2 Peter1:16 “We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.”

Peter, whose version of Jesus’ life is written in the Bible’s gospel of Mark, didn’t preach and teach about a character he made up. He didn’t take a real character of history and make up stories about him, like the story you hear about George Washington chopping down the cherry tree. He didn’t even embellish stories of Jesus’ life, like Laura Ingalls Wilder may have done in some of her Little House books. “We were eyewitnesses,” he says. He’s giving testimony. And he’s not the only one.

So why should we trust these witnesses? First of all, they have overwhelming numbers on their side. Four different men wrote four accounts of Jesus’ life–the four gospels. From the first to the last, they were written about 50 years apart. One of the four, Luke’s, is basically a collection of interviews with various people who lived and worked with Jesus. While they choose different details to mention in their accounts, as you would expect from different witnesses, their accounts all agree. Beyond the four writers you have 500 eyewitnesses of Jesus’ greatest act of power and majesty–his resurrection from the dead. That’s a lot of witnesses saying the same thing.

 But what if these witnesses all formed a plot, a pact, to tell a tall-tale? Just look at what their story got them. None of them became rich or powerful. They were thrown into jail. They were whipped and beaten. They died horrible deaths. Peter was crucified upside down. Other apostles were skinned alive, beheaded, or burned to death.

Now if you knew that the story you have been telling was just a story, and there was no advantage in sticking to it, and in fact you were going to be tortured and killed for it, wouldn’t you give it up? Wouldn’t one out of so many witnesses admit to the hoax? But these weren’t “cleverly invented stories.” They were the testimony of eyewitnesses. What Peter tells us, he saw with his own eyes.

Why does it matter? Like us, the people to whom Peter originally wrote these words didn’t know Jesus directly. They had all these amazing stories about Jesus turning water into wine, healing the sick and the blind, controlling the weather, confronting demons, raising the dead, dying and rising himself. That’s a lot to ask people to believe.

Then, like now, there were skeptics questioning everything Peter and the other apostles had to say. They said it wasn’t rational. Water doesn’t instantly turn into other substances. You can’t just tell a storm to stop and it stops. Dead people don’t come back to life. Those aren’t “modern” ideas. They called the people who believed in Jesus gullible. They mocked their faith. They tried to de-convert or un-convert them.

Maybe the bigger challenge comes from the inside. Jesus has a lot to say about how we live our lives, and some of it might not be appealing. His teachings meddle in our sexual lives. He tells us to be self-sacrificing in our relationships with other people, even our enemies. He tells us to deny ourselves, carry our crosses, stop treating our money like our god, stop our worrying. He forgives us when we fail without fail. But he does not compromise on any of this. He won’t meet us half way. Disagree with him, and he tells us to repent.

If we could make ourselves believe that he is a myth, a story, then we wouldn’t feel so uncomfortable with ignoring him. If we could believe that he is a man, just like us, then why should his opinion count any more than our own? But while it’s true that no one can force us to follow him, Peter wants us to know that the things you have heard about him are certain: his coming (he’s real), his power (he’s not just another man). That means his grace and salvation are real, too. Eyewitnesses vouch for it.