Made More Certain

February 19, 2012

How can I be certain? If only I could know for sure! All of you have those thoughts. It is usually in connection with something very important in your life. A woman might ask “How can I be sure he really loves me?” If you believe the media, he will buy you a diamond or a vehicle on every holiday! But would that really make you certain? Given our skeptical human nature, whenever a promise is made, we look for actions that back up that promise. That is true whether you are promised “till death do us part” or “hope and change.” Each time you see an action that fulfills the promise, you are made more certain that the promise is true. When actions don’t match words, you wonder about the promise. Going back to the example I gave a minute ago: A diamond might be nice, but so would taking out the garbage without being asked, or scraping the ice of your window and warming up your car on a cold morning. The subsequent actions are your extra-added assurances, your guarantees that the promise is valid. You are made more certain.

That is what Peter was writing about in our text. He was talking about the extra-added assurances we have that God’s promises are true. By the time Peter wrote these words, he was considered an old man. I know some of you won’t like hearing this, but he was in his sixties. In the New Testament world, when one’s life expectancy was not much longer than sixty years, he was an old man. In fact, when he wrote this letter his life was about to come to an end. However, his death would not be from natural causes. He was going to die a martyr’s death. He would be put to death for telling others what He knew about Jesus, the same thing he was doing in this letter.

Peter was recalling what we celebrate today, “The Transfiguration,” about 30 years after it happened. 30 years is a long time. It is longer than I have been here at Grace, and I’ve been here a long time. How well do you think he could have remembered it? Some have that question asked over the years. It was a long time ago. He is an old man now. How good can his memory be? To me, Peter seems pretty sharp. But we don’t have to rely simply on Peter’s mental capacity here. He is writing under divine inspiration, the guidance of the Holy Spirit. And it is not as though he were a blind man trying to describe the color of a sunset or a deaf man describing a symphony. Peter had been both an eyewitness and an earwitness of the events he is writing about. On top of that, the Holy Spirit is reminding him of the things he saw and heard. He was there on the mountain with Jesus. He saw the glory of God revealed, confirming Jesus as the true Son of God. He heard the Father speak His approval.

This was just one of many events Peter witnessed that shows Jesus to be the one who fulfills the prophecies of the Old Testament. In all likelihood, the recipients of this letter had a Jewish background, which meant they knew about the Scriptures. Peter was trying to use their knowledge of Scripture as a starting point to explain who Jesus is. Peter knew, as we know, that all Scripture points to Jesus as the Savior. And everything Jesus did – His Work, His life, His miracles, His transfiguration, His death, His resurrection, His ascension, His giving of the Spirit on Pentecost – all these things confirmed the Scriptures for His disciples. The Transfiguration was just one part of the Old Testament prophetic word “made more certain.”

As he was with Jesus throughout His ministry, Peter witnessed many other events that “made more certain” the Good News of Jesus. He did not come to the confidence He had in Jesus just because He was at the Transfiguration. There was so much more Peter saw and heard:

• ·        The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor (Luke 7:22).
• ·        In Acts 2:32 he said God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact.
• ·        He expressed his confidence this way a few chapters later: Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12).
• ·        And Peter wrote … you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. (1 Peter 1:18-19) 

Peter understood Jesus to be the Son of God and the Savior. The Transfiguration was one part of that understanding.

This text begins with we did not follow cleverly invented stories… Some translations have “fables” or “tales” or “myths” instead of “stories.” What Peter is referring to is all the other religions of his time and their reliance on the teachings of men and unsupported myths. Peter is basing his confidence on the prophecies of God’s Word, and those prophecies being fulfilled by Jesus, the Word made flesh.

Over 30 years ago the artifacts from King Tut’s tomb toured this country. One of the artifacts in that exhibit was the ancient Egyptian “Book of the Dead,” which gives us an example of what Peter called a “cleverly invented story.” This book gives you instructions as to what you are to say when you are confronted by the judges as you attempt to enter the next life. I guess that goes along with the world’s idea that you will stand before St. Peter at the pearly gates and try to convince him why he should let you in. According to the Egyptian Book of the Dead, this is what you should say:

“I have always shunned evil; I have given bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty, clothes to the naked, a ship to the stranded; to the orphan I was a father, to the widow a husband, to the roofless I gave a home.”

The cleverly invented story is really not all that clever. It speaks of getting your eternal reward on the basis of your own actions. Now you might think those words sound an awful lot like what Jesus says in Matthew’s Gospel when He is talking about separating the sheep and the goats on the last day, and you would be right. The big difference is that when Jesus was listing all the good deeds of the righteous, they were not done in order to be saved or offered as the reason for salvation. The list Jesus gives is what the righteous do because they are saved. The salvation Peter proclaimed was the one that comes through faith in Jesus.

That is the message we find throughout Scripture. God promised to save fallen mankind from their sins. He carried out that promise in the person of His Son, who lived a life without sin and offered it on the cross in payment for your sins. We have the writings of the Old and New Testaments that have preserved that message and passed along the word made more certain for us today. We have it, too. We have the account of those who were eyewitnesses passed along to us so that we could know Jesus is the Son of God, as He revealed on that mountain of the Transfiguration. 

Peter seemed to anticipate those of us living today asking, “How can I be sure about Jesus? I wasn’t there!” Peter is telling us, as only an eyewitness can, “I know you weren’t there, but I was. I saw Jesus shine like the sun. I had already seen Him perform miracles and heard Him claim to be the promised one. And then I heard the voice of the Father proclaim Jesus to be His Son, with whom He was well-pleased. It convinced me that He was the one the prophecies had pointed to!” And you don’t have to just take Peter’s word for it. Jesus Himself had said, You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me (John 5:39). You will find eternal life as you search the Scriptures because they all point to Jesus, who is our salvation. The Word made more certain.

Notice that Peter did not say the prophetic word was made more true. It was already true, being God’s Word. However, it was made more certain, since Peter saw for Himself the fulfillment of the age-old promises. That is why he gives us this admonition: we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it. You have all the assurances that you need in God’s Word and His Word made flesh, Jesus. So pay attention to it!

The promise of God was to rescue us from our sins. That promise was kept in Jesus. Living in a world where broken promises are the norm, it may be hard to accept that God is totally committed to you and wants only what is best for you. He made a promise. Not only do you have His Word on it, you have it in writing. And we have the ultimate assurance of God’s rescue in the cross, where the Blood of Jesus was shed in your place, earning your forgiveness. You want it made more certain? Think of your Baptism. Consider Holy Communion. These sacraments are extra-added assurances that the death of Jesus was for you.

…we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place. Just as Peter saw the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus, you and I have that light shining on us through the Word and Sacraments, making God’s promise of life and salvation more certain for us.