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Grace to you and Peace, From God the Father and the Lord Jesus.
For we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty.
This is Your Word heavenly Father. Sanctify us by Your Truth. Your Word is Truth. Amen.
Fellow redeemed: One day a man named Simon was working when Jesus came to him and said ‘Follow me.’ The Simon who followed Jesus was a different man from then on, and Jesus named him Peter. One day as Simon Peter was following Jesus, along with James and John, they went up on a mountain, and wondrous things happened there. The Peter who came down that mountain was a different man than the one who went up. This pattern would be repeated as we read about Peter, and here as we read what Peter himself has written. You’ve heard in today’s Gospel the story of the transfiguration of Jesus. It’s a marvelous story, worth repeating. But now let’s take a look at Peter, the only one of the three disciples whose words in that story are recorded and consider today in light of the transfiguration of Jesus, the transformation of Simon Peter.
Peter was a man Jesus called to follow him; and so are you. Jesus has intercepted you while you were not looking for him and called you to follow. Jesus calls you as he called Peter, by his Word. The difference is that Jesus walked up to Peter and used his own mouth to call him by his Word, but since then, Jesus comes to you, calling you by his Word through the mouths of those sent, and where he has promised to be found to be gracious to you, as his word of promise is combined with water, and wine and bread. But it really is the same Jesus, coming to you, for you, his Word, and all of Jesus is with you, here, washing, feeding, forgiving, restoring, lifting you up. You get the same Jesus as Peter.
Because Jesus called him, Peter followed. And Jesus led him, and James and John too, up a mountain one day. Jesus there was transfigured, joined by our fathers in the Faith, Moses and Elijah, in the midst of his brilliant, uncreated light. Peter and the others were there because Jesus called them and led them there. They weren’t there because in themselves they were holy. To prove the point, Peter’s words are recorded in that holy tableau, and what do we hear? Some weird babbling about how the fellows could maybe build a lean-to or pup tent or something for them all to stay in.
Jesus didn’t call Peter because he was so good. He didn’t call him to follow because Jesus thought Peter was so brilliant. Jesus didn’t call you through His Word and the Means of Grace because you were already so good, or bright, or because you had something that he needs in heaven, or any other nonsense. The world wants you to think that’s why, though. Because if you buy the notion that those saints of old got to be saints on account of their excellent personal qualities or gifts, and that you get to be a follower of Jesus because of how awesome you are, then you are being set up for failure. Peter’s words on the mountain show that it wasn’t all about him. Jesus called him to follow because of how good, how gracious, how generous Jesus is. There is nothing in Peter, James, John, Moses, Elijah, me, or you that Jesus needs. He calls us all to follow him because he loves us even when we hated him. He is giving us his gifts purely, without anything we can ever return to him. And when we want to do something good, he points us to our neighbor and says ‘serve that one.’
Peter wasn’t looking for Jesus, but Jesus found him. Peter’s words on the mountaintop were goofy, but they didn’t matter. God’s Word matters. And when the disciples looked up and saw Jesus only, that’s what matters. It’s all gift.
Peter would mess things up repeatedly. He got mad when Jesus said he was going to Jerusalem to be crucified. As Jesus was giving himself in the garden over to those who had come to arrest him, Peter was the one who managed to interrupt by cutting off the ear of a guy named Malchus. Peter denied Jesus because some girl recognized his accent. Later, Peter forgot that gift means gift when Jesus gives it, and refused to have anything to do with non-Jews, until Jesus came to him in the vision of kosher and unkosher animals and commanded him not to call unclean what he had made clean by his death for us all. Even after that, years later, when Paul saw him in Antioch, he had to call Peter on the carpet for withdrawing from the non-Jewish Christians when some scary guys from Jerusalem showed up.
Peter messed up repeatedly. I like that, because here is a saint, a holy one of God that you can look at and understand that it wasn’t Peter’s perfect perfection and awesome awesomeness that merited God’s favor. It was all gift. God’s favor changed Peter not that he didn’t mess up any more, but that he lived as a forgiven, beloved son of God in the unmerited grace of Jesus. It is all gift. We all are reckoned as holy before the Father through the gift of Jesus’ blood and merit which he brings to us without regard for any quality in us.
And let the Church say ‘Phew!’ Our standing before the Lord is in Christ, and He comes to us freely, loving us unlovely, and covering over our faults and sins and shames. It’s all gift.
But how do we know that for sure? Back to the text!
Peter says plainly of himself, and his fellow apostle-authors of the New Testament that “we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Peter isn’t speaking only for himself here, for he doesn’t say “I didn’t” but “we didn’t follow fables.” He is making a claim not just on his own, but on behalf of all who wrote the books and letters of the New Testament.
Ok, but what proof does he give that this stuff isn’t just made up– that we have a sure base for our trust? Peter gives three distinct proofs:
They were first-hand witnesses– “we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty. For He received from God the Father honor and glory when such a voice came to Him from the Excellent Glory: “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” And we heard this voice which came from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain.”
That includes Peter, James, and John for the events on the mount of the Transfiguration, but you must also include the rest of the holy Apostles in all the other teachings and doings of our Lord. They saw these things, and they heard the confirmation of Jesus in the voice of God the Father from heaven. Peter writes as a personal witness, and not one relying on hearsay only.
Secondly, “We also have the prophetic word made more sure, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts” Now, who writes a prophetic word but prophets? Who did the apostles see and hear speaking with Jesus but Moses and Elijah, the great prophets of old, who along with other men form a mighty choir for our sakes, their various voices all combining over the centuries to sing the single, wondrous song of God’s Word in perfect unity and harmony, the Scriptures of the Old Testament. You can know that the Good News of our forgiveness, life, and salvation through Jesus’ life and death for us is so by reference to the Old Testament Scriptures, which all point to Him and tell us in great detail what God was about to do in the fulness of time.
Peter and the Apostles of the New Testament write as eyewitnesses. Their testimony is entirely in agreement with Moses and the Prophets through whom we have received the Old Testament. They all tell us the same story, from many different perspectives, that God loves and redeems us in the Christ, our Lord Jesus.
Finally Peter lifts any remaining doubt, for if he were to claim any virtue of his own we would have reason to be concerned, for the Scriptures are brutally honest about him, showing how he was corrected by our Lord and even by Paul over the years. But this isn’t about Peter, but about God’s Word for he writes “knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.” It is God’s Work, the inerrant and infallible word of the Holy Spirit that we receive in the Scriptures, and not Peter’s or Paul’s or Moses’ or Elijah’s or anybody else’s notion of a bright idea that is written for our comfort, life, and salvation. This is why the Scriptures, alone of ancient writings show us the sin and weaknesses of its human authors. We do not have to rely on Peter, but on God alone. You are not required to believe for a moment that any man is infallible in his statements, save Jesus alone. And we do not receive the Scripture on any single man’s authority, for they were not written alone, but are the product of many men, through whom the Spirit has given us the Word, and not something fetched from an Arabian cave, an American wilderness, or pulled from the too-tightly-wound-turban of some self-aggrandizing swami, saffron robed guru, or highly polished TV evangelist, but the perfect product of God, given through admittedly and openly fallible, sinful men called into His Service.
We can know God’s Word, and we can be sure of it. And this Word tells us that He loves us, brings us from death to life, pays the penalty for our sin, and makes us God’s own children through His only-begotten Son, Jesus. This is the ground of Peter’s faith, and not his own virtue or merit. And this is the ground and base of the faith you may rely on and find peace in both now and forever. This is Peter’s and all the prophet’s and apostle’s, and saint’s and your transformation: the grave of Jesus, the One transfigured before him and revealed once and for all the beloved Son of God in whom the Father is well-pleased. We all are in Jesus by His Word and Sacrament, and the Father’s pleasure in His Son is now by grace His pleasure in you too. Jesus is for you. You are in Him. There is your peace and life forever.
The peace of God which passes all understanding now keep your heart and mind through Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
