2 Peter 1:10-19, especially vs. 13:
"Yes, I think it is right, as long as I am in this tent, to stir you up by reminding you...."
Today's reading conveys an urgency, a necessity at work in St. Peter as a result of his contacts and experiences with the Lord Jesus (vss. 16-18). Further, as the Apostle wrote, he was keenly aware that his days for sharing the life-giving Gospel were coming to an end (vss. 14-15). Likewise, he knew that each one's eternal life hinges upon continuing in the Gospel truth upon which we have been established (vs. 12). And, he knew there were influences that could draw us away from making our "call and election sure" (vs. 10).
St. Peter's urgency grew out of personal, intimate association with God Incarnate. He walked and ate and talked with the Lord Jesus for three years. Thereby, he himself was transfigured from a simple Galilean fisherman into the chief of the Apostles. The force of the Person of Jesus of Nazareth initially impelled Simon to leave his livelihood and follow the new, itinerant teacher. Associating with the Lord Jesus, the Disciple Peter discerned that He was the promised Messiah. Peter, the man, saw the Lord Jesus receive "from God the Father honor and glory when such a voice came to Him from the Excellent Glory" (vs. 17). Also, he witnessed His betrayal and death, encountered Him alive, and so his understanding was opened "that [he] might comprehend the Scriptures" before he saw Him exalted into the heavens (Luke 24:45,51). Even as St. Peter's experiences of the Lord Jesus altered his life forever, they also incontestably confirmed that what he beheld on Mount Tabor is God's will for "as many as the Lord our God will call" (Acts 2:39). That revelation filled the fisherman's heart full with a burning desire that all people should be supplied abundantly with an entrance "into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" (2 Pet. 1:11). He learned that, in the Lord Jesus, the hoped-for vision of the pious of the first century is open to all peoples and that "the excellence of the righteous will be greater than the angels," as one early writer of that age expressed it.
May God inflame our hearts with the same urgency that coursed through the Apostle! Beloved of the Lord, glance about you. See how many are deluded by the demanding agendas of the present world, which, after all, are passing away. It is sad how many disdain the true life available in the Person of the Lord Jesus, the One proclaimed to us by St. Peter and all the Apostles. We who are Orthodox Christians have answered the apostolic call to embrace abundantly the eternal life of our Lord. Let us seek the intercession of St. Peter and all the Apostles that God will keep us from stumbling and failing to attain the heritage that is ours.
St. Peter speaks urgently to us who "know and are established in the present truth" (vs. 12). He was well aware how very easy it is, under the incessant pounding of this world's priorities, to become "negligent" of the power that comes from regularly receiving the Body and Blood of the Lord, constantly reading the life-giving words of Holy Scripture and the works of the Holy Fathers, and habitually praying and fasting. Would we be healed and renewed? Do not miss the message of Transfiguration! Let us not lose the urgent desire to be transfigured!
St. John, who was on the Mount with St. Peter, reminds us that, "when the Lord Jesus is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is" (1 Jn. 3:2). Christian Faith is not "cunningly devised fables" but "the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ" (2 Pet. 1:16), in and through His Body, the Holy Church of God. The voice of the Father speaks even now to the Faithful, saying to us His adopted children, "My beloved...in whom I Am well pleased" (vs. 17).
O Thou Word, the Light of the unborn Father, by Thy light which hath shown today on Tabor, we have seen the Father's light and the Spirit's light, lighting the whole creation.