1 Peter 1:1-12 “The Living Hope”

After the hot and humid weather we have had this last week, I like to think that we have been living inside the curry pot. My wife has a cast iron dutch oven that has become her curry pot. When it is on the stove the lid likes to rattle a bit while the steam comes out of the sides of the lid. I find myself standing over the pot, taking in the aroma from the steam. Then, uncontrollably I lift the lid to see what that beautiful curry soup is actually composed of. Ooooh, shrimp and lemongrass in coconut milk and spice!

Now that I have you all hungry and thinking about what you will have for dinner tonight, I want you to look at the last line of verse 12. Yes, once again your Pastor is starting in the end and rolling backwards through the Word of God. Please, go ahead and peruse that last line: “things into which angels long to look.” The word in the Greek is “parakipso,” meaning to lean over and lift the lid in order to take a peek. We are all in this curry pot and steaming away while angels in heaven are lifting the lid to see what we are made of. Oh man, we must stink good!

Right, that is what Jesus is planning in heaven for us. That is what the angels are taking a sneak peek at. They all want to know who the new angels in heaven are going to be coming up! I want to know who the angels are going to be. It is like the hymn “When the Saints go marching in. . . .” how I want to be in that number! That is our hope! That is what Peter is talking about in the early church.

I have to explain something about Peter that you might not pick out unless you sit down and read all of the Book of Acts in one sitting. At the beginning of the Book of Acts, the story seems to be very much about the Apostle Peter as he takes over the reigns of the early church after Jesus ascends and the Holy Spirit comes down at the Pentecost in Jerusalem. We hear Peter preaching his first sermon on that day. Thousands are baptized. Peter performs great miracles of healing in the name of Christ. He is arrested, imprisoned, and in Chapter 12 of the Book of Acts, he is rescued from prison by an angel. Then, from chapters 13-28 of the Book, Peter seems to be strangely in absentia. He simply is not discussed. The story turns to Paul and the other Apostles.

Also, from that point on in the bible we pick up with Paul’s letters to the churches. Peter seems strangely out of the picture even in these letters. Then, near the very end of the bible we have a couple of short letters reminding us that indeed Peter is still doing the ministry as commanded by Jesus.

In these two letters from Peter, we get the sense that it is much later than when Paul was writing. Two things tell us this. First is the reference to the exile of Christians. This would have been in the reign of Claudius in January of the year 51. Second is the reference Peter makes in verse 8, “Though you have not seen him, you love him. . . .” This informs us that indeed many have now come to the faith that could never have known Jesus. The second generation of believers had already started. Peter was alive and knew Jesus as he walked the earth, but the early church that he is writing to now was not there in the time when Christ had His ministry in person.

I am amazed at how much this letter speaks to us, because we are now so many generations removed from the time of Christ in the church. Just as the people back then seemed to have lost hope in the expectation of the Second Coming of Jesus, today we might also have lost that hope. Yet, we still believe in Jesus, have faith, and love HIm!

Have we lost the hope for salvation of our world? Should I mention global climate change, sea level rises, pollution, greater societal stratification, economic migrations, and the like? Recently even the birthrate in America has come under scrutiny. People are not having as many children as they once did–with the caveat: Do you know how hard it is to get mammals to stop reproducing? How much environmental stress that takes?

Of course, I grew up in the 60's and 70’s! I thought we wrote the book on stress and hopelessness! I grew up with the draft of young men to fight the War in Vietnam, recession, hyper-inflation, the Cold War, Watergate, the gas crisis, famine, the equal rights struggle, the Savings and Loan debacle and the list goes on. Some of you here went through World War and the dropping of the atomic bomb.

What about those people in 51 AD who were mostly slaves that were being chased out of existence and slaughtered for sport by their own government? Do you think you have it bad today? Start reading your history books. Go back to the Bible!

What should our reaction to this be? Verse 2, “You have been chosen and destined by God. . . .” Shoot, we are not really so much exiles or refugees as much as lucky prizewinners of a trip to Las Vegas. By the way, I did not win Kaleo’s fundraising trip to Las Vegas. Yet, we have been chosen. We have all won the bigger prize!

Back up to verse 1, the New King James Version translation of the Bible uses the word “pilgrim” rather than “exile.” I like this. That is certainly a happier way of looking at the situation. It is why I have named this sermon series “Peter’s Pilgrimage.”

The word here is “eklektos,” like the English “eclectic.” We are being collected up by God in heaven for His purposes.That is a possible way of looking at it. I like the understanding of “eklektos” because it makes it look as if we are all these funny little different pieces that would not ordinarily belong in one set–just like pilgrims coming from all over the planet to walk the same path.

Bouncing through the text once more: In verses 10-11, Peter himself echoes this idea. “. . .Inquiring about the person or time that the Spirit of Christ within them indicated. . . .” The word for time here is not the usual word. It is “kairos,” which is now in the English dictionary. It means “the right moment for action to be taken.”

Nelson Mandela of South Africa liked to use this term “kairos” to describe what happened one day when it was just the right time to bring down Apartheid in South Africa. Everybody had had enough of it. There was no hope in it. There was no foreseeable future for his country and his people. Then, in one kairos moment, he was freed from prison by the then President F.W. DeClerk, Apartheid was voted out, and He was voted in as the first black African President. Out of utter hopelessness in that kairos moment the country was reborn. Are we living in our own kairos moment?

In our text Peter tells us that all of the prophets of old were testifying to that moment which is to come that will change everything. It will be the kairos moment for all of humanity. It is when we will be fully reborn to the heavenly kingdom.

And then, we read this incredible message from verse 12: “They were not serving themselves, but you!” Jesus did not die on the Cross because He thought it was cool. He died for you! Some bibles will say “us” here. Either way! God did not send His only begotten Son because it was a nice day to visit Israel. God sent Jesus with a plan for your salvation. God sent Jesus because the world had lost all hope. It was the kairos moment.

Those people who came before us: The Twelve Apostles, the early church leaders, the bishops who met at the Council of Nicea, Emperor Constantine, Martin Luther, Calvin, all the prophets of the Old Testament, the Saints who performed miracles, the Pilgrims who came on the Mayflower, the missionaries that came to Hawaii; they did none of what they did for themselves. They did it for us—so that we would know the hope that they had in their time.

In all that they went through, they found cause to rejoice in God. They knew what God was cooking in that curry pot. Even the angels in heaven are excited about what is about to be revealed. This is the greatest cooking show ever produced. We all love to watch those cooking shows! We are all just watching the chefs sweat it out as the clock runs down. Soon the lid is coming off, and we will see the great reveal. It always comes at the top of the hour, after the commercial break! Wait for it. This is hope. We will be saved. Collected up to heaven through our living hope.

Amen.