2 Peter 1:13-21
I think it right, as long as I am in this body, to refresh your memory, since I know that my death will come soon, as indeed our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me. And I will make every effort so that after my departure you may be able at any time to recall these things.
For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received honor and glory from God the Father when that voice was conveyed to him by the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, my Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven, while we were with him on the holy mountain.
So we have the prophetic message more fully confirmed. You will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by human will, but men and women moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.
When Peter starts what he is about to say with, “as long as I am in this body”, he now has our attention in a very different way. He then goes on to make it clear that he is sure he is not long for this world! In John 21:18, Jesus talks to Peter about his death. I can’t imagine a conversation with the risen Jesus like that not staying with someone.
Peter mentions his imminent death to perhaps emphasize the importance of the things he is reminding them of. Much like you wouldn’t be talking about the weather at the bedside of a dying loved one. He knows he is repeating himself but it is really important that they don’t forget it so he is trying to make that easy for them.
If there were things that I wanted to make sure the people closest to me knew and didn’t forget, I would probably do whatever I had to do to make sure they would remember. If these were things that I knew were important and life changing. When he is saying, “as long as I am in this body” he is literally saying, “as long as I am in this tent”.
A tent has always been a temporary structure designed for living on the go. It is not meant to be a permanent structure. Simple and easily assembled and disassembled. This might be important to take notice of because he then moves on to talk about the transfiguration of Jesus. Peter is making the point that our bodies are temporary. Before going on to talk about the transfiguration. Though God gave Jesus body divine characteristics, it was not his body that God was honoring. It was because Jesus was his son that God glorified him.
No one lives forever. Death is coming for us all. None of us want to experience death. But even if God transfigured our bodies, we will still experience death.
We live in a culture that places tremendous importance on the appearance of our bodies. We have a health care system that goes to great lengths to fix our ailments. Most of our resources go towards experiencing our best physical life. And yet the inevitable is that our physical bodies are dying.
Jesus body was transfigured yet that is not the important thing. What God tells us at that moment is that this is His son, He loves Him and is pleased with Him, and we are to listen to Him(Luke 9:35). The excitement of Moses and Elijah being there and Jesus appearance and the clouds are all secondary to what God has to say. Pay attention to what Jesus says.
Perhaps as the church, as the “body of Christ” can put too much emphasis on appearances and not enough on just listening. In today’s mega-church culture of rock band style worship music and simulcast preachers across several campuses and stage production sermons, what if we came together and sat in silence? What if we stripped away all the trappings of modern church and just listened as someone, anyone, read the scriptures. What would we hear?
Would we hear Jesus call out to us from among the poor, asking for food and clothing. Would we hear Jesus call out to us from among the sick asking to be comforted?
Jesus still speaks to us today and we don’t really need a modern church worship service to hear him. All of that stuff is what Peter mistakenly focused on. The wind, the clouds, the flashy appearance of Jesus and the important people with Him. That all gets our attention long enough for God to say, “pay attention to my beloved son”.
The transfiguration of Jesus was temporary just like our bodies are temporary. This life is temporary. What is eternal is the only thing that matters. Jesus words are eternal. That is perhaps why God would make such a ruckus to get our attention so that he could tell us, “Listen to my son!”
Peter is doing the same thing. He is sensing that his tent is collapsing and he is trying to get a his hearers to pay attention to his words, his words being Jesus words. Just like today, there are a lot of voices competing for our attention, so it was in Peter’s day. He is urging the church to block out all the noise and focus on what Christ teaches. He promises that as they do so, truth will emerge just as surely as the sun rises from the darkness.
Peter tells them how to test what he is saying. Being made in the image of God it would make sense that Christ’s teachings would guide us in this way. He tells us, the church to remember that Christ’s teachings are not based on how we want God to be. They are based on how God wants us to be.