“A voice sublime I panting hear,
A voice that conquers grief and fear,
Revealing all eternity;
Revealing God’s beloved Son,
Born to redeem a world undone;
Filled with God’s fulness from on high,
To gain God’s noblest victory.”
—­Trans.  Kingo of Denmark.

We may think of the twelve as Christ’s family with whom He often prayed apart from the multitude.  One such occasion was in Caesarea Philippi.  The prayer was followed by two earnest and solemn questions.  “He asked the disciples, saying, Who do men say that the Son of Man is?  And they said, Some say John the Baptist; some, Elijah; and others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”

How strange these sayings must have sounded to St. John and his Jordan companions, who had been directed by the Baptist to their Messiah.  Three of them were soon to witness Elijah’s tribute to Him, as being more than the “Son of Man.”  Such already had He become to them.  He was more interested in the opinions of the disciples than in those of the multitude.  So He asked with emphasis, “But who say ye that I am?  And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.  And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona:  for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but My Father which is in heaven.”

But in the mind of Jesus even this blessed revelation was not enough for His believing yet frail disciples.  Even the three, the most enlightened of the twelve, needed a clearer vision of Him and His kingdom, and strength for trials they were to endure.  So they needed His prayers.

“From that time began Jesus to show unto His disciples how that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things, ... and be killed.”  He needed prayer also for Himself.  So “Jesus taketh with Him Peter, and James and John, and bringeth them up into a high mountain apart by themselves.”  The favored three, who had witnessed His power in the raising of Jairus’ daughter, were to be witnesses of his glory.  Luke says He “went up into the mountain to pray.”  Not Tabor,—­for which mistaken tradition has claimed the honor—­but Hermon was doubtless the “high mountain.”  This kingly height of the Lebanon range was a fitting place for Jesus the King.  The glittering splendor of its snows is a fitting emblem of His character.  It was the highest earthly spot on which He stood.  From it He had His most extensive views.  Here He had His most exalted earthly experience.  Peter rightly named it “the Holy Mount” because of its “glory that excelleth” all other mountains.

We do not know the thoughts or feelings or words of the nine when Jesus “taketh with Him the three.”  We wonder whether their wonder was at all mixed with jealousy.  As they saw the three “apart by themselves,” their lessening forms ascending Hermon, and at last hidden from their view by the evening shades, can it be that the dispute began which cast a gloom over their Lord when He descended from that mountain of glory?