"Born into a Living Hope"  Judy Skaggs, UPC

1 Peter 1:3-9

For the Sundays in Eastertide, San and I are going to be doing a series on the passages from 1 Peter. I really want to encourage all of you to read 1 Peter since we will not get to hear the entire book during worship. Over the next few weeks, you might make that book your personal Bible study.

Some scholars think that 1 Peter is a baptismal sermon. How appropriate that we have celebrated Kirby’s baptism this morning.

Others see it as a letter that follows the form of other epistles. The letter is addressed to the exiles in the provinces of Asia Minor – those who were living away from their home, and had been dispersed throughout that part of the world. Walter Bruegemann often talks about our time as a time of exile when we seem like we Christians are living as aliens in the culture. So perhaps we can identify with this writing.

We will run across several references to suffering, and so we can assume this was written to people who were suffering because of their faith, perhaps are even being persecuted.

And as with most scripture, we cannot be certain who wrote the book that bears the name of one of Jesus’ disciples. Toward the end of the book, the writer says he is writing through Silvanus, which is another name for Silas, one of Paul’s companions on his journeys.

But what we do find in this book is a very strong encouragement for Christians in those early years as well as for us today.

We are going to begin at verse 1 of the first chapter. Let us listen for how the Spirit is speaking to the church. Read 1 Peter 1-9.

My grandmother died about four years ago, the last of my family in the preceding generations. So over that four years I have been dealing with my inheritance. In many ways, it has been pretty easy since I am an only child and grandchild. I sold her home and some little office buildings, but then there was the farm. She loved the place (probably because my grandfather loved it) and would never consider selling it during her lifetime. But I don’t know much about farming and taking care of old rotting fences and water gaps and trees that blow over on the front porch, and hunters on the wrong part of the property and so on – you get the picture. So now I am in the process of selling the land. Hopefully she understands!

So this week when I read about a different kind of inheritance – one that is imperishable, that is unfading, it sounded pretty good to me. Anything that we inherit or that we leave for someone else clearly will perish, will fade away. But the writer is reminding the early church as well as us today that our inheritance through Christ is different it does not fade, it does not perish!

The other thing is that inheritance usually comes through our family. We have all seen or know of situations where a family is torn apart because of the way money or land or material possessions are passed along, but Peter tells us that a new family is being created where everyone inherits. 

We are being born into this new family. By God’s great mercy, God has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Somehow the resurrection of Jesus is bringing about this new birth of humanity. And this new birth is not only into a radically changed point of view, but also into a community that is nurturing and protecting from anything that might be threatening.

This new birth is into a living hope. Hope that does not live can hardly be thought of as hope. But our hope is living because Jesus is living. The one we follow has been raised. Death has been defeated! And because Christ lives, we too are raised to new life. Peter uses wonderful, vibrant language to remind us that we are born anew into this living hope.

Now we are in the same situation as those to whom Peter wrote. We have not seen Jesus. And Peter writes, that although we have not seen Jesus, we love him, and even though we cannot see him now, we believe in him and we rejoice in our faith - a faith that is more precious than gold or silver.

Let’s consider this passage through the lens of a baptismal sermon. This morning as we participated in Kirby’s baptism, we were reminded that Kirby is being born anew into a living hope, into a community who has promised to nurture him and pray for him and help him to grow in his discipleship.

We make vows and say prayers and place water on him, but our hope is in the living Christ who will act in his life. When we lay hands upon any person who comes for baptism, we pray that Christ’s spirit will invade that life so deeply that the person will know nothing but joy in Christ’s presence and that they will be given wisdom and strength as they grow in faith.

And we make that prayer, believing even though we cannot see.

Our hope is also in those prayers that were said for each one of us whenever we were baptized. Our hope is that we are being changed by Christ’s presence, that our souls, the very core of our being, are being saved, being made whole.

This passage thrusts us forward with greater clarity about who we are as people of resurrection. Christ has been raised and therefore we are raised to new life in him.

During the season of Lent, our bulletin cover reminded us of some of the aspects of being Christ’s disciples. Remember there were words all over the cover – worship, sing, pray, give, serve, follow, believe, seeking justice, repentance, renewal and so on. And during Lent we considered how to deepen our discipleship through spiritual practices.

At the Session meeting this past week, Matthew Thompson was giving our devotional. Matthew pointed out that the affirmation of an ethic of the risen Christ that we began using on Easter Sunday sounded a lot like our Lenten disciplines. Giving up, sharing, using less, welcoming and so on. And I think you hit on something, Matthew!

For Easter does not end our practices. In fact, after Easter, the real work of living toward that new life, toward a greater discipleship, really begins.

A few weeks ago, during a call to confession I told you about hearing the Moderator of GA describe how her view of the will of God has been changing. She said that for a long time, she thought of God’s will as a big target with a bull’s eye that we are trying to hit, but often fall short. But now she describes the will of God very differently. It is more like a deep, wide river that graciously invites us into its flow. So our task is to listen for the sound of the river and then go toward it.

Perhaps that is a good description of our life as disciples. We listen for the sound of the river, and then turn, repent, and go toward the way God would have us live. And at that gracious river, we find our inheritance that does not fade. We find a living hope in a living Christ who is with us always.

God has given us a new birth into a living hope. Let us live toward that hope, trusting in the presence of the living Christ. Amen.