Peter, the Transfiguration, and the "Cleverly Invented Story" of Jesus
The spaceships were coming to take them home.
That’s what Marshall Applewhite believed – the founder of the religious cult knows as Heaven’s Gate.
Applewhite believed that he and his partner, Bonnie Nettles, were extraterrestrial agents with “higher level minds” that had come from outer space to unlock the path to paradise. During the 70s and 80s, Applewhite traveled the West Coast to recruit followers, brainwashing them with his charismatic mix of Christian and New Age doctrines with science fiction and UFOs.
Applewhite preached that this time on earth was a season of metamorphosis, where his followers – by living strict, regimented lives – could achieve a “next level” mode of existence – eventually evolving into aliens. He prophesied that this time of ‘metamorphosis’ was coming to an end.
In March of 1997, a particular comet – the Hale-Bopp comet – was nearing Earth’s orbit. Applewhite insisted this was a sign – a sign that an alien spaceship was coming in the comet’s wake to take their souls home. He said it was time for him and 38 of his adherents to leave their bodies – their “earthly vehicles” behind – to board this spaceship and fly off to heaven’s gate.
The police found their bodies not long after.
Applewhite and his 38 adherents had coordinated a mass suicide, mixing phenobarbital with applesauce and pudding, and then washing it down with vodka. Dressed in their monolithic uniforms, they went to sleep, never to wake up.
Applewhite was convinced that, by dying, their souls would be received by this incoming spaceship, and shuttled off to heaven.
But that ship never came.
39 people – 21 women, and 18 men – all died for a cleverly invented science fiction story, a man-made religion, a myth, a lie.
I know plenty of atheists who would argue that Christianity is no different – that the Bible is just a bunch of manipulative fairy tales cooked up by human imagination.
The Apostle Peter knew that objection, too.
Yet, he had every reason, just as we do today, to say with certainty that we do not follow cleverly invented stories…and that, through faith, we too [are] eyewitnesses of [Jesus’] majesty.
Why Die for a Lie?
Peter had seen the fulfillment of centuries of prophecy unfold before his very eyes.
He had walked out onto the water at his Savior’s invitation.
He had seen Jesus display power over demons.
He had seen Jesus raise the dead!
He had seen Jesus transfigure on that mountain.
Peter writes in 1 Peter 1: 17-18, “He (Jesus) received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.’ We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.”
He witnessed this same Savior arrested and carted off to be crucified.
He saw the empty tomb.
He had seen the Risen Lord!
He knew that Jesus was the fulfillment of Scripture. He knew Jesus had the words of eternal life. He knew Jesus was the Son of God and Savior of the world. And Peter could not help but share what he had heard and seen with the world. The Savior had come!
But that didn’t mean the world would warmly welcome such a message. Not long after writing this letter, the emperor Nero would execute Peter because of his Christian faith.
Would Peter die for something he knew to be a lie? Was Peter no different than a crazed cult leader like Marshall Applewhite?
I know plenty of atheists who wouldn’t hesitate to make that case – that Peter is just another religious nut job dying for his delusion.
But how does that assessment hold up under scrutiny? What perks did Peter, from a worldly perspective, stand to gain by preaching the message of Jesus?
Last I checked, their faith in Jesus never translated to padded pocketbooks, popularity, nor political power.
In fact, quite the opposite.
The Christian faith got disciples thrown out of synagogues and cast out of communities. Their insistence that Jesus did, in fact, rise from the dead got them beaten and labeled ‘heretics’. Proclaiming Jesus is the Son of God – the only way, the only truth, the only life – meant even being tortured and killed.
Isn’t it more likely someone would endure such suffering for the truth?
Well, yeah! They couldn’t make this stuff up.
Peter says as much. “We did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power.”
Peter’s point is, these events happened!
The Bible doesn’t present itself as some mythological compilation of half-baked narratives and proverbial maxims like other religious texts – written in a vacuum, hidden from interrogation and scrutiny. Both the Old and New Testament writers ‘marry’ their text to history to a degree matched by no other religion. Christianity shamelessly marries the unfolding of salvation to real, historical events, verified not only by archaeological evidence but also by the cataloguing of ancient secular, non-Christian historians.
Peter’s point is that, these are well corroborated accounts internally and externally.
So, maybe the Bible actually is what it claims to be: the true story of the salvation of the world! The very words of God himself!
Cleverly Invented Stories
That’s a tough pill to swallow for people today. In some ways, American culture in the 21st century not only is post-modern, but post-rational, where worldviews are exclusively feeling based, not factually based.
So, go figure, a post-modern people with an already low view of Scripture doesn’t care for its claims to be uniquely and exclusively reliable as a source of absolute truth.
The Bible says no to the idea that truth is relative.
It says no to the idea that all roads lead to heaven.
It says no to the idea of purgatory.
No, all religions do not all worship the same God.
God does not operate by Karma.
You can’t work your way into God’s heart.
You can’t save yourself.
Truth, by its very nature offends, but our post-modern culture cares more about not offending people than pursuing truth. We’d rather equate “truth” with what’s trendy. We subscribe to worldviews that translate to “Likes” on our social media. We pledge allegiance to things not because they coherently answer any of life’s questions, but because they cater to my desires, my wants, and my preferences.
So, people today dismiss the Bible, feeling it has either too much or to little to say about today.
We might think such low views of Scripture are uniquely outside the church, but the very reason Peter is writing what he is writing is because such an attitude was evidently looking to set up shop in the church.
It certainly is today.
I’ll make time to mindlessly scroll through my newsfeed, but not my Bible.
I’ll binge watch a TV show, but rarely binge read my Bible.
We can quote entire lines from movies or sing entire songs, but don’t ask me to memorize a single verse from Scripture.
Biblical illiteracy seems to be at an all-time high. We’ve lost familiarity with what the Bible actually says – and you can tell by the things we say as Christians.
“God helps those who help themselves.” Not in the Bible.
“Cleanliness is next to godliness.” Cute sentiment; not in the Bible.
“God won’t give you more than you can handle.” Also not in the Bible.
And if we’re not guilty of saying what the Bible doesn’t say, we’re guilty of not saying what the Bible does say.
“Jesus never said anything about gay marriage?” Have you read Matthew 15?
“Jesus doesn’t say anything about gender.” Have you read Mark 10?
“Jesus doesn’t say anything about having sex before marriage.” Have you read Matthew 5?
“Jesus never said anything about there being a hell, let alone people going there.” Have you read Luke 13?
“Jesus never said that all my sins are forgiven.” Have you read Hebrews 7? Romans 8? John 3?
Peter writes that “We also have the prophetic message as something completely reliable, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.” That ‘message’ is the Bible.
We might think, “Easy for you to say Peter. You were there! You witnessed these things with your own eyes!”
But just in case we would see the Scripture we hold in our hands as something less than firsthand experience, Peter lovingly reminds us that what we have is completely reliable.
Because God wrote it.
The Story of God’s Love for You
“Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things. For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”
True, human beings recorded the words of Scripture – but they were just the pen. God is the author.
This book is God’s great love letter to you – so that you would know with certainty who your God is and who you are because of who your God is. If your God – the God who made you, the God who shaped you and molded you, the God who knows how many hairs are on your head, the God who knows you better than even you know you – wouldn’t that God know what you truly need more than you do? If that God is the same God who died on a cross for YOU to save YOU from your sin, from death and hell – isn’t that the kind of God who would be with you always to the very end of the age?
If that same Jesus loved you so much that he’d march into Jerusalem to be mocked, beaten, whipped and sentenced to death, all to become a curse for you and be rejected by his own Father – all to take away your sin, to win for you forgiveness and make you his – isn’t that a God worthy of our trust?
You hold in your hand God’s precious promises for you!
On the Mount of Transfiguration, God not only points to Jesus as the central figure of Scripture – the promised Messiah who had come to save the world – but God points to the cross as the way he would do it. That same Transfigured Lord would walk down that mountain, to walk up another mountain to die – for you.
Outside of Jerusalem the glory and majesty of God would be demonstrated once again – not in flashes of lightning, but in darkness, not in radiance, but in the shame of the cross.
You see, God constantly prides himself in giving all of who he is in the seemingly small, in the seemingly weak and frail. God glorifies himself in utter humility. God washes away your sins with water. In simple bread and wine, your Savior gives his true body and blood for your forgiveness. God gives of himself through his Word – to strengthen and nourish your faith, to grow you in wisdom, to guide you on right paths, so that you, right now, are able to fellowship with God.
These aren’t cleverly invented stories. And that you hold in your hands the very words of God himself, you, too, are a witness of God’s glory.