We Saw His Majesty

High on a mountain, three fishermen shield their eyes. Their friend's face is shining like the sun. His clothes are white as light. And out of a bright cloud comes a voice.

Many years have passed since that day. Peter, one of those three fishermen, is now old. He writes a second letter to believers, and he knows it may be his last. Some teachers were mocking the hope of Jesus' return and leading people astray with stories of their own invention. Peter wants the church to hold on to the truth after he is gone. So he reaches back into his memory, to one of the most astonishing things he ever saw.

I will always remind you of these things, Peter says, even though you know them and are firmly established in the truth. He speaks of his body as a tent. As long as I live in this tent, he says, I think it right to stir you up by reminding you. Because I know that I must soon put off this tent, just as our Lord Jesus Christ made clear to me. Long before, beside the Sea of Galilee, the risen Jesus had told Peter how his life would end. Peter has not forgotten. And I will make every effort, he says, so that after my departure you will always be able to remember these things.

Then Peter tells them why they can be sure. For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. Peter was there. With James and John, he had climbed a high mountain with Jesus. And there Jesus was changed before their eyes, glowing with glory. Peter remembers it all. Jesus received honour and glory from God the Father, when the voice came from the majestic glory: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And we ourselves heard this voice, Peter says, when we were with him on the holy mountain. Not a rumour. Not a legend. Peter saw it with his own eyes and heard it with his own ears.

And there is more, Peter says. We also have the prophetic word, made even more certain. The words of the prophets in the scriptures. You will do well to pay attention to them, he says, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. Picture walking a dark path at night, holding a small lamp, until at last the sky grows light. Then Peter explains where those prophecies came from. No prophecy of scripture came from the prophet's own ideas. It never came by human will. But holy men of God spoke as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit, like a ship carried by the wind.

Peter's sense that his death was near fits what early Christians remembered. A letter written from the church in Rome near the end of the first century, known as First Clement, speaks of Peter bearing witness and suffering. And the church historian Eusebius records the tradition that Peter was martyred in Rome during the reign of the emperor Nero, in the sixties.

We saw his majesty. You'll find Peter's words in Second Peter chapter one, verses twelve to twenty-one, and the mountain itself in Matthew, Mark and Luke. An old fisherman's last reminder: this is not a made-up story. I was there. So here is a question to carry with you. What helps you remember what is true about Jesus when you are walking through a dark place?