There are a lot of feelings, memories, and affections when
looking back in our lives to great times God gave us. How
blessed we are to have the unique faculties of emotion,
recollection, and friendship. We often hanker
back for former carefree times.
In his later years St. Peter recalled memories and emotions he
had in connection to a very special moment in his life. Peter
and the Boanerges brothers, James and John, were chosen
witnesses of Jesus' Transfiguration. Many years
later Peter wrote of the majesty, honor, and glory of that
experience.
Engraved on his heart and memory were the recollection of the
people he saw, the voices he heard, and the feelings he
experienced. It was not a dream or mirage. It
happened. It changed their lives. It was a bona
fide mountain top experience.
These were not cleverly devised myths or batty musings from
three Galilean nut-cases. They were there. They
saw their Lord Jesus shining with the glory of his divine
nature communicated through his human nature. Jesus' face was
more brilliant than the sun and his clothes were as bright as
light.
Peter, James and John heard with their own ears the voice
declaring from the Majestic Glory, "This is my beloved Son
with whom I am well pleased." God proclaim unqualified
approval of His Son.
Here was an experience to evoke emotion and permanently settle
the disciples' belief that Jesus is true God. It was an
incomparable moment which would secure their confidence and
affections to Jesus.
Might Peter from time to time in later years hunger to go back
to that magnificent mountain crest? He hadn't wanted to leave
the first time, you might remember, and suggested to Jesus the
idea of just staying there to bask in the feelings, company,
and glow of that high time.
I expect Peter occasionally longed to go back because the
Transfiguration was an authentic theophany. God spoke there.
God presented Himself. God conversed with men, with
Moses and Elijah, and with three simple fishermen from
Galilee.
Yet, as genuine and sharp as Peter's memories were of that
experience thirty years before, as impregnable as the
testimony they could give of that occasion, St. Peter claims
that you and I, in 2009, have something even more sure, a gift
more persuasive and invincible even than what they beheld on
the holy mountain.
We have what human feelings can't generate or keep. We have
what Christian faith alone holds as sure and unfailing
regardless of passions or circumstances. We have the
prophetic Word of God, the unconquerable Gospel of our Lord
Jesus Christ.
For us Christians, the solid message of God's gift to us of
His beloved Son for our Savior, evokes deep feelings but is
not bound by them. The objectivity of the Gospel means that
we are not dependent on our memories, our sensitivities, or
our feelings to obtain true comfort. We have the
Word of God.
It won't be the affection of our hearts, zeal, or any
enthusiasm by us in the church that sustain us.
It is the unchangeable presence of the Word of God, the
durable underpinning of our baptism, and the solid merits of
our Savior delivered in the Supper. It is the
unflappable, fixed, even cold-blooded promise of the
forgiveness of sins. For Jesus didn't just emote sympathy; He
shed blood. He gave more than his feelings. He
gave His very life by the cross.
We have what is more sure, more permanent, more steadfast and
unfailing than the Rock of Gibraltar or the Mount of
Transfiguration.
We have Christ.
We have the Light of His Word shining in a dark place until
the day dawns and the morning star rises in our hearts. We
have the inspired Scriptures which weren't produced by any
wisdom of men any more than the faith we confess is of our
doing. It was, and remains today, always about
Jesus and what great things He has done for us.
Peter's singular focus is imperative today that attention and
rejoicing must be only in the Word.
There is such a misplaced premium today on feelings and
emotions, on drama and excitement in the church, on staging
and effects, on statistics and style. Yet the promise of 2
Peter is not in such things but in the "more sure" prophetic
word which we do well to heed.
The Word of God is the heart of our being God's children. Our
joys and unlimited hopes, our great memories and deep
emotions, our enduring friendships and eternal communion is
tethered inseparably and only to the unchangeable truth of
Jesus Christ.
According to the very last lines of Scripture in Revelation
22, the Daystar, the bright Morning Star, is Jesus Himself
[22:16]. He continues to shine with the glory of his Name and
the magnificence His merits won for us at Calvary. Even when
our senses, memories, and affections cease, His grace never
dims. And should many years pass and our
recollections blur or voices falter, we may be confident that
the One source of our life and eternal youth, the One who gave
us those bright times in the past and promises us better yet
to come, will not have changed whatsoever.
He made us his disciples through water and the Word. He loves
us now as He did then - unconditionally, permanently, and
passionately. And because He has, we will
forever be His.
