A Homily for the Second Sunday of Easter 2020

Psalm 16

Acts 2.14a, 22-32

1 Peter 1.3-9

John 20.19-31

Maybe you’ve heard this story before.  If so, don’t stop me!

In my last week in Scotland, Luke Tallon and I decided to “bag a few Munros”. There are 282 Monros in Scotland, mountain peaks that are over 3000 feet in height. When you climb one of those summits, you “bag it” in Scottish parlance. 

When Luke and I pulled up to the trailhead it was a rare clear and sunny day in the highlands. We could see for miles; not a cloud in the sky. What a day to climb some of the highest peaks in the Scottish highlands; I was looking forward to the views! 

Since it was so clear with no sign of clouds anywhere,  we decided to leave the compass in the car, along with our rain gear. 

Rather than follow the well-worn, perhaps 500 year-old  path to the top that meandered to the peak at about a 30 percent grade, we decided to face the mountain--climbing over cregs and heather at about a 500 percent grade (a 78.69 degree angle for those doing the math at home).  This gave us about one hour of extra time that would enable us to bag another Munro that was nearby before the sun went down. But it came at a cost; we were only an hour into our hike but our legs and lungs were burning as if we had been hiking all day (it turns out, sitting at a desk for 8 hours a day for three years reading and writing doesn’t prepare you well for climbing Munros). 

When we got to the top, the view was gone! Gone! Instead, we noticed an ominous har approaching. Har is the Scottish term to refer to a thick fog that looks and feels like a  moist blanket is being placed over you. 

Suddenly and without any warning our clear sunny day turned to invisibility, pelting sideways-rain, and confusion: “Where are we? Which way should we go?” It’s hard to explain just how this happened, but we were totally disoriented, lost on top of a mountain in the middle of the highlands. All of our orienting points were covered by the har; we could not see beyond the reach of our arms.  Luke and I debated which way the trail was, which way the next summit was, where we had parked our car; where we had ascended up the mountain, and which way was home. Neither of us agreed. Luke convinced me that as an experienced mountain guide in Colorado, I should follow his lead. So I yielded. 

We climbed, slogged is probably a better word to describe it, for seven hours through up and down through Scottish bogs, and over thick heather that was still  thawing from the winter snow; our legs were shaking from fatigue--screaming at us to stop. We were wet, cold, hungy, and tired in the midst of the  Scottish wilderness, with no visibility--totally lost. We thought we knew where we were going only to find that we had walked in a circle, right back to where we had started!

This was utterly demoralizing. We were  discouraged; confused; exhausted; and, well, scared. “I just want to get home to my family; have a warm butternut soup with  some fresh-out-of-the-oven bread and butter”. We longed to be safe and secure at home with our families, but it felt like that day would never come.  

Then, out of nowhere, it was as if the curtains were opened for a brief moment,  and we caught a glimpse of the trail that led to where we parked the car! That brief glimpse was enough to orient us, enough to send us in the right direction; it was enough to give us the confidence that we needed to push through our fatigue; we could see how to get home. 

We knew we still had a long way to go, and that the way was going to be tough on our legs and lungs--there would be some peaks and valleys--but that glimpse enabled us to get to our car, and to arrive safely home to our families, where we belonged. 

I always think about this wilderness journey, lost in the Scottish highlands with Luke,  when I read the opening lines of 1 Peter. Why? Because it’s the picture that Peter paints of the Christian life in the opening lines of his first letter. Our life in Christ is a kind of wilderness journey towards our home, towards our incorruptible, kept-safe  inheritance. And the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is like that curtain opening up, the sun shining through, giving us a glimpse of how we can get home safely--giving us hope, strength, and direction.

Peter is writing to people who have been utterly disoriented and demoralized. Because of their newly-professed allegiance to Jesus Christ, all their inherited  orienting points that anchored them on their journey in life had been taken away. Their decision to trust in Jesus resulted in them being told by their compeers, their neighbors, even their own family that they no longer belonged, that they no longer had a home. Their allegiance to Jesus made them feel like foreigners, aliens, exiles in the places they had been raised and formed--the places they had lived all their lives. Their allegiance to Jesus caused them to be ridiculed, threatened, called “evil doers”, excluded from the goods and benefits of their homes.

And so Peter writes to encourage and to orient them in the midst of this cloud that has suddenly approached and blanketed them with darkness and confusion.  Many were no doubt surprised by this unexpected consequence of their faith in Jesus  (1 Pet 4.12). Why wouldn’t my allegiance to the one true God lead to peace, prosperity, security, well-being, a sense of belonging, and favor? What have I done wrong? Did I make the wrong choice? Maybe this new way of life isn’t true? Maybe this God isn’t really able to deliver on his promises. 

Our text for this morning is Peter’s response to these questions generated by their disorientation, to these concerns that sprung up as they were feeling like foreigners in their own places of birth. 

He begins by reminding them that they feel disoriented because they have a new home and a new identity. He addresses them as “elect exiles”, an oxymoron if there ever was one. That’s like saying jumbo shrimp or larger half, or pretty ugly, or seriously funny or civil engineer. How can you be on the one hand “elect”, how can you be chosen by God, which implies  being a privileged lot, which implies that they belong to God; it connotes that they have been given a responsibility; that they have been called to Him and summoned to join in His work. And yet on the other hand, they are in exile, which implies that they have been banished and forsaken, perhaps even punished for wrongdoing? 

Peter explains that this complex identity and reality is God’s own doing: it is according to the plan of the Father, and enabled by the work of the Holy Spirit and the faithful obedience of Jesus Christ, who offered himself as a sacrifice of atonement for our sins [1.2).

Thankfully, there is more to the story than wilderness wandering.  Peter begins his letter of encouragement by giving his readers a glimpse of the path that will lead them safely home. 

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1.3). He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the raising of Jesus Christ from the dead (1.3). This is the season to remember this foundational truth: the resurrection changes everything. The resurrection is the ground for our hope, a living hope. Because Christ has been vindicated, because He is safe and secure at the right hand of the Father (Col 3.1-4), we also are safe and secure. Our destiny is linked with his. We have an inheritance that will not, cannot,  be taken away by COVID-19, by crashing markets, ailing economies, and lost opportunities. It is kept for us in safekeeping. In concert with Psalm 16, we can say “the lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed I have a beautiful inheritance” (16.6).

What is more, Peter reminds us that God is intimately involved in guarding us by His power for a salvation to be revealed in the last time.  Our deliverance, our inheritance is guarded by faith (1.5). But whose faith? The text is ambiguous. It may refer to our faith, or rather our faithfulness. That is to say, that as we continue to demonstrate allegiance to Jesus, we find the power that we need to endure through the wilderness of testing, temptation. But there are also clues throughout the text that what Peter has in mind is Jesus’ own faithfulness that guards and keeps us. Perhaps he is ambiguous for a reason--both are true!

Having reminded us that our destination is secure in God, Peter now encourages his readers to think of the now time as an in between time, as a wilderness time, as a time for testing--and in particular the testing of our allegiance to Jesus Christ. For a little while, Peter says,  the genuineness of your faith will be tested. He re-orients us to think of the time we are living in between the advents of Jesus as a time in which things will happen to us that will test our profession of faith; our loyalty  will be tried, tested, purified, honed, worked into shape. But we can strengthen our legs and lungs for the journey of hardship, we can traverse through the peaks and valleys,  because we know what awaits us--we will make it home, where we will receive praise, glory, and honor.

That’s right! It sounds shocking to say this, but in this complex sentence in 1.7, the point that Peter makes is that God’s power will sustain us, and we will make it through the fiery trials, and the result is that WE will be praised, glorified, and honored at Christ’s return! We would do well to meditate on those words and let them shape our imaginations as our allegiance to Jesus is daily tested. 

In Peter’s telling of time, this is when we are.  We are in an inbetween time, a time just after our deliverance from slavery, and prior to our entrance in the promise land--we are bound for the promise land, but we are not there yet. But we do not wander aimlessly, for the curtain has been opened, and we know where we are going--we have an imperishable inheritance guarded for us. But in this time of wilderness sojourning, we know that our allegiance to Jesus will  be tested, but we also know the outcome or telos (goal) of our faithfulness (1.9)--the salvation of our lives, our whole being--body, mind, spirit, soul, and will. 

But what is the ground for such assurance? This is where our reading from Acts 2 helps. Perhaps you noticed that our Psalm 16 reading was embedded in Peter’s sermon in Acts. (It is slightly different because Peter is quoting from the Greek text and not the Hebrew text that we use in our OT). Peter makes the astonishing claim that Psalm 16.8-11 doesn’t refer to David, but rather to Jesus. He says that David was speaking about the resurrection of the Christ (Acts 2.31). Peter makes this move to show that God promised that He would be faithful to His Holy One, Jesus, and not let him see corruption or death. That Jesus was raised from the dead is God’s vindication of Jesus, His “Yes!” to all that Jesus said and did. 

As Colossians 3.1-4 reminded us last week, since our destiny is linked with Jesus, since our life is hidden with Christ, we too have been raised and vindicated with Him. In Christ, we are brought  safe and secure to our destination. We are protected from the worst possible thing that could happen to us--death. And we have been protected by the worst possible outcome--death--through God taking the worst possible outcome (crucifixion), and making it the greatest gift to humanity (reconciliation). God is in the business of taking evil and making it work for His good. Let that truth preach to your doubts and fears  during this pandemic. 

And so, in the midst of our hardships, in the midst of our trials, our allegiance being tested, we can rejoice! Our joy is not dependent upon things going our way in this world; our joy is not corruptible, it will not decay with our savings, or the falling markets--as heart-breaking, and grievous as those things are! In the midst of our grieving, sorrow, pain, struggle, and even doubt, we can have joy. Because we know that He is risen indeed. We know that however long and hard the path home is, we will arrive. He provides. He protects. He guides. He vindicates. And for this reason we love Him, even though we have not seen him. 

But that’s not all. We aren’t just called to endure. We have work to do. Jesus says, “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you (John 20.21).” This is the Christian life, summarized in a sentence. This is what Peter means when he says we are elect, or chosen. We have a privileged vocation, a calling, a responsibility; we are summoned to participate in the ongoing mission of Jesus Christ; by the enabling of the Spirit we continue the ministry of Jesus Christ. In the name of Jesus, we offer forgiveness of sins, reconciliation to the life of God. Not just with our words, but as we embody his forgiveness with one another through patience, bearing with one another, honoring one another, and seeking the needs of others above our own; by imitating the love that we have received in Christ. 

This is what we are doing in the wilderness--bearing witness to our destination by loving others as Christ has loved us. And because we are elect exiles, we don’t expect to be comfortable; we don’t expect an easy life; we anticipate trials; we expect to be misunderstood; we understand that we may have to give an explanation for our way of life, our customs; we may need to translate for others why we do life the way we do; these things don’t take us by surprise. 

But our first and fitting response, our overall disposition in life is praise to God: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ--who in his great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. 

He is risen. He is risen indeed. Hallelujah.