This, then, was for Jesus an appeal that was irresistible.  As the full meaning of all that God had done for His people through Law and Prophets was borne in upon Him, He saw that He must die.  Now, for the last time, He put aside all His hesitations, and as He prays, He yields Himself to the will of the Father.  Those are the supreme moments in human life when man, through sore conflict and at great cost, gives himself up to the will of God.  Never was there so sore a conflict, and never so much joy as here.  His face was transfigured; it beamed with the light and peace of heaven that shone from within.  The eyes of the disciples closed on a face, every line of which they knew and loved—­a face full of wisdom and resolve and deep-founded peace, showing marks of trouble, of trial, of endurance, of premature age; their eyes opened upon a face that shines with a preternatural radiance—­a face expressing, more than ever face had done, the dignity and glory and joy of perfect harmony with God.  He was God-possessed, and the Divine glory shone from His face.  It was at the moment of his yielding all to God that Jesus attained His highest glory.  Man’s life is transformed when he allows God’s will to fill it and shine through it; his person is transformed when he divests himself of self-will, and allows God wholly to possess it.

How easy was it for the disciples at that hour to hear Him; to listen now when He spoke of the cross, which, for Him and for all His disciples, is the path leading from earth to heaven, from what is selfishly human to true human glory!  It is on the cross that Jesus is truly enthroned.  It is because He became the Servant of all that He is greatest of all.  If anyone could rival Him in the service he would rival Him in the glory.  It is because He gave Himself for us, willing to do all to save us in our direst need, that He takes a place in our confidence and in our heart that belongs to no other.  He becomes the one absolute need of every man, because He is that which brings us to God, and gives God to us.

Hear Him, therefore, when, through His Providence, He preaches to you this difficult lesson.  If your difficulties and distresses are real; if you cannot labour without thinking of them; if you cannot rest from labour through fear of their possessing you; if your troubles have assumed so hard a form, so real a place in your life, that all else has come to seem unreal and empty, then remember that He whose end was to be eternal glory chose sorrow, that He might break a way to glory through human suffering.  If there is nothing in your lot in life which crosses and humbles you; if there is nothing in your circumstances which compels you to see that this life is not for self-indulgence and self-gratification, then still you must win participation in your Lord’s glory by accepting His lowliness and heavenliness of mind.  It is not to outward success that you are called in His kingdom, it is to inward victory.  You are called to meekness, and lowliness, and mercy; to the losing of your life in this world, that you may have life everlasting.