The Light Before Dawn

In April 2019, scientists at the Event Horizon Telescope project unveiled the first-ever photograph of a black hole — a glowing ring of superheated gas surrounding the shadow of M87, fifty-five million light-years from Earth. For over a century, physicists had calculated that black holes must exist. Einstein's equations demanded it. But equations on a chalkboard are one thing. Seeing it is another.

When Dr. Katie Bouman helped develop the algorithm that assembled that image from data captured by eight telescopes spanning the globe, she didn't create a myth. She revealed what was already real. The photograph confirmed what the mathematics had long predicted.

Peter makes a strikingly similar claim in his second letter. He isn't spinning theological folklore. "We did not follow cleverly devised myths," he writes, but were "eyewitnesses of his majesty." On that mountain, Peter saw the glory of Christ with his own eyes — light so overwhelming it confirmed everything the prophets had written centuries before.

And then Peter says something remarkable: we have something even more sure than what he saw that day. The prophetic word, a lamp shining in a dark place. Like predawn hikers following a headlamp along a rocky trail, we walk by that light — not because dawn has fully come, but because we trust the One who promised it would. Every step guided by Scripture is a step closer to the morning star rising in our hearts.