1 Peter 1:3–9

2^nd Sunday of Easter

³Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ⁴to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, ⁵who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. ⁶In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, as was necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, ⁷so that the tested genuineness of your faith- more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire- may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. ⁸Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, ⁹obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

Jesus Christ has risen! Alleluia! This is an historical fact; an event that actually took place about 2000 years ago in Jerusalem. And we confess faith in this historical fact in the creed when we say: "I believe ...in Jesus Christ...his only begotten Son...who on the third day was raised from the dead..." We also confess, "I believe in the ....the resurrection of the dead and the life everlasting."

Easter is the church's celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. But you will note on the church calendar that it is still Easter. Easter is not just a one day event because Jesus not only rose, he is still risen. He is alive! So we celebrate Easter in the church for 7 Sundays, today being the second Sunday of Easter. In fact, we celebrate the resurrection all year long. That is why the first Christians, as recorded in the book of Acts and I Corinthians, began meeting on Sunday for worship, because it was a Sunday that Jesus rose. That is why we continue to meet on Sundays for worship, and that is why we often sing the hymn of praise, "This is the Feast of victory for our Lord," which praises God for his resurrection.

This year you will also note that the Epistle readings appointed for the Sundays of Easter are from the book or I Peter. These readings will be the basis for our sermons during the next several weeks as we study through this book. So in order to better take advantage of this series of sermons, I would recommend that you read through I Peter during the week and review the portions that will be our Epistle lessons. Also it might be helpful to follow along during the sermons in your Bible or the bulletin inserts you have in your hands.

Today we will be in chapter 1: verses 3 to 9. However, it is important as we begin to talk about this to understand the context in which this Epistle was written. We know from verse 1 that this book was written by the Apostle Peter. We also know that it was written about the year 64 AD., which is a significant year. That was the year that Rome was destroyed by fire and the emperor at the time, Nero, blamed the Christians for the fire and accused them of being "haters of humanity." He started arresting them and putting them to death in the most cruel ways. Some by crucifixion and others he used as human torches, burning them to light his palace at night. It was also around that time that St. Paul was executed by Nero. So by the time St. Peter wrote this letter, the Apostle James had been executed by King Herod and Peter himself had been arrested by King Herod. You might remember the time an angel sprang him from jail in the middle of the night. He had several times been arrested by the Jewish council and even scourged. So Peter was well acquainted with persecution and sufferings.

We also note that Peter wrote this letter to the believers who were in exile, dispersed throughout the Roman Empire. They were scattered about when Stephen was executed and Saul was going house to house looking for Christians to arrest. These believers in Christ, the recipients of this letter, knew what it meant to take up their crosses and suffer trials in this life. They were marginalized by society, often they could not find employment, they were poor and despised by the mainstream. Their life was difficult and painful as they struggled for existence. They sometimes asked why there was so much suffering in the world. They couldn't understand why good people, followers of an all powerful and loving God would have such a difficult life. So Peter, who also understood suffering and persecution, wrote this as an open letter to all believers throughout the Empire to help them understand the meaning of suffering in their lives and to encourage them and strengthen their faith.

And the encouragement he gave them was the resurrection. Let's take a look at verses 3 to 5. "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." The resurrection is an historical fact. But it is in itself mere head knowledge. We know Jesus rose; so do Satan and his angels. The important thing is not just what happened, but what it means. The important thing is how that event changes us today and how it influences our daily life here and now.

Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ we are born again. We who believe and are baptized into Christ have been slain with him on the cross and are dead to sin and now by his resurrection we have been born again as new people, the children of God, with a living hope. That is the change that the resurrection of Jesus makes in our lives. Without the resurrection, we live in despair and a world under the curse of death. On account of sin the world is under a curse; the curse of death. All living things must deteriorate, get weak, and die. Suffering, sickness, disease, birth defects, mental deficiencies, pain, poverty, oppression, loss of jobs, homelessness, natural disasters are all the symptoms of the curse under which we live. It is the curse for sin and rebellion against God. It is the price of sin, for "the wages of sin is death." We reap our just rewards, our due, the wages of sin.

The resurrection of Jesus is more than historical fact. It changed all that for believers. Those who are baptized into Christ are born again to a living hope. Not the despair of death, but the hope of life. We have that living hope as an inheritance. Verse 4 tells us that it is an imperishable, undefiled and unfading inheritance kept in heaven for us.

The living hope lives in us through the resurrection. Nevertheless it is hope of an inheritance. An inheritance is something we receive when someone dies. We do not have it yet, but we have the hope and assurance of it. In a certain fashion we are like Pip in Dickens' Great Expectations. He had great expectations of an enormous inheritance. He was a rich man, but only in the future tense. In his present life he was poor, but he lived in the hope of great riches one day.

However, his inheritance was not imperishable. He received an allowance from his benefactor, but he squandered it in a prodigal life style. In the process he destroyed his relationships with the people he loved and caused friends to wind up in debt. In the end his benefactor died as a criminal and the entire inheritance was lost. This is the problem with worldly inheritances. They are temporal, and even though today we are an heir to a fortune, we do not know it will still be there when it comes time to collect it.

That is not a problem for us, however. We live in poverty in the present life; we suffer for a little while, but our inheritance is locked up for us, sealed up in heaven. It cannot be squandered, but it is imperishable and unfading. It is kept safe and secure, and we too are kept safe in our faith, sealed for salvation which will be revealed in the last time, according to verse 5. We are being guarded through faith for salvation by God's power. What is God's power for salvation? Romans 1:16 tells us, "The Gospel is the power of God unto salvation for all who believe."

The gospel, God's word of promise, is the power that guards us in faith so that we do not lose our inheritance. It is of vital importance that we remain continually in God's Word and Sacrament, in the study of the Bible and in worship because this is where God grabs hold of us and preserves our inheritance through faith. God's Word and the Sacraments are not just nice things; they are our life. Without them we die in our sin and wind up like Pip—worse off than where we started.

The resurrection is not just some mere event that took place 2000 years ago. It has changed our lives. It has changed the lives of baptized believers from despair, suffering, pain and death to living hope and joy even while we are still in a world under the curse of death. Let's look at verses 6 and 7. "In this you rejoice." Rejoice in what? In the living hope of an imperishable inheritance in heaven. We rejoice, even though "now for a little while we are grieved by various trials." Peter is writing this. He was no stranger to trials. His readers were living during the persecutions by Nero and were also well acquainted with trials and sufferings. Nevertheless, we rejoice! The resurrection causes joy in the hearts of believers while living in the midst of trials. The trials are only for a "little while." Then will come the inheritance. But the inheritance is imperishable, unfading. It will last forever. It will never end. It is an eternal inheritance.

Peter then explains our present sufferings: verse 7 says that these trials test the genuineness of our faith. There are two ways people respond to the trials of life: those who have genuine faith are strengthened in their faith. Their faith is refined and purified by the fires and found to be genuine; resulting in praise and glory and honor. But those whose faith is not genuine turn against God, reject him, and lose what faith they thought they had. Their lives are lived in disappointment, fear, worry, bitterness and doubt and in the end they die on account of their sin.

But the resurrection means that our sins are forgiven and that all who believe in Jesus have been washed in his blood and have already passed from death into life. The resurrection means that as Jesus was raised from the dead, so we too have been raised from the dead spiritually in baptism and on the Last Day our dead bodies will also be raised as incorruptible and imperishable bodies to join us in eternity.

Finally, verses 8 and 9 tie this Epistle to the Gospel reading. "Though you have not seen him, you love him." This is faith. "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." In the Gospel lesson we learned of Thomas who did not believe the resurrection until he had seen it with his eyes. But Jesus says, "blessed are those who have not seen yet have believed." The resurrection causes us to hope for the inheritance of salvation, though we do not see it yet. What we see in this life are the trials and sufferings of the curse of sin, the curse which was overcome by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. With our eyes we see only suffering and despair, but the resurrection of Christ changes our despair into hope and our discouragement into joy. It fills us with the hope of what will be the final outcome of our faith, the salvation of our souls. Though we have not seen we believe and we rejoice in inexpressible joy and are filled with glory. That is what the resurrection does to us. That is how it changes us. In this we rejoice.

That inexpressible joy drives us to tell others. It fills us inside until it is impossible to hold it in any longer. The resurrection changes us into witnesses who confess our faith to others and rejoice in sharing the gospel of salvation with all people. It is what drives the church in its mission and transforms our dismal lives of suffering into lives of glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Because of the resurrection we live in the living hope and inexpressible joy of salvation, an eternal inheritance which is ours because by the resurrection of Christ, we are born again as the children of our loving God.

Amen.