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.
1 Peter 1:3
The Easter season helps us to let the significance of the resurrection of Christ sink in. Each year readings from Acts trace some of the impact, the positive ripple effect, the negative repercussions, the shock waves emanating from Christ’s resurrection, tracing the story from Jerusalem to Rome, from east to west. Every third year readings from 1 Peter supplement this. This letter is written to Christian communities in Asia Minor (Turkey) and generally thought to have been sent from Rome. So we have a west to east movement.
Together these readings give us a glimpse of the re-ordering of many lives and relationships, the turmoil in the immediate aftermath of the resurrection. Are we still aware today just what big a revolution was started “on the third day”? It is of course to be expected that over time the new norms and revolutionarily outlook gets normalised and established. And it is not an altogether bad thing for cultures and societies being shaped by what happened “on the third day” in such a way that it no longer seems unusual. But institutionalisation often means that the message gets neutralised, accommodated and made safe. Are we failing to get hold of the (full) reality? The Easter season is an invitation to take a fresh look.
The Gospel shows us the immediate response which was not very encouraging: suspicion (‘they have taken the body’), confusion (why is the linen left in the tomb?), fear (of the authorities), resistance to belief (on the side of Thomas who does not really have a good reason to refuse to believe). It is like people going around asking “what just happened?!”
By the time 1 Peter was written the followers of Jesus are no longer disorientated but the revolution is still in full swing. The letter is addressed to “the exiles of the Dispersion” which is to say people who have become outsiders in connection with being chosen by God – a theme that runs through the letter.
The author points as to an appropriate response, namely thanksgiving. ‘Blessed be God’ is a typical Hebraic/Jewish way of acknowledging God’s goodness. The author does not ask us to be grateful, he leads by example: ‘Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.’
What just happened? We have been given a new birth. It is hard to imagine a more sweeping concept. What does this language about a new birth mean? Let’s tease it out. First, it points to God’s initiative. No-one is responsible or contributes anything to their being sired. And just like our natural birth ideally was the fruit of an act of love, so our new birth is attributed to God’s great, abundant mercy. His decision, His love.
Secondly, a new birth speaks of new
relationships and identity. Our natural birth relates to ethnic identity,
citizenship, socioeconomic class, innate potential and much more. Language of a
new birth suggests a new identity, new citizenship, new innate potential. We
are taken into the Father-Son relationship, being made children of God. We are
given a new home, paradoxically one that makes us in a sense homeless in this world (as D. Sölle once pointed out), because Christians ‘no
longer fit in well with the society in which they were once at home; their Christian faith brings them
into conflict with the values and priorities of the society in which they live.’
(K. Jobes). But having God as our Father more than makes up for it. And of
course it means that every Christian of whatever class or ethnic identity is
our brother or sister.
Thirdly, this new birth brings new prospects:
the children of God are heirs to ‘an inheritance that is imperishable,
undefiled, and unfading.’ It won’t rot away, won’t be spoiled, it won’t fade.
It is kept safe for us in
heaven while we are kept safe by God’s power. Through the death,
resurrection and ascension of Christ the rescue is all ready, our salvation is secured. We are just waiting for
it to be revealed.
Everything happened within three days. ‘It is through the resurrection that God has conquered the world’s separation from himself, a world that is subjected to transience and thereby sin and death, and has made a new beginning possible.’ (R. Feldmeier)
Christian existence is first all
about what God has already done:
- He took the initiative.
- He reconciled us to Himself and to one another.
- He keeps our salvation secure.
Christian existence is secondly
responding to what God has done:
- thanksgiving (which is the overall context here)
- living hope: a key concept in 1 Peter
- joy: the risen Christ is not a figure of the past
