Last Sunday of Epiphany

What has recently consumed the online community of evangelical Christians? Whether Rob Bell has left Christianity because he questions whether Mohandas Gandhi, the Indian prophet on nonviolence, is in Hell because, while he honored Jesus, he never became a “Christian.” His new book, Love Wins, hasn't even been published. But his promotional video questioning how many or how few will get into heaven or hell led to many evangelicals concluding that he has left the Christian faith. What a choice we seem to be left with here: truth or love. How easily we tear apart teaching and love in the church. Both are to be maintained.

We hear today of a great truth: that the glory of God was shining in Jesus Christ on the mountain where He was transfigured. That truth was handed on by Peter, an eyewitness, to those who listened to him and accepted his testimony. That handing on is what we call tradition. We need tradition to confirm the truth of God in Jesus Christ. But there is no greater truth than that God is love. And what God wants more than anything, is that each of us might be so intimate with God that we might “participate” in the very nature of God. Even more than our frightened obedience, God wants our hearts.

2nd Peter is a last testament from a man who probably didn’t have the opportunity to write a last testament before he was crucified upside-down. And “last testaments” like this one were understood in the Jewish community not to have been written by the person himself, but by a student of his who was faithfully handing on what he had heard from his master.

And so, it is likely that a Christian who had learned from Peter handed on Peter’s eyewitness testimony of what he and James and John had seen. And in this “handing on,” or tradition, we now have that eyewitness testimony that Jesus Christ came from God, and will come again.

But what was the divine purpose behind the Transfiguration? Was it for God to terrify us with his power? What is Jesus’ purpose in coming back? To settle the score with every sinner? Earlier in his letter, the author of 2nd Peter explained why Jesus came into this world. It wasn't to vindicate himself. He came for us. The Word of God, who was with God at the beginning, and is God, came for us.

He became a human being so that we might escape the corruption of this material world and share in the very nature of God (v.4). The author of 2nd Peter was responding to nay-sayers arguing that with the first generation of Christians now gone, it was clear that all those stories of Jesus were just "cleverly devised myths." But there were eyewitnesses to these events: Jesus' transfiguration, his crucifixion and his bodily resurrection.

From that testimony handed down to us, we know that our destiny is to share in the divine life and nature of God. And we can sense this sharing of God’s nature right now. What 2nd Peter calls the rising star of Christ in our hearts is there every day when we choose relationship over isolation; when we choose service over self seeking, when we choose faith and hope over fear and despair.

The tradition we hand on is not ultimately judgment but love. Any defense of truth that seeks first to “out” its enemies is not truth, for there is no love in that. We are about to begin the Lenten journey that culminates in the greatest act of unselfish love ever. The eyewitness to that love has been handed on to us. That is our Tradition: the power of love to pass through and conquer death and loneliness. Hand it on.