2 Peter 1:16-21

Transfiguration Sunday

January 21, 2018

Zion Lutheran Church + Nampa, ID

People today love stories. Heroes and villains.  Good guys gone bad and bad guys gone good. Our culture is one of telling stories, books, television, and movies abound. Fiction and non-fiction alike. Children hear stories from the parents and grandparents. And when we come to Church, we hear the story of Jesus and our place in His story. And this is nothing new.   People in all ages have thought and spoke about God and man. Egyptian gods, pyramids, and statutes still testify to their stories. Greek and Roman mythology is still told and retold. Many people today get more of their mythology from comic books and movies than from the ancient sources These things and more tell us what many in history thought about such things, and how many people today still think. 

With all these stories, how do you know which ones to believe? Which one are good, right and salutary? Too often people hear the story of Christ from a different story than what God has delivered to us in the Bible, and want the latest conspiracy theory.  Human speculation reigns as king. There is no definite authority to determine what is right and wrong, what is truth and what is falsehood. But there is a constant: when sin rears its ugly head, it is most often denied or just rejected.  When God’s plan of salvation humbles our pride, God’s truth is all too often rejected. When people hear what they don’t like, or don’t agree with, it has become all too popular to try to rewrite history, to make God in our image.

The Christian faith, however, rests not speculation, not on comic book caricatures, not on mythology. We need facts, real facts, facts of history, facts experienced in real human lives. To be of any real and lasting value, the Christian faith must have a historical basis. And we must have a real testimony and witness to these things for which we believe, live, and die.

And so St. Peter says in our Epistle this morning, “For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty” (2 Peter 1:16). Peter gets right to it. The heart of Christianity, and the Christian witness, centers around the living, historical Son of God and Son of Man, Jesus the Christ. Christianity is a historic faith, for it begins and ends with He who is the Alpha and the Omega, Jesus. We are not dealing with legends or myths, but with the Person who is Jesus, whom history knows.

So when Peter says, “We were eyewitnesses of His majesty”, he was talking specifically about the Transfiguration, about seeing Moses and Elijah and the Lord’s shining face, of hearing the voice of the Father from heaven declare, “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to Him.” But this was not all he saw or heard. He saw many miracles, His resurrected glory, His ascension into heaven. And not just Peter, but James and John, the other disciples, and thousands of others. These historical facts which they witnessed and heard and to which they testify, are the basis of our faith. They wrote the truth of these things, even when it was to their disadvantage. But it’s not just their opinion, it’s not just their story, and it’s not just their word we are to take blindly.

Peter continues, “And we have something more sure, the prophetic Word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in the dark place…” It is more sure because, “no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21).  The entire Scriptures confirm the apostolic witness of Christ. Peter’s eyewitness account of the transfiguration is trustworthy because it rests on the authority of the Word of God.  It is more sure not because men witness and give witness to Christ, but because the Holy Spirit inspired what they wrote concerning these things. It is upon the Word of God that we build the foundation of our faith, because there is nothing more sure than that which God speaks.

The Word of God, the writings of the Old Testament prophets and the New Testament apostles is a light that shines in a dark place because it points us to the Christ, to the Sun of Righteousness, the morning star that rises in your hearts. This is the Jesus who shows His divine and majestic glory to His closest disciples upon the mount of Transfiguration, who stood with Moses and Elijah, the representatives of the Old Testament Law and Prophets.

It we pay attention to this Word, believe it, follow it, act upon it, our faith rests surely throughout this life and into eternity. This is what it means to see Jesus only, as Peter, James, and John did on the holy mount.  Luther once explained it well, “He bids us fix our eyes and keenness of mind on the Word alone, on Baptism, on the Lord’s Supper, and on absolution, and to regard everything else as darkness. I do not understand, or care about, what is done in this world by the sons of this age; for they crucify me. I cannot escape or draw away that horrible mask which hides the face of God, but I must stay in darkness and in exceedingly dark mist until a new light shines forth” (LW 8:33).

Many will not do this.  They foolishly rob themselves of the greatest gift that a loving and almighty God can give to His people: forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation through faith in Jesus.  They may imagine that people who pay serious attention to God’s Word are weird, are different. And we are. The culture of the church is not the culture of the world. It is a culture based upon God’s Word, upon God’s story wherein He sends His Son into the world to die and rise again so that the world might be redeemed unto Himself.

Peter had seen a glimpse of the glory of God on the holy Mount of Transfiguration. We have not.  We see the glory of God hidden under normal things – water, bread, and wine, and the Word. What we see and hear and believe and experience here is not some silly myth. The For we have the prophetic Word of God, on which the faith and certainty of hope in our Lord’s triumphant return depends.  What you now know by faith, you will one day know as an eyewitness. It won’t be a glimpse of God’s glory in Christ, it will be the full glory of God, that you will share in.