A living hope
Readings: 1 Peter 1. 3-9
Jesus is risen, he is alive and lives forevermore. Now what.
In that first letter of Peter which we just heard Peter is writing to a group of Gentile believers who have come to faith in Jesus. His aim is to answer that question; now what? How are they to live as followers of Jesus in the midst of a culture that is hostile to their newfound faith? But he doesn’t start there, he starts with hope. And with that hope, praise. He is praising God because in his great mercy he has given us new birth, new birth into a living hope, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. There’s quite a few bits going on quite fast there aren’t there.
Firstly he has given us new birth. We, who believe in Jesus and have put our faith in him, have a new birth, we’ve been born again. And this works in two senses. The first is that in coming to faith our old life has died, it’s like it was buried with Jesus in the tomb, and with Jesus we have been raised into his new life, his risen life, such as we can talk about having been born again. We’ve started living a new sort of life. And we see this most clearly in baptism. In baptism, we were buried with Christ, we were baptised into his death and raised with him into his new life. It’s true of all baptism, but is most visually clear with adult baptism by full immersion where visually you can see them being plunged down into Christ’s death and raised into his new life. So our old life has died, buried in Jesus’ tomb, and we are raised to Jesus’ new life.
And the second way being born again works is the sense that our new life is radically different from our old life. Not just in the sense of a new start and sharing Jesus’ risen life, but in new direction, new priorities, new loves. Our life has taken on a whole new shape such that we can talk about life having begun again for us, it’s shaped by Jesus, a Jesus shaped life. And it’s something we have to live into, grow into, patterning our lives after Jesus’ own.
So we have been born again, born into a living hope. A living hope, not a dead one, or a maybe one. A somehow all this will work out sort of hope. But a living, true, sure hope. How is it living? Because it has come through the resurrection of Jesus. When we look at Jesus, when we’re looking at him walking out of that tomb, we’re looking at the hope that we have, and because we can see it happening in Jesus, it gives us the assurance that this will happen to us too who are now living his risen life.
When I was younger I went to an indoor climbing centre near Llangorse Lake in South East Wales. And we spent the day there, climbing, caving etc. And at one point they took us up to the top of this climbing centre to go on the zip wire. Now I, despite really enjoying rock climbing, not that I’ve done it in a while, don’t like heights. Well, it’s not the heights so much as the falling from them that I don’t like. So the idea of flinging myself off the edge on this zip wire was rather worrying, no, that’s underplaying it, it was terrifying, particularly as this zip wire went over the boulders section of the climbing centre, you know, some nice rough rocks to dash yourself against.
But I didn’t have to go first, other people went first, and watching them head down the zip-wire made it feel safer, I’d seen them do it, they’d been fine, now I was going the same way, to do the same thing. Watching them gave me a deeper, surer hope that the same would happen for me. That’s how the resurrection of Jesus works to give us a living hope. Not only has his resurrection made that hope true for us, he has won it for us, but also in seeing Jesus raised, it assures us that we will be raised with him, that we are headed in the same direction, just like the people on that zip-wire.
Through Jesus’ resurrection we have hope, and it’s not a hope we have won, it’s a hope he has won. We haven’t earned it, Jesus has given it to us through his resurrection. And with this hope he has also given us an inheritance. A promised future ownership. An inheritance isn’t something you have yet is it, it’s something that is coming. Something we know is coming, it’s ours, but we don’t have it quite yet. And this inheritance is glorious. Peter tells us that it can never perish, spoil or fade. The NIV softens the language a bit, in the NRSV it says that this inheritance is ‘imperishable, undefiled, and unfading’. Which means it’s like nothing we experience now.
It’s imperishable. Everything in this life perishes. Fabric rots, metal rusts, rocks break, plastic goes brittle, meat and flesh decay. Nothing lasts, flowers spring up and die back, their colour fading away, even the mighty oak tree which can stand for hundreds of years will one day come crashing down, rot away, and soon it will be like it was never there. Everything perishes. But not our inheritance, not what is waiting for us. No, that will never rust or rot or break or decay. It’s eternal, everlasting.
It’s undefiled. When I was writing my dissertation in college I was writing it on ‘Transhumanism’, it’s basically a movement pushing ahead to enable humans to live forever in this life with the aid of technology. And what I discovered is that whilst many people were really keen on this, many really weren’t; do you really want to live forever? Some got the appeal of a hundred extra years or so, but forever? And at the root of that reluctance was a reality check. Why, with all of the suffering and trials and pain of this world, would I want to extend my time here? Why would I want more of that?
But our inheritance, not won through technology, but the gift of God, is undefiled. Think of all the things that spoil life. The word defiled even helps with that doesn’t it, it’s one of those words that gives you that gut reaction. We know what it means. All the stuff that ruins lives, ours and others. The stuff we do, the stuff others do. None of that stuff will get to eternal life with us. We’re leaving all that behind. You might imagine the gates of heaven to have one of those signs ‘no sin beyond this point’. We have the assurance that it will not follow us there. Our inheritance is undefiled, perfect, clean and pure, and will ever be so.
And it’s unfading. Just like everything perishes, so everything fades. When we were packing to move a few years ago I noticed how many of our DVD’s, even though the cover wrapped around from front to back, now had different coloured spines to the front and back. I’d never really noticed when they were there on the shelf, but the sun was slowly fading them. Everything fades, even when we don’t notice. From the photos on the walls to our memories of the times they were taken. Time it seems, slowly steals it all away. But not our eternal life, that life will never fade. That will be as bright and as vibrant in its thousandth year as it was in its first minute.
Our inheritance will never perish or spoil or fade, that’s our hope.
So why is Peter starting with hope? Why is he bringing these Christians the assurance of the hope that they have? Because right now they’re suffering trials. They’re going through hard times. Life is throwing difficult things at them. And Peter knows if you’re going to keep going you need to know where you’re headed. That without hope you will simply lose the will to keep going. It’s like he’s saying to these Christians, and to us, ‘Look at the hope the Father has given us through the resurrection of Jesus, keep going, it will be worth it, this hope will outlast all these trials, this hope will outdo them all. Press forwards’.
This hope is real, and with this hope he gives a deep assurance, and it’s this I want to finish with. Verses four and five; this inheritance is ‘kept in heaven for you, who are being protected by the power of God through faith for salvation…’ Our inheritance is being kept in heaven for us, it’s safe, it’s secure. But alongside that, we are being kept for it. We are protected by the power of God ready for the fulness of our salvation. Our inheritance is kept secure for us, and we are kept secure for it. We cannot lose it, it’s not going to slip through our fingers at the last moment. We are locked together by God, kept safe and secure for one another.
What’s the result of all of this? Joy. We may not have seen Jesus, but we love him, and we believe in him. And as we believe in him we set our sights on all he has won for us. His risen life as our new birth, his inheritance now shared with us, an inheritance that will never perish or spoil or fade. Even in the midst of trials and troubles, our joy can endure it all. Because no longer is it based on what’s happening now, it’s rooted in Jesus, the one who loves us so much that he died for us, and who is working each and every moment to bring us home, to bring us to our inheritance.
My brothers and sisters, are you struggling? Are you facing challenges and trials? Fix your eyes on Jesus stepping out of the tomb, for there you see a vision of where we are headed. No matter what you go through, whether you feel great or feel rubbish, whether you’re on top of the world or down in the depths, whether you have everything, or have nothing, our joy in Jesus can endure it all, because through it all, as Peter reminds us ‘you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls’.
Amen.