Text: 2 Peter 1:16-21
Date: February 19, 2023
Event: The Transfiguration of Our Lord, Year A
2 Peter 1:16-21 (EHV)
To be sure, we were not following cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the powerful appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. 17For he received honor and glory from God the Father, when the voice came to him from within the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” 18We heard this voice, which came out of heaven when we were with him on the holy mountain.
19We also have the completely reliable prophetic word. You do well to pay attention to it, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the Morning Star rises in your hearts, 20since we know this above all else: No prophecy of Scripture comes about from someone’s own interpretation. 21In fact, no prophecy ever came by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were being carried along by the Holy Spirit.
What Is Your Confidence?
I don’t know how much you might have been paying attention to recent artificial intelligence advances that have gone public, but there’s been a streak of tools that let you “talk” with a computer and have a semi-convincing conversation with them. You can ask the computer to write you something and it will. Around Thanksgiving, I asked one of these tools to give me the worst possible recipe for preparing a turkey, and its horrible suggestions did not disappoint when considering that request. A month or two ago I asked it to write a Lutheran sermon based on a specific section of Scripture—and while I did not use any of what it gave me for any sermon preached, I was surprised that it was much better than I was expecting it would have been, if a little bit short and generic.
But the issue with this kind of tool for research is really the same issue you have when using more traditional means to find information on the internet be it Google or Wikipedia or even when you’re hunting through books. You always have to check the sources. Is it reliable? Is this information actually correct? For instance, one of these AI tools recently confidently told a user that tomatoes were not used for food until the 18th century, when in reality tomatoes have been used for food in different places around the world for multiple thousand years. But the computer will boldly and confidently lie to you, not necessarily because it had a programmed goal to deceive, but because of the training model it has or its programmed need to be confident even when it has no basis for such confidence.
As I read through Peter’s words in our Second Reading for this Transfiguration Sunday, I got to thinking about this. Because Peter has us very focused on confidence, on certainty. On what are we basing our hope and our confidence for eternity? Is it something trustworthy, or are we following the spiritual version of accepting whatever an AI chat program might tell us?
As Peter is writing his second New Testament letter, he knows that his death is likely close at hand. History tells us that Peter died in Emperor Nero’s harsh persecution of Christians in the empire around 68 AD, and this letter was written likely not long before that. So, because Peter knows that his time with these Christians is drawing to a close, he finds it especially necessary to prepare them for what is to come.
Because the truth is that it’s not just Peter’s life that is drawing to a close at this time. The whole era of the apostles is coming to an end. It’s likely that the apostle Paul also lost his life in Nero’s persecution, and by this point most of the apostles other than John had likely been killed—or would be in not too long of a time. And so, the whole landscape of the Christian church is changing. From Jesus’ ascension on it had been led by those who had been with Jesus, seen him after his resurrection, learned from him directly. Now, things are shifting, things are changing from those who had firsthand accounting of time with Jesus to those who learned from those who had it.
And so Peter wants to establish the basis of what they’ve been taught very clearly. To be sure, we were not following cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the powerful appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. What is Peter wanting his readers to remember? They weren’t just making this stuff up. Peter is saying, “When we told you about Jesus, we weren’t spinning a tall tale. When we told you about Jesus’ work for you, we were doing so as eyewitnesses. We saw him we heard him ourselves, and what we saw and heard we passed on to you.” We know that eyewitnesses are not always completely reliable, but we also do well to remember what Jesus promised his disciples: the Holy Spirit would come and remind them of everything that Jesus had said.
But if that were not enough, Peter takes us to further testimony about Jesus. For he received honor and glory from God the Father, when the voice came to him from within the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” We heard this voice, which came out of heaven when we were with him on the holy mountain. I find it fascinating at how large Jesus’ transfiguration looms in Peter’s mind all these years later. I’ve always had to fight the thought in my mind that Transfiguration is a “lesser” festival in the church that doesn’t rise to the level of Christmas, Good Friday, or Easter. And, sure, perhaps the transfiguration doesn’t factor in much in the accomplishing of our salvation. But it was immensely important to support Peter, James, and John and their testimony of who Jesus is. He’s not just some skilled teacher. He’s not just a moral and upright man. As we heard early in this season the Father confirm Jesus’ status at his baptism, so our Epiphany season is bookended by the second confirmation: “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”
This confirmation of Jesus’ divinity and his success at completing the work the Father sent him to do left a lasting impression on Peter. What an amazing sight to behold! What a tremendous opportunity to have everything Jesus had taught him over the course of those years as his disciple confirmed in a miraculous way. The voice coming from the Majestic Glory—that Glory of the Lord that led the Israelites as a pillar of cloud and fire—assured them that everything that had been taught was right. And, as an eyewitness of that event, Peter was able to confirm the validity of everything to those he taught.
But, do you remember Peter’s problem at the Mount of Transfiguration? He wanted to put up three shelters there on the mountain to preserve that glory, to continue to bask in it and not leave. “Lord, it is good for us to be here!” (Matthew 17:4). Understandably, the sight was amazing and who wouldn’t want to stay in that place forever? Seeing Jesus much closer to his fully divine self than you normally saw him, hearing from the Father, spending time with legends of faith from the Old Testament—it would have been amazing! But there was more work to be done, there were things Jesus yet had to accomplish. They couldn’t stay there in this temporary glory, because the eternal glory was more important.
We often would like immediate gratification. We would like to just sit in tents on the mountain with Jesus and Moses and Elijah rather than facing the challenges that we will meet in this world. Perhaps we long to have an experience like Peter, James, and John did to have it proved to us that Jesus is who he says he is. Perhaps, we shy away from the crosses of this life because we don’t want to bear what is in front of us.
That’s the troubling thing about the Mount of Transfiguration—you always need to leave. In the structure of our church year, the near-Easter high of Transfiguration always gives way to the quiet and introspective season of Lent. We must leave this greatest Epiphany of Jesus’ glory and go back to this messy world and see Jesus get bloodied and executed to clean it. Whether it’s seeing the hardships that Jesus endured or—maybe more often—the hardships that we are enduring, many things can make us stop and wonder is this legitimate? Is this worth it? Is this worth putting my confidence in?
You haven’t seen Jesus glorified or heard the voice of the Father. You didn’t get to see Moses and Elijah, and you didn’t even get to have the nervous, adrenaline-fueled stuttering that Peter had. You are not an eyewitness of Jesus’ glory, nor did you get to learn directly from one of those eyewitnesses. No, you missed out on all of that. And, Peter says, that means that you have something even better: We also have the completely reliable prophetic word. You do well to pay attention to it, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the Morning Star rises in your hearts, since we know this above all else: No prophecy of Scripture comes about from someone’s own interpretation. In fact, no prophecy ever came by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were being carried along by the Holy Spirit.
Note that Peter acknowledges that going through this life is like wandering in a dark and gloomy place. But you are not without light. In fact, Peter says, even better than seeing Jesus glorified on the hilltop is having the completely reliable prophetic word. Whether we think of this narrowly as the prophets from the Old Testament or probably better the whole of God’s Word in both Old and New Testament, Peter reminds us of where the Scriptures came from. They were not some clever stories someone came up with. They are not fables or myths. No, these Scriptures are the completely accurate words of our God, written down by men who were being carried and inspired by the Holy Spirit.
It would surely have been a tremendous blessing to be there on the Transfiguration mount, but in dark times, would there be a temptation to wonder if it was real? Would there have been a temptation to wonder if it was a dream you dreamed? How much more reliable is the Word of God that you and I can go back to, check ourselves with, and correct any false or misguided notions we might have! We don’t have to think back to some spectacular but one-time event; we have the facts of Jesus’ work and the messages of those he sent recorded for us. We have his adoption in the waters of baptism. We have his forgiveness given in a tangible way in the Lord’s Supper. Our confidence and our certainty come from these gifts that he’s given to us, gifts that are in many ways better and more complete than even what Peter, James, John, Paul, or anyone else who spoke directly to Jesus had. They were involved in writing the Scriptures; we have them in full.
So, as we journey through the gloom of this life, let’s not lose track of that lamp that shines the way for us. The day will come when the Morning Star will rise in our hearts—when we will be in heaven with Jesus and see him face to face, where we will have no need for a lamp because we will be in light of God’s glory forever. But, until that day, we are guided by the Word of God that assures us that Jesus has forgiven every sin. Until that day, we are guided by the Word of God that shows us how we can best live our lives to thank God for his mercy and forgiveness. Until that day, we are guided by the Word of God that continually points us ahead to what is coming: not an unending world of gloomy darkness, but a world of perfect light where we will see Jesus as he really is, not for a few brief moments, but forever. There we will not need to set up tents, because we will be in our permanent home.
As we begin our journey into Lent this week, keep these blessings and promises in mind. As you come down the mountain from our worship this morning, keep in mind the blessings of God’s Word that bring us confidence—certainty—even in a world that seems completely devoid of it. As we continue our walk through this life, see Jesus as the one who not only saved you, but who continually protects you. Amen.
