1st Peter 1.3-9; John 20.19-31
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!” begins the New Testament letter of 1st Peter, today’s second reading. “By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”
The entire letter of 1st Peter explores the meaning of Jesus’ resurrection for us, not merely as a past event but as a gift for your present life. When Jesus rose from the dead, new life was not for him alone. God “has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.” A living hope. Hope.
Throughout the weeks of Easter, seven in all, 1st Peter will be our guide in exploring what this living hope means. It includes forgiveness and well-being; Christ carried our sins in his body on the cross, says Peter, and by his wounds we are healed. It means stability in a shaky world; Christ is a living stone, Peter tells us, and all of us together are built securely on him. It means peace within ourselves and with others; we need not fear what the world fears, according to Peter, but because of what God has done for us in Jesus, our lives can be filled with gentleness and reverence. And when we are anxious, we can cast our cares on him because God cares for us. Well-being, assurance, the courage to seek peace and people of peace: these are gifts of Jesus resurrection for you.
Peter’s purpose today is to give us hope in the present moment, “new birth into a living hope.” Now this new birth is a gift from God, an entirely hands-off event for us. We have as much to do with our birth in God as we had to do with the beginning of our natural life and the day of our own birth: that is to say, nothing at all. You remember the story in the Gospel of John where Jesus tells Nicodemus that, to see the kingdom of God, he must be born again. Nicodemus, you recall, is puzzled by that, not least the biological impossibility of it. He asks Jesus how it is possible “to enter a mother’s womb a second time and be born.” But Jesus makes clear that this new birth is life from above, from God—pure gift. A life of faith is conceived by God’s grace and mercy and received by us. And the source of that life is Jesus’ resurrection, a humanly hands-off event if ever there was one.
And Jesus’ resurrection is the source of our hope.
Hope, in a biblical sense, is more than a mere wish or expectation that things will turn out well, something we want to be true but really aren’t sure will be. Friday when I got home from work, the neighbors were kicking a soccer ball around. ‘Is the snow behind us?’ I asked. ‘Hope so,’ one of them said. But that’s not the biblical sense of hope. Biblical hope is filled with assurance because it is focused on the Risen and Living Christ.
Lesslie Newbigin, the great 20th century British bishop and missionary, was once asked in an interview if he was an optimist or a pessimist. Now if you were asked that question, what would your answer be: are you an optimist or a pessimist? Look at the present state of the world, your life. What would you say? Newbigin’s answer was, “I am neither an optimist nor a pessimist. Jesus Christ is risen from the dead!” That is a great summary of what is meant by Christian hope. Newbigin is saying that our outlook on the world in anchored in Christ rather than on shifting and uncertain social or cultural movements and trends. There will be good days and bad days, sometimes things will look up, other times will shake our certainties. Yet amid all the “changes and chances of this life,” the prayer book says, we can “rest in [God’s] eternal changelessness.” Hope is different than optimism. Hope is focused not on the positive feelings that I can muster from day to day. Hope is focused on God whose steadfast love and faithfulness sustain us in and through all things. And this hope is not only for the future but gives courage and strength today.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”
Yet this gift of new life, and the hope born from it, will not exempt us from suffering or troubles. Newbigin’s quote about optimism and pessimism recognizes this. So do you. The letter of 1st Peter does, too. “Even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials.” Suffering and trials are part of a fallen world. As for the early Christians who first heard Peter’s words, they would have known challenges and sufferings simply because they were living as followers of Jesus in a world with quite different values than values shaped by Jesus. Peter holds out the possibility that people of faith might be ridiculed and harassed because of their faith, suffer challenges in many ways. What does it mean, for example, to love the way Jesus loved; not to seek revenge or rejoice in the downfall of others, to be patient in suffering, or to be generous even to the point of feeding our enemies?
This is the way of life Jesus calls us to in the Sermon on the Mount. How much does that make Christians stand out as different even now in a society that likes payback, can hardly be patient in traffic, and can’t agree on feeding the hungriest of our children to say nothing of what we think about how we ought to treat our enemies? For the early Christians living the values of Jesus in a world that valued different things, it would have been intimidating and challenging for them to continue in their new life born of Jesus’ resurrection and be people of hope. Isn’t that true for us, too?
There are other challenges and hardships that test the resilience of faith and hope. “All kinds of trials,” Peter says. This could include any number of things from news headlines to personal struggles, grief that turns us inside-out, chronic and debilitating illness, loss and loneliness, and the search for purpose and meaning—if there is any to be had. Sometimes it is hard to see hope. We all live with pain. We are often consumed with fear and anxiety.
Now Peter makes the case that, for Christians, adversity can refine and purify faith. “So that the genuineness of your faith—more valuable than gold that, though perishable, is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.” Adversity refining and purifying faith? That sounds optimistic. Because haven’t you seen how suffering and pain can lead people away from God? Leave us feeling not refined by fire but simply burned, faith not strengthened but shaken by doubt. Yet the cross of Christ assures us that God is present in all human suffering.
In today’s gospel, Jesus comes to the disciples in their fears and to Thomas in his doubts. He reassures them all of the truth of his new life by showing them his wounded hands and side and giving them peace. Jesus comes to us, is with us, in ambiguity and pain. Yet when pessimism seems to have the upper hand and nothing looks optimistic, the resurrection of Jesus assures us that life and hope triumph. “Through death, Christ destroys the one who has the power of death,” say Hebrews. Like the disciples in the gospel, and the people 1st Peter is written for, we will also endure adversities, pain, grief, fears, and doubt. Yet the gift of life in the Risen Christ—our new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead—gives us hope that anchors and sustains us in a swirling and uncertain world.
During the war in Vietnam, in September 1965, the plane of a Navy pilot, Jim Stockdale, was shot down. Stockdale became a prisoner of war at a camp known to Americans as the ‘Hanoi Hilton.’ But it was not a hotel. The name, loosely translated from Vietnamese, meant ‘hell’s hole’ or ‘fiery furnace.’ And that is what it was. Stockdale was a prisoner of war there for seven years, endured solitary confinement for four of those years, and was regularly tortured through it all. After he was released, he was interviewed by someone who suggested that he must have been as real optimist to be able to endure such conditions. Stockdale said he was not. ‘I am not an optimist.’ Instead, he said that he noticed that the optimists among the prisoners had the hardest time in the brutal conditions of their confinement. If, for example, they believed they would be home by Christmas, and Christmas came and went, they would lose their optimistic outlook and, with that loss, lose the capacity to endure their circumstances. Instead, the people who endured were able to do two things: to be honest about the brutal facts about their situation; yet, at the same time, maintain an absolute belief that they would be set free and even thrive once again. Not optimism or pessimism, but hope.
In the gospel, Jesus comes to the disciples in their fears and to Thomas in his doubts; not to the place of clarity and certainty but ambiguity and pain. 1st Peter, to give courage and strength in the present moment and hope for the future, tells of our “new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” This is not mere wish, but life conceived by God and received by us in faith. And it is a source of joy even today. “Although you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy.”
With those words, Peter echoes Jesus in the gospel as Jesus blesses everyone who has not yet seen but have come to believe—that is to say, as Jesus blesses you. The blessing is not just for the future, but something to experience now through all kinds of difficulties as the Risen Christ gives you a sense of courage and purpose even in the changes and changes of this present life. What was it that Lesslie Newbigin said? “I am neither an optimist nor a pessimist. Jesus Christ is risen from the dead.”
He is your new birth into a living hope.
Hope.
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