Attentive
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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.
-2 Peter 1:19
These words strike me as profoundly beautiful today: You will do well to be attentive to this - as a lamp shining in a dark place. Peter is offering light-filled words and he doesn’t want anyone to sleep through them. Be attentive!
This Sunday is the last Sunday of Epiphany, the Sunday upon which we always read about the Transfiguration. Peter, James and John went up on the mountain with Jesus to pray. Suddenly they have a bright white light experience and see Jesus speaking with both Moses and Elijah. They are terrified. They don’t know what to say. Peter says an off-base thing. God’s own voice interrupts. So he and the others cower in fear. It was so strange, so unexpected, so… otherworldly. Peter knew Jesus was important, but it begins to sink in just how important. You will do well to be attentive to this - as a lamp shining in a dark place.
It was this otherworldly experience of Jesus that caused the day to dawn and the morning star to rise in Peter’s heart, and it deeply affected him. His faith and trust in God was cemented in him the day he experienced the presence of God in Christ in such a dramatic way. In some ways, this reminds me of the conversion of Paul - also in a flash of bright light. Sometimes we just see the light. You will do well to be attentive to this - as a lamp shining in a dark place.
Have you ever had the experience of realizing something you thought you understood turned out to be far more than you thought it was? Or has someone you thought you knew somehow been revealed to you as far more complicated than you ever imagined? I can only imagine what Peter, James and John were thinking about their friend Jesus when they saw the transfiguration. Now what? Can we actually still be friends with someone who is this awesome? Is what we thought we were up to far more than we thought we were signing up for? What is now required of me, having witnessed what I just witnessed?
What thoughts have crossed your mind at times you have seen the light? Whether it was a dramatic vision or a subtle new understanding, you will do well to be attentive to this - as a lamp shining in a dark place.
