undauntedly - But most of all when we have death in view; knowing that our greatest happiness lies beyond the grave.
5:7 For we cannot clearly see him in this life, wherein we walk by faith only: an evidence, indeed, that necessarily implies a kind of "seeing him who is invisible;" yet as far beneath what we shall have in eternity, as it is above that of bare, unassisted reason.
5:8 Present with the Lord - This demonstrates that the happiness of the saints is not deferred till the resurrection.
5:9 Therefore we are ambitious - The only ambition which has place in a Christian. Whether present - In the body.Or absent - From it.
5:10 For we all - Apostles as well as other men, whether now present in the body, or absent from it. Must appear - Openly, without covering, where all hidden things will be revealed; probably the sins, even of the faithful, which were forgiven long before. For many of their good works, as their repentance, their revenge against sin, cannot other wise appear. But this will be done at their own desire, without grief, and without shame. According to what he hath done in the body, whether good or evil - In the body he did either good or evil; in the body he is recompensed accordingly.