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Holding on to Memories

2 Peter 1:12-21
Whether the writer is the real Peter, or just someone writing from his point of view, he claims to  be the older Peter living in Rome just before he was put to death for following Jesus. People often say, as they get older, that time seems to fly by faster and become more precious. It’s not an original idea. It’s what the writer says here.

Memories become more important with age too. We have so many of them and they become ever more precious the further away in time they get. There is always the fear of losing our memories, or indeed of losing the ability to remember. For the original eyewitnesses of Jesus’ life and work there was a desperate anxiety to pass on their memories of him and make sure they were cherished. 

It’s fashionable to say that the Christian story is a ‘clever made-up story’ only loosely based on the real life of Jesus. But this isn’t a new claim. The writer of 2 Peter talks about it here. He affirms that the Christian story is based on real memories, that people actually witnessed these things and passed them on because they thought they would be hugely important for future generations. So we don’t get the little details - what people were wearing, what they looked like, and so on - we just get the essential stuff.

The writer singles out one example, probably because only Peter, James and John were there. It’s the semi-mystical experience they shared with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration when they heard God speaking to them and telling them that Jesus was his beloved Son. 

The writer insists this really happened. It isn’t just a reworking of Old Testament stories about the encounters that Moses and Elijah had with God on mountain tops - fitting them into the life story of Jesus. 

The writer says that the first Christians didn’t just a make stories and sayings from the Old Testament fit their own ideas about who Jesus is. Instead, he says they were moved by the Holy Spirit to see a new and deeper meaning in those stories and sayings because of their meeting with Jesus.

He transfigured things. He changed dismal and depressing thoughts into lively, hopeful, vibrant ones. And he can do that for us, too.

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