Meditation on
I Peter 1:1-9
For the Community Thanksgiving Service
Nov. 25, 2014
***
“Peter, an apostle of the Messiah, to God’s chosen ones, who live as
foreigners among the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and
Bithynia, who have been set aside in advance by God the Father, through the
sanctification of the spirit, for obedience and for sprinkling with the blood
of Jesus the Messiah. May grace and peace be poured out lavishly on you! May God be blessed, God the father of our
Lord Jesus, the Messiah! His mercy is abundant and so he has become our father
in a second birth into a living hope through the resurrection of the dead of
Jesus the Messiah. This has brought us into an incorruptible inheritance, which
nothing can stain or diminish. At the moment it is kept safe for you in the
heavens, while you are being kept safe by God’s power, for a rescue that is all
ready and waiting to be revealed in the final time.
That is why you celebrate! Yes, it may well be necessary that, for a
while, you may have to suffer trials and tests of all sorts. But this is so
that the true value of your faith may be discovered. It is worth more than
gold, which is tested by fire even though it can be destroyed. The result will
be praise, glory and honor when Jesus the Messiah is revealed. You love him,
even though you have never seen him. And even though you don’t see him, you
believe in him and celebrate with a glorified joy that goes beyond anything
words can say, since you are receiving the proper goal of your faith, namely
the rescue of your lives!”
***
I was gathered with a group of Christians meeting
a couple of weeks ago when the leader asked each of us to share what we were
thankful for. I was glad I didn’t have
to go first because I wasn’t ready with an answer. The leader eagerly shared
how happy he was that he and his wife would be with their son over
Thanksgiving. They hadn’t been together on Thanksgiving for a number of years.
The next person shared several things he was thankful for, beginning with a
home with heat, his family and church, and some others that I can’t recall. He said
he was feeling abundantly blessed.
The next
person was really prepared! He pulled a folded piece of paper from his Bible
and said he had made the list some years ago when he was feeling discouraged. The
list helped him to remember his blessings and to be grateful for what God had
done in his life over the years—how the trials had helped to shape him into the
man he had become. The next person gave thanks for her family—especially her
husband and grandchildren—and shared a funny story. She ended by saying she was
“loving life.”
By this time, I still hadn’t figured out what
I was going to say. I was, like the others who had shared, feeling blessed by
my family and church. But my mind was on the funeral I had presided over 2 days
before and the family that had just lost their mother, grandmother, great
grandmother and wife. And I couldn’t help but think about how difficult
Thanksgiving would be for that family and others grieving the loss of loved
ones. Because Thanksgiving is so often more
about visiting with extended family and consuming a feast than a simple
offering to God of our heart-felt thanks.
And then it was
time for the second to last person to share what she was thankful for. I was
the last!
She was quiet for
a few moments before she teared up and said that she was going to be “real”
with us. She had been seeking the Lord that morning in her devotional time,
praying for her children, and she was discouraged. The word she used was
“broken.” She was feeling “broken.”
***
Peter, in his
letter to early Christians offers hope to the discouraged and guidance to those
who may have lost their way or forgotten the gospel of grace. Peter writes to a
small, scattered minority living in the Diasphora—outside the city of Jerusalem.
These early Christians are definitely feeling “broken” and also despised by the
world. These Jewish believers are rejected by fellow Jews and by Gentiles who see
all Jews—even those who have accepted Christ—as Jews!
Jewish people in those days were all “aliens,”
“foreigners” or “exiles,” as some translations say in 1 Peter 1:1. These are
people who have “suffer(ed) various trials and tests of all sort” as the writer
says in 1:6. Most are not permitted to be citizens or own property. Many living in Rome at the time of this
letter may have descended from Jews who had been brought there as slaves. Some were still slaves, as the writer
addresses them specifically in 1 Peter 2:18, “Slaves, accept the authority of
your masters with all deference, not only those who are kind and gentle but
also those who are harsh.”
Peter, from the
opening of his letter to the end, emphasizes the value of every believer to
God—even a slave—for you have been “chosen,” he says in 1:2, “chosen and
destined,” or as N. T. Wright’s translation says, “set aside in advance.” God
is not punishing you by making you live in poverty and slavery; the Father has
had a plan for you from the very
beginning! In 2:21, he writes, “For to
this you have been called (chosen, set aside) because Christ also suffered
for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps.”
The hope—our hope—is
a new birth—a whole new life—in a world we haven’t seen and a Savior who has
not yet been revealed. But the hope is a living hope because Jesus is alive! He
was resurrected from the dead!
For this people,
many of whom cannot own property, there is an imperishable, incorruptible “inheritance”
waiting and kept safe in heaven. You who are suffering and despised by the
powers of this world, God still cares for you and is caring for you! You are “protected
by the power of God through faith.” And I love this about Wright’s translation:
instead of saying “for a salvation,” he says, “for a rescue that is all ready and waiting.”
“A rescue!”
And Peter says, “That is why you celebrate!”
***
Friends, this is a
good reminder to us of what Thanksgiving for Christians is really about. The
reason we celebrate is not because we have plenty of food and many people to
love and who love us. That’s not the real reason for our joy! We celebrate
because of who we are—God’s chosen in Jesus Christ—and our living hope in Him! We
offer up simple, heartfelt thanks to God for our hope that will never change,
though
our situations may change as we go through different and
difficult seasons of our lives.
Sometimes we will
“love life” and feel “abundantly blessed”; other times we will feel “broken.” We
will feel truly like the “aliens” or “foreigners” that we are—that we don’t
belong here and this isn’t our home. All of God’s chosen live as foreigners in this world. We are being made ready
for life in God’s Kingdom, our eternal home. But we aren’t just sitting around
waiting for the new life to begin. God is using us right now to build His
Kingdom! As we respond to God’s call, we are instruments of Christ’s peace,
tools of His reconciling love.
After my friend
confessed to being “broken,” we stopped and prayed for her. And the prayer
ministered to all of us. For even those who said they felt “abundantly blessed”
and were “loving life” had felt “broken” before.
Then I knew what I
was supposed to share—what God had been teaching me through the suffering of my
faith community—that God loves my church even more than I do. He has a plan for
our ministry, and accomplishing His plan doesn’t depend on me. This is God’s
work! And God in His grace allows me to be one of the shepherds in this
community and to sometimes be God’s hands and feet.
But God’s plan does
include suffering and trials for all of us. And it’s not my job to try to take
all the suffering away, though I wish that I could. It is my job to walk alongside
my brothers and sisters, sharing the peace of Christ—and to pray.
We can be sure throughout
our trials that our loving and merciful God is still caring for us! And the
power of God, revealed in the resurrected Christ, has triumphed over the power
of sin and death.
You might right now be feeling “broken.” You
may be wondering if you will ever feel happy and “whole” again. Peter assures
us that there is something good about suffering—that it provides an opportunity
for our faith to be tested and proven to be real.
God wants us to
be “real”—like my friend was the other day. Don’t hide your pain from one
another! Let others help carry your burdens! Pray for one another!
For it is when and
how we endure suffering as a worshiping community that we prove our faith to be
real. This is how we show the world
our love for God and His chosen ones, called to be “foreigners” no matter where
we go. Waiting and longing for our imperishable, incorruptible inheritance in the
world to come.
Rejoicing in
our living hope!
Let us pray.
Holy One, we celebrate our living hope in Jesus Christ—today,
tomorrow on Thanksgiving, and every day. We give you thanks for our families,
friends, churches—our many, many blessings, including the abundant food that we
have to eat. But help us, Lord, to be truly grateful for your work done for us
through Jesus Christ and his suffering on the cross. Give us a faith that is genuine. Real. Stir us to offer up a
simple prayer of thanks and praise to you for our salvation—for the “rescue of
our lives” and the imperishable, incorruptible inheritance waiting and kept
safe for us in the world to come. Thank you for watching over us, Lord, and
protecting our souls. We pray, also, for those mourning the loss of loved ones.
We ask that you make your loving presence known to them, that you heal and make
whole those who are feeling “broken,” and that you lead them to be “real” and
share their sorrows with others. Teach us to pray and to be faithful to witness,
as we go through suffering and trials, to the One we cannot see, but still we
believe in and love. Help us all to trust in you. In Christ we pray. Amen.
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