Sermon: “New Birth and Living Hope”

Text: 1 Peter 1:3-9

2^nd Sunday in Easter (A)

March 30, 2008

Scripture introduction.  Our second reading this morning is from the opening chapter of First Peter, a letter of encouragement written from Rome to various churches in what we would now call the northern and western parts of Turkey.  The Greek grammar of the letter is elegant and complex, probably not what we would expect of a rough Galilean fisherman like Peter the Apostle.  For example, the entire reading this morning is only part of a single, long sentence in Greek.  On the other hand, the closing of the letter indicates that it was written “through” Silvanus,[1] who may have acted as Peter’s secretary.  And there is very strong evidence for the fact that Peter became a leader of the church at Rome.  If Peter, himself, was not the author, then it was probably written by someone who had lived and worked with him, someone who would have been familiar with his teachings and would have understood the sort of encouragement Peter would have given to these distant congregations in the multi-cultural Roman world.

The verses we will be reading have suggested to some scholars that this portion of the letter was originally taken from a baptismal liturgy, or even that the entire letter was a baptismal sermon.  While this view of a direct link to baptismal practice no longer prevails, it is true nonetheless that the writer uses the “language and traditional scripture passages” that early Christians commonly would have heard at baptism.[2]

Sermon.  Well, here we are the week after Easter Sunday.  The memory of the music and the flowers and the crowds still inspires us.  We are now in a fifty-day continuous celebration of the resurrection of Jesus, so you will continue to hear Easter hymns and passages from scripture that refer to resurrection.  Even so, across the church attendance is typically somewhat off on this particular Sunday, which has led some cynical ministers to give it the name “Low Sunday.”[3]  It’s a Sunday on which pastors often take a little vacation: so, when I was at the seminary I frequently received invitations to be a guest preacher on this day.  Just like any tenor worth his salt needs to have mastered “Comfort Ye, My People,” from Handel’s Messiah, so any supply preacher needs to have a good sermon ready for the “doubting Thomas” reading, as it is the prescribed passage for this Sunday, every year. 

But although I preached on that passage two years ago—and still have my old seminary sermon ready at a moment’s notice—the passage that gave me the most energy this week is the one from First Peter.  It shares with the doubting Thomas passage the affirmation that even people who have never seen Jesus—who have never had the opportunity to place their hands in the nail-scarred hands—can know him, love him, and serve him.[4]  For the writer of First Peter, this relationship is possible because of Jesus’ resurrection.  We can read about Abraham Lincoln, and we can admire Abraham Lincoln.   The example of Abraham Lincoln may even influence our actions.  But we cannot know Lincoln in the same way that we know the risen Christ.  We do not speak to Lincoln in our hearts the same way that we can speak to our Lord.

The writer of First Peter would scoff to hear anyone describe today as “Low Sunday,” for according to this letter Easter has changed everything.  We do not go back to the way we were before Easter because the gospel message about Jesus—his life, death, and resurrection—has actually begun a new life in us.  Remember the opening lines of our passage this morning?  “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.”  By God’s grace and mercy it is Jesus’ resurrection that enables our “new birth into a living hope.”  One of the commentators has suggested that the phrase “living hope” sounds redundant—how, we might ask, could we have a dead hope?  I think the writer of First Peter wants us to contrast the hope we have as Christians with other kinds of hope.  In our ordinary expression, we may hope for a good outcome even though we do not really expect it.  That kind of hope doesn’t have much life, maybe just a glimmer.  In contrast, the hope mentioned in these verses is vibrant and pulsating with life.  It is a hope, that as the apostle Paul writes in Romans, “does not disappoint.”[5] 

In another sense, it is a living hope because it is capable of giving—of producing—life.  When we experience the grace of God in Jesus Christ, when we appropriate for our own lives the message of the resurrection, the hope we have received gives us new life.  Maybe this is a trivial example, and I know that athletic illustrations are sometimes problematic, but the image that comes to my mind is an underdog basketball team, behind in the final minutes of the game, but not far behind.  At some point the players realize that, beyond what anyone expected, they have actually played the favored team a strong game—and are still in the game.  You can almost see the wheels turning in their heads: “Hey, we could win this thing!”  That’s when what might have been a dead hope turns into a living hope—one that gives life, energizing their play and enabling their victory.

How do we get into a hope like that—our Christian hope?  The writer of First Peter maintains that we are “born into it.”[6]  While our response to the news of Jesus’ resurrection is certainly important, these verses make it clear that this hope does not come because of our own worthiness.  If that were the case, none of us could have any hope.  However, we have hope by the great mercy of “God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,” who “has given us a new birth into a living hope.”[7]  It is not something we earn; rather it is given “through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”  We receive the hope; we are made alive by the hope.  But the hope does not come from inside of us—rather from outside, from the event of Jesus’ resurrection.

We did not initiate our physical birth, and neither are we the authors of our “new birth into a living hope.”  Birth is something that happens to us.  And in the best of worlds, when we are born physically, we are born into a family.  In the past, when I have considered the phrase “born again” or “born anew,” I have always thought of something that happens to an individual.  But birth implies family, doesn’t it?  The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead gives us new birth into the family of God.  I don’t think it’s an accident that God is referred to in this passage as the “Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  The same can be said for the language of inheritance that comes just a few verses later.  We “inherit” because a family relationship has been created.  Through the great mercy of God, through the resurrection of Jesus, we are now called to be a part of God’s family, with Christ as our brother.

No wonder the writer of First Peter, in describing how Jesus’ resurrection gives us a new and living hope, used terms that would have reminded his Early Church audience of the baptismal liturgy.  For in baptism we contemplate our own resurrection.  We put away the old self and put on Christ.  When we are baptized, we die to sin and are reborn into newness of life.  In baptism, God claims us and puts a seal on us to show that we belong to God.  If we all belong to God and become a part of God’s family, it follows that as family members we also belong to each other.  Just as we are given a hope that will not disappoint—a hope that lives and gives life—so we should be agents of that hope with one another.

Shortly, we will have the opportunity of enacting our hope, as we baptize and welcome a new member into the family of God, the church of Jesus Christ.  From this day forward she will belong to us, and we will belong to her.  And when I say “us” I’m not talking just about Central Presbyterian Church.  I’m speaking of the broader church throughout the world.  Wherever Violet goes, in whatever culture she finds herself, the church will be there.  “We” will be there.  Although she will not see Christ in his body, she will know him and love him.  Through prayer and scripture, she will hear his voice; and she will come to trust him for herself.  As our scripture this morning says, like all of us she will suffer various trials; but through our love she will see Jesus in us.  With our support she will emerge with a genuine faith refined like gold in the fire. 

This is no Low Sunday, but rather a day of “indescribable and glorious joy.”  “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.”