Hope for Our Suffering
For Meditation
In Peter’s first letter, he writes to a group of people who are facing tremendous challenges. We don’t know exactly what they were, only that Peter refers to them as “suffering grief in all kinds of trials” (v.6). Most likely their trials included the persecution and even imprisonment that came with being a Christian at the time. But even apart from persecution, just being alive in the 1st century was a pretty challenging experience! There was little to rely on, barely any certainty, and death was a constant threat behind every corner.
Yet despite all that fragility, Peter writes of a “living hope” (v.3). He commends to them a hope that cannot perish, spoil, or fade, no matter how terrible life gets (v.4). On what basis can Peter talk about such hope? Only on the basis of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead (v.3). The truth of Jesus’ resurrection has produced a certain and glorious outcome for the future that now fills the present with new meaning and possibility. In the words of author Edmund Clowney, Peter believes that the resurrection provides “a hope that holds the future in the present because it’s anchored in the past.” The certainty of what God has done in Christ guarantees a hopeful future and changes the experience of the present.
This Sunday we’ll look at the ways the resurrection of Jesus can change our experience of suffering. Few of us are suffering in the ways that Peter’s friends were, but we all suffer in major and minor ways on this side of the new creation. What difference does the resurrection make for our pain? How does Jesus’ resurrection give us a “living hope” that is indestructible, no matter what happens to us? That’s the question we’ll be exploring this Sunday.
In preparation for worship read this week’s passage along side 2 Corinthians 4, and reflect on how Peter and Paul’s messages about hope and suffering interact and complement one another.
1 Peter 1:3-9
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, 5 who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, 9 for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.