Christianity: Not Cleverly Devised Myths

Text: 2 Peter 1:16-21

In the Name of Jesus. Amen.

Have you ever quietly asked yourself—perhaps during a difficult moment or when challenged — is Christianity real?  

I’m not asking whether it feels real or seems real. I’m asking whether the Christian faith is real. Is it truly and objectively real, or is it just something we embrace because it gives us comfort?  Is it just something that we uphold because of tradition, or to make Grandma happy? 

If I were to guess, I think this question may pop into our minds more often than we’d like to admit, especially in a world where everything feels up for debate. And tragically, I think we can say that many Christians want to believe the Christian faith is real; however, they end up acting and speaking as if it were not. In other words, when the rubber meets the road - when Christians are put on the spot, too many Christians retreat not into the concrete truth of Scripture but into vague emotionalism and what the Apostle Peter rightly calls 

“Cleverly devised myths.”

Think about this for a moment: consider what many Christians put forward as evidence that Christianity is true. If asked, 

“Why are you a Christian?” 

The answer that is often given has nothing to do with what God has done in history. Instead, the answer goes straight to the self. 

“Well, I used to be lost and on drugs, but now I found purpose in Jesus and I am clean.” 

Or, even worse,  

“I just know in my heart that He’s real.” 

Now, to be clear, these testimonies are not evil, and the people sharing them are often sincere. They want to do good; they want to bring others to Christ. But their approach shows something troubling.  You see, when pressed to explain the truth of Christianity, they reach not for the solid rock of God’s action in time and space – they don’t reach for the unchanging Word - but they grab a hold of personal experiences and emotional feelings. That, dear friends, is very problematic. It is the very thing Peter warns against in our Epistle reading.

When Peter speaks of “cleverly devised myths” in our epistle reading, he is not necessarily talking about fairy tales in the childish sense. He is not comparing Christianity to a bedtime story. Rather, he is pushing back against the idea that Christianity is an emotionally compelling story designed to control people or stir them toward a moral or emotional outcome. You see, in Peter’s day—as in ours—there were many spiritual movements that used persuasive stories to gather followers. These stories sometimes contained truth; however, that is not the concern.  The concern was that these stories were engineered to move the emotions, to sound convincing, and to make people feel something. The cleverly devised myths that Peter warns about were religious sales pitches rather than the delivery of reality. 

* * *

Now, today, we must not be naïve. The Church is not immune to such tactics.  That is to say, cleverly devised myths abound in our day and age.  We have all heard them. We’ve all felt the pull. These cleverly devised myths are powerful, and when you package them in emotional music, glowing testimonies, and heart-stirring imagery, they can move a crowd. But dear friends, cleverness is not the same as truth, and emotional fervor is not the same as reality. Again, those who share these cleverly devised myths typically are not full of malice.  However, their methods fall short. They try to prop up Christianity by appealing to the emotions of their hearers, as if the faith needs to be made appealing to be valid. They end up relying on human stories, human logic, and human persuasion to do what only the Word of God can do.

And if we are honest, we too have been tempted to go down this path. If we wanted to build a ministry here at St. Paul’s on cleverly devised myths, we could do it. We would simply need to do what many other churches do—study the culture, find out what people want to hear, and then construct stories and programs and slogans that speak directly to those desires. We’d focus less on the Word of God and more on emotional impact. We’d build a religion around feelings. And we’d likely get results—numbers, excitement, even apparent conversions. But in the end, we would not have the Church. We would only have a myth factory. We would be peddling spiritual experiences rather than proclaiming the death and resurrection of Christ.

Please know that I say this not as a theoretical warning, but from personal pastor experience. Years ago, I served in a church where the focus was not on Christ and Him crucified, but on the stories of people’s changed lives. Sermons were built not around Law and Gospel, but around human transformation. People got far more excited about someone quitting meth than about Jesus defeating death. The praise songs weren’t about what Christ has done, but about how we feel. Sermon titles promised personal victory and self-empowerment, not forgiveness and eternal life. And why? Because it worked. Because it stirred emotions. Because cleverly devised myths – they sell. Lord, have mercy.

The Apostle Peter, however, will not allow us to rest in such things. His words to us are crystal clear: 

“We did not follow cleverly devised myths… but we were eyewitnesses of Jesus’ majesty.” 

In other words, Peter did not make anything up. He did not sit around a campfire and brainstorm persuasive stories with the other apostles. He did not construct a religious movement out of emotional manipulations. No, Peter testifies to what he saw with his own eyes and heard with his own ears. He was on that mountain. He saw Jesus transfigured before him. He heard the voice from heaven declare, 

“This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” 

Listen up – what Peter shares with us was not an internal feeling. This was an external event. A historical fact. A divine revelation that He proclaims to you and me.

And that is why we must understand that Christianity is not a myth. It is not founded on emotion, experience, or symbolic ideas. It is grounded in history. It is founded on the real Jesus, who was really born in Bethlehem, really lived in Galilee, really suffered under Pontius Pilate, really was crucified, died, and was buried, and really rose again from the grave on the third day. These things happened in time and space. They were seen. They were heard. They were recorded. They are not subjective interpretations, but objective events. That is why we confess in the Creed names and places—Mary, Pilate, a Roman crucifixion, resurrection—not abstract ideas or personal feelings.

Dear friends, if Christianity were just a myth, then we would need to keep updating it for every generation. We would need to constantly polish it and repackage it so that it continues to be emotionally relevant. But we don’t do that. We proclaim what has already been done—what God has done in Christ Jesus. And that message does not change. It does not lose power. It does not wear out. It is not rooted in your feelings or your stories or your strength, but in Christ's finished work.

So then, here at St. Paul’s, we do not gather around stories of self-help or emotional uplifting songs. We do not play church. We do not come here to be entertained or manipulated. We come to hear what is real. We gather around the real Word of God. We receive real truth, real forgiveness, real hope, from the real Son of God, who sits at the right hand of the Father and who will come again to judge the living and the dead. We come because this Jesus—who was transfigured before Peter, James, and John—descended that mountain and set His face toward Jerusalem. He walked to a specific cross to die for specific sins—your sins and mine. And from there, He went into a specific tomb, only to rise again on the third day as your Savior and mine.

This is why we preach Christ crucified, not cleverly devised myths. 

This is why the center of our life as a church is the Word and Sacraments, not emotional hype. 

This is why we baptize, not as a symbolic gesture, but as a real washing of regeneration. 

This is why we come to the Lord’s Supper, not for spiritual symbolism, but to receive Christ’s very body and blood, for the forgiveness of sins.

This is why we read and proclaim Scripture—not as a moral guidebook, but as the living, active voice of the God who acts in history and speaks with authority.

So, Baptized Saints, do not look inward for your assurance. Do not search your feelings for spiritual truth. Do not cling to your own story, your own sincerity, or your own emotional experiences. Those things shift and fade. They rise and fall. Instead, look to Christ. Look to what He has done. Look to what is real, what is finished, what is secure. 

You have a sure and certain Word, a faith grounded in fact, a Savior who is not a symbol but a person. And He is for you.

In the name of Jesus. Amen.