Printer Friendly VersionThe most difficult and depressing day of the year for me as
a pastor is always the Monday after Easter.
When I was a seminary student I attended an Easter morning service
with my Greek professor who also happened to be a Greek Orthodox priest. On
Easter morning the congregation gathered outside the front doors of the church
because the doors of the church where locked and all of the lights were off
inside. The priest began the service by saying to the congregation “Our
Lord has been crucified, all hope is lost.” Led by the priest, the congregation
then marched around the outside of the church building seven times, each time
reading responsive readings about the power of sin, death, injustice, and
oppression in the world. Each time the congregation returned to the front
door of the sanctuary the priest would again say, “Our Lord has been
crucified, all hope is lost.”
Finally, after the seventh trip around the building, the congregation
arrived at the front door to discover that the doors were now wide open, all
of the lights were on and the candles have been lit. In both decoration and
symbolism the sanctuary had been transformed from the tomb into a holy space
of resurrection celebration. Before entering through the now open doors, the
priest turned and shouted to those present, “Christos Anesti!”
(Christ is Risen!). To which the congregation shouted in response, “Alithos
Anesti!” (He is risen indeed!). This affirmation was repeated seven
times, and then the congregation proceeded into the open and empty (tomb)
sanctuary singing Christ the Lord is Risen Today, Hallelujah!
I will never forget that sense of wonder as I entered the beautiful
sanctuary on Resurrection Sunday. We were bodily celebrating that in the resurrection
of Jesus Christ sin, death, despair, and violence have been swallowed up and
defeated. In Christ there is indeed a new creation.
Last week (Easter Sunday) we too celebrated in worship, Word,
and sacrament that Christ is risen indeed and everything is now new. There
is no better day for we who believe than Easter Sunday. There is no celebration
that we can have that can do justice to all that we believe took place in
the death and resurrection of Jesus.
But then Monday comes.
I know that as a pastor there is always a let down on any Monday.
Studies have been done on the amount of adrenaline the bodies of most pastors
produce on Sunday and how there is a very natural depressive response on any
Monday. But beyond chemical reactions, I always find that the Monday after
Easter is dark and difficult. On Easter we celebrate that everything is made
new, only to find that the same problems we had on Good Friday and Holy Saturday
are still sitting on the desk on Easter Monday.
Put yourself in the position of the early believers. They had
come to believe in the life of the Resurrected One, and had identified with
His death and life through public baptism. Like us, they believed in Christ
the whole creation is made new. Yet, for them, not only did many of their
old problems continue to exist, but they had now added to their list of trials
the very real possibility of persecution and rejection by the surrounding
culture.
Perhaps that is why the lectionary follows up the celebration
of Christ’s resurrection with texts about suffering and the struggle
to maintain faith. Each Easter season we celebrate the Resurrection only to
encounter anew the reality that although the kingdom of God is present, it
is not yet fully here. Brokenness, sin, and suffering are still very much
a part of our everyday lives. How do we endure suffering now as disciples
of the risen Christ?
In this Easter series entitled “The Refiner’s Fire” we will
focus on the epistle of 1 Peter. The primary issue Peter addresses in this
letter to the churches of western Asia is the suffering they now face as believers
in Christ. As we will see together, although he offers few answers, he does
give believers important instructions. If they allow the sufferings of this
present time to be used by God as a refining fire in their lives He will form
His people into the image and likeness of His Son, Jesus.
The first epistle of Peter begins with a doxology that forms
a lens through which the remaining parts of the letter should be interpreted.
Some scholars believe the powerful and beautiful words found in 1:3-5 are
potentially part of a song of praise that may have been popular in the Early
Church.
Like all great hymns, this brief song grounds us in rich theology. The reason the hymn gives for blessing “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,” is for the gift of regeneration.
Regeneration is a theological term that describes the new life
being formed in the believer. By His great grace the Father has given all
who believe a “new birth” modeled in our participation in the
death and resurrection of Jesus through the public act of baptism. In the
same way people receive the core of their identity from their family of origin,
their culture, and their social class, followers of Jesus are baptized into
a new identity, a new community of belonging, and a new citizenship that redefines
their relationship with the world and transforms their character into the
image of Christ.
It is interesting that the lectionary text for this morning
from the Gospels is the story of doubting Thomas encountering the risen Christ.
Jesus responds to Thomas’ confession of belief (after being able to
touch the risen body of Christ) with the words, “Have you believed because
you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to
believe” (John 20:29, NRSV). The relationship of this Gospel passage
to our text from 1 Peter is that both texts recognize the great challenge
that faces those who have come to faith in Christ not through personal contact
with Jesus but as a response to the message about Jesus.
Christ may now reign supreme, but Caesar is still in power.
Jesus is Lord, but bad things are still happening to good people. The kingdom
of God is a present reality, yet the citizens of that kingdom are being persecuted
and martyred by the rulers of this present age. Peter recognizes that “now
for a little while you have had to suffer various trials” (1:6, NRSV).
How can people who have never seen or touched Jesus, but who
believe in Him, keep faith that the kingdom of God is present, when all evidence
seems to point to the contrary? Like the Christians to whom Peter is writing,
we just celebrated the resurrection of our Lord and yet even though Christ
has defeated sin and death, we still face the same problems we had before.
Is anything really new?
Although, like Job, we never really get complete answers to
the reason or reasons for suffering, we do discover in this text that we get
the following assurances from God. First of all, he has given us a living
hope. “By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living
hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (v. 3,
NRSV). For Peter, a hope that is not living is a hope that is founded or placed
in things that are temporal. There are several places in the Psalms where
the psalmist will say things like:
Do not put your trust in princes, in mortals, in whom there
is no help. When their breath departs, they return to the earth; on that very
day their plans perish (146:3-4, NRSV).
The first century Christians could put their hope in Caesar.
Certainly he had power, military might, and riches. But for
Peter, to put hope in rulers, human philosophies, or material abundance is
no hope at all because those are not locations for a living hope. Our hope,
the hope for those who believe, is a living hope in the eternal ever-risen
one.
Secondly, we also receive the inheritance due God’s children.
Many who became believers in the first century may have lost
their family rights and their future inheritance of land or wealth. The cost
of following Christ for many in the Early Church was being disowned by their
families of origin. This is an incredible price to pay for their faith, yet
they have received in its place, an inheritance from God that is “imperishable,
undefiled, and unfading” (1:4, NRSV).
Finally, believers receive “the salvation of your souls”
(1:9). Although Peter certainly would include the concept of eternal life
or the assurance of heaven as an important aspect of salvation, it is certain
the New Testament writers thought of salvation in more holistic terms. Several
times Jesus would say to people who had demonstrated faith, “your faith
has saved you” (see, Matthew 9:22; Mark 2:5, 5:34, 10:52; Luke 7:50,
8:48, 17:19, and 18:42). Whenever Jesus says, “your faith has saved
you,” He is talking about a completeness or wholeness that is taking
place in the recipient’s life that not only has eternal implications,
but is experienced today. Eternal life is not only a quantity of life promised
after death, eternal life is the quality of life a believer receives in their
life today.
Those who are enduring suffering in faith now are receiving
the outcome of that testing today, they are being wholly (or holy) redeemed.
Like gold refined by fire, God is using our challenges and sufferings to form
us into the image of Jesus.
So what are we to do? How are we to face the challenges and
sufferings we are faced with right now?
In response to the blessings of God’s presence we are
to keep on believing and hoping. A new kingdom has been established in Christ
Jesus and we are called to embody the nature of that kingdom in our lives.
As we demonstrate our faith by living as children of God we reveal to a disbelieving
world that Christ has indeed risen from the dead. This life of faith is the
life of the blessed of God.
In Acts 7 Stephen is dragged out of the council and is being
stoned to death. As the rocks are being hurled at him he looks into heaven
and sees the Son of Man standing at the right hand of the Father. This is
important theological language meaning the kingdom of God has already been
established. We are not waiting for Jesus to be at the right hand of His Father,
He is already there. In his suffering Stephen recognizes the presence of the
kingdom of God.
Those around him, those persecuting him, do not see it. They
refuse to see it. Although they refuse to see it above him, those who are
angry, cursing, and abusing Stephen see it in his loving and forgiving response.
Once we understand this we can see that even though Stephen is enduring great
suffering, the person to be pitied in this story is not Stephen (he is already
living in the eternal kingdom) but those who do not see the presence of the
kingdom and continue to live in the violent patterns of this present age.
Life in the kingdom does not eliminate suffering, Stephen’s
suffering came because of the kingdom, but we have the assurance God is able
to redeem our suffering, He uses it to make us people who reflect His nature
and character and who reveal His kingdom in the midst of all we go through.
For this reason we are also called to rejoice (1:6, 8). It is not always easy to rejoice in the midst of great suffering, but when we take the divine view we are able to see God’s redeeming work taking place even in our suffering. This does not mean, by the way, that God causes our suffering so He can refine us. However it does mean that just as God raised Jesus from the dead, the Father is able to redeem our times of suffering and work in the midst of them to bring about His purposes in us.
