(10:30am), Sophia Ziegler (12pm)
The open secret of our planet is that it is a place where hope dies. This is not to say it is a hopeless world, for wherever humanity exists, hopes will arise. However, wherever it sprouts, and no matter how full-grown and fruitful it becomes, hope eventually dissipates and fades.
Some hopes live for only a quick moment—maybe she likes me—while other hopes survive centuries—Rome forever! But we all hope. They say to err is human, but we could also say that to hope is human. We are built to long for safety and security and a better life.
Even the most prosperous people in history still silently hope it all continues unabated. We worry about our future, our families, and our financial well-being. We know we have much, but we also know a very thin line exists between having and having not. Every rumor of war, every call from the physician, and every market downturn reminds us how perilously tenuous life is. It is to the point that some in the youngest generations feel little hope at all, wondering if they stand a chance at the future they desire.
There, lurking in our souls and within our cosmos, is the reality that all our hopes will inevitably arrive at their final breath one day. The health fades. The dream life is disrupted. And death awaits us all.
Riches and health, food and wine, adrenaline and endorphins, friendship and romance, work and play, prosperity and charity—each wonderfully good but terrible gods—none proves worthy to build our lives upon. They all fade, corrupt, or even die. On our planet, and with our species, hope cannot be allowed to live forever.
It is to this sentiment that the apostle Peter wrote. Many in his audience had lost everything and were wandering on the fringes of society. To them, he said:
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” (1 Peter 1:3–5, ESV)
Amid their dead hopes, Peter announced that through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, they were born again to a hope that is alive. In a world where hope dies, Christ rose to life, and hope came out of that grave with him.
To Peter, this was not average hope, destined to die, but abnormal hope, destined to live. This is why Peter called it living—dynamic and growing—a hope animated and developed by Christ’s resurrection power. And, to Peter, this hope leads to a calm assurance that an imperishable, undefiled, and unfading inheritance is ours in Christ Jesus.
This resurrection hope changed Peter’s life. He knew Christ had risen. He had seen him. He was marginalized from his home culture for proclaiming that he’d seen him. He had been imprisoned and beaten for telling others he’d seen him alive. And he watched friends suffer and die for their eyewitness testimony regarding the risen Lord. But there was no level of agony that could stop them from declaring what they had seen.
Some might suffer for a lie they believe is true. But no one suffers for a lie they know is untrue. And those early believers—500 of them at one point—all testified they’d seen him. It cost them dearly, but because Jesus Christ had resurrected, Peter knew their hope was alive.
It is because of Jesus and his resurrection that we celebrate today, O church.
We rejoice that, though so much of life perishes, Christ has invited us into a resurrected reality and world that will never end. It will not die, but will live. All the fragility of this life will evaporate one day and we will enter into assurance, security, and the uttermost safety and joy in him.
We rejoice that, though so much of life becomes defiled, Christ has invited us into an everlastingly renewed cosmos with him that will only increase in glory as the ages pass. With him forever, nothing will become defiled, degraded, or decreased. Joy will be permanent and growing. Disappointment, banished forever.
And we rejoice that though so much of life fades, Christ has invited us into a permanent and unfading glory. Our inheritance in him will suffer no threat, no downturn, no sickness, and no loss of luster. Forever unfading, the glory of eternal, true, and life-inducing connection with our Creator Father God will be ours. Jesus’ God becomes our God. His Father becomes our Father. And the joy of that connection and goodness will never fade.
For believers, this hope is not flimsy optimism or wishful thinking.
It is grounded in the historicity of Christ’s death and resurrection—no other explanation for the empty tomb has satisfied us.
And our hope is grounded in the nature of the resurrection—when God took the perishable and raised it imperishable, we got a glimpse into his forever purposes.
And our hope is grounded in the results of the resurrection—as a resurrected and new life came to Jesus, so we believe resurrected new life can come to us.
Could it ever have been otherwise? Does not the beating heart of humanity long for resurrection? Think of it: do not our greatest stories point to resurrection hope?
We cheer the underdog who snatches victory from the jaws of defeat—Rocky. Cinderella. Rudy. Good Will Hunting. Hoosiers. The 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey team. David over Goliath.
We weep when the character left for dead comes walking through the door—Gandalf. The Shawshank Redemption. Gladiator. The Deathly Hallows. The Odyssey. The Prodigal Son.
We are moved when the hero wins when all was lost—Apollo 13. It’s A Wonderful Life. Jane Eyre. The Martian. The Exodus from Egypt.
We are inspired when a savior arises who will sacrifice himself for the good of others—Saving Private Ryan. Logan. Les Misérables. Braveheart. Avengers: Endgame. Rogue One. Queen Esther.
Tolkien called the surprising heroic events in these stories eucatastrophes, or good catastrophes. Aren’t all these stories of sudden, unexpected turns from loss to victory, obscurity to prominence, and death to life clues that reveal the human longing for resurrection—a divinely inspired and instilled hunger that is only fully satisfied in Jesus? The gospel—his death, burial, and resurrection—is the good catastrophe that other stories shadow. He is the one in whom the myth or legend becomes fact and reality. He is the one we were born hoping would come—and he rose to life!
And the genesis of this resurrection-induced hope, according to Peter, is the great mercy of God. Writing to a beleaguered and scattered congregation, Peter began his letter with an eruption of praise. Amid their earthly pain and suffering, God must be blessed or praised because it was according to his great mercy that the new birth and living hope, rooted in the resurrection of his Son, occurred.
The phrase “great mercy” was a callback to the steadfast love God had promised for thousands of generations. Peter was recalling the God who had designed and created them, the God who saw them in their slavery and rescued them, and the God who had fashioned them into his beloved children and people. Peter knew that because Jesus lives, we can live. But he also knew that because God loves we can live, for it was the loving mercy of God that sent Jesus in the first place.
Church, this mercy is for us today. God’s steadfast love still pulses and breathes over us. Today, as we consider the perishable, fading nature of so many of our hopes, we must see and receive the love of the One who engineered a hope that is alive.
In the past year, some of us have walked through the valley of the shadow of death. The doctor’s call was not good news. The final breath came. Hope—and even life—perished. But Christ’s resurrection means your life, if you’ve trusted him, is wrapped up with his, so your life is imperishable.
In the past year, some of us have become scarred by someone close to us. Betrayal is no longer theoretical to you. The relationships you craved no longer fit the mold of what you’d hoped. Beauty has been dislodged by brokenness. But Christ’s resurrection means your life, if you’ve trusted him, is wrapped up with his, so your future with him will never undergo defilement.
In the past year, some of us have felt life and its joys dim. Fatigue is setting in. The future feels impossible. Disillusionment and disappointment abound. You wouldn’t call it a crisis, but you might call it a thinning out of life. But Christ’s resurrection means your life, if you’ve trusted him, is wrapped up with his, so this life is your trough, your low point, and your life with him will only beautify forever.
And if you have trusted him, Peter said God is keeping your inheritance and guarding you for it. God will faithfully deliver his people to the radical glories that await them. He keeps our imperishable, undefiled, and unfading inheritance secure, but he also keeps us secure. Though our lives and all our hopes rise and fall, though we are sometimes strong and quite often weak, we are held by our God through it all. God’s power is unleashed to guard us through faith for the salvation coming to us in the last time. Our emotions don’t keep us. Our strength doesn’t keep us. Our determination doesn’t keep us. God keeps us.
And if you have not yet trusted in him, he invites you into his merciful, steadfast love today. The steadfast love Peter mentioned is alive and well for you. I wish I could import the stories of the people in this church into your heart. You would discover we weren’t church people, but despairing, hurting, rebellious people who could not satisfy our hopes anywhere but in Jesus. And you’d hear the tales of his forgiveness and mercy toward us. And that same amazing grace is available for you today, if you will turn and trust in Christ.
Let this settle in your heart: Christ lived, died, and lives again, making possible a hope that never needs to die. He will stand with you beyond death. He will prove faithful and trustworthy forever. And with him are ever-brightening, unending, and unimaginable joys.
Because he lives, we have a hope that lives—and need not die. We are secure. We are guarded. We await the resurrection of all things. Our imperishable, undefiled, and unfading life is on the way.
