1 Peter 1:13-25 “A Living Hope”

I need to start with a little context for the start of the scripture. Right off we see a footnote in our bibles that what is really written there in the Greek original is that we are to “gird up the loins of our minds.” When I was talking about this idiom with the Tuesday afternoon bible cohort out at the Regency Puakea, one of the members asked: “How do we do that? Are we supposed to wear underwear on our heads?” That is really a funny thing to think about.

Like so many idioms in English, the Greek idioms are a bit idiotic. No, please do not wear underwear on your head to show your Christian faith. The idea of this is that when wearing robes back in the day, and everyone wore robes, before you did any kind of work or if you need to run quickly, you would take your garments and tie them up so that you would not trip over them. The understanding is that, yes, you are to ready your minds in the same fashion. Remove any threat from tripping over bad ideas. Hold everything together in your head so that you can do the work of the Lord. Show that you are up to the task.

We see that we are talking about things that are up-lifting. We are girding up. Honestly, there is a focus in the Greek of this text of things looking up. In the line that follows we see that we are to have good “conduct.” That word for “conduct” is actually “anastrophe” in the Greek. It is the opposite of catastrophe. It means things are looking up rather than down. So, good conduct is that which builds up the church, the family, and the community.

One of the questions that we always need to ask when reading letters from others is “What is it for? Why did Peter write this letter?” You will recall that we are on a pilgrimage with Peter. He is writing this letter back to the churches he visited throughout Asia Minor. In this churches, one glaring problem would have stood out to Peter. Wow, they sure did drink a lot of wine. Some translations of the Greek use the term “sober.” Our bible uses the word “disciplined.” Other translations land in between with “sober-minded.” Really, nobody wants to paint the early church in such a way, but they had a substance abuse issue. The actual word in the Greek is simply “sober” as in “not drunk all the time.”

Saint Paul in his letter to the Corinthians, the first one in chapter 5, also addresses this issue. You see, the people in the church would host an “agape feast” to begin worship of Jesus. This would include copious amounts of wine and food, followed by orgies: “It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not found even among pagans!” Paul writes.

One of the things that happened when Alexander the Great marched through the Middle East is that he brought Greek wine with him. When the Romans built roads and added more ships to carry the Greek wine, well it got a lot cheaper. It used to be that one would drink wine on special occasions only. Now it was becoming a daily ritual for many that was being carried to extremes. The pagan god (small ‘g’) of wine was Bacchus. The goddess of love was Aphrodite. In the new churches, these old gods were putting up a fight!

Now before we start judging those early Christians, let me ask you a serious question: “If you thought that the end of the world was coming tomorrow, what would you be doing right now?” Some of you would answer: “I would be right where I am here in church. Let Jesus find me in worship when He comes again.” That is a fine answer. However, realistically our human nature might just take us in another direction as well. I could imagine a lot of crazy stuff happening all over the world.

The word that is used in our text to describe that time when Christ is revealed is apocalypse. Last week we talked about how angels were lifting the lid on the plans of God to see what was becoming of humanity, and now Peter is talking about bowing the lid on the whole end of time. “Apocalypse” literally means to take the lid off–to reveal what God has been cooking all along.

When Saint Peter is writing this letter, again as I mentioned to you last week, it is a little bit later in the life of the early church than Saint Paul’s letters. In fact, the first generation of Christians are on their way out from old age and natural death. The idea that was told to the first generation was that Jesus would be coming soon–like tomorrow. The church community as a whole was beginning to realize that it might be longer–we say that from the perspective of two thousand years later.

Although the word “lament” appears nowhere in this text, we see that it is now a lament that Peter is offering here as well. People, being told that Jesus was arriving soon, have sold their homes, quit their jobs, and some have even put off starting a family. Peter’s lament is that now he has to do what Jesus told him from the start: He has to build a regular church. Matthew 16:18, Jesus says to Peter, “I tell you you are Peter and upon this rock I shall build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

How does Peter take this group of Christians who are dead-set on an apocalypse coming tomorrow and make a church out of them? Peter does start the church. He is considered the first Pope in the long line of Popes that we still have today. This is the critical part of his pilgrimage that started with his preaching at the time of the Pentecost. Now he must keep the people’s hope in Jesus alive!

So, he simply orders them to HOPE! Yes, it is a command in the plural form: “You all together as one church HOPE in the living Christ! I know in English it is not possible to order someone to hope as a group, but that is what is happening here. The line “set your hope” just is not strong enough at all.

HOPE ON WHAT THEN? Stop thinking that the end of the world is coming tomorrow, so you are all going to die, so you better get drunk today. Start thinking more along the lines that the end of the world will come when God ordains, but at that time you will not just die, rather you will live forever with God. We do not have a hope of dying, but rather a hope in the life everlasting with Jesus. This hope rests solidly not on the notion that the apocalypse is tomorrow, but rather on the Truth that Jesus himself died on the Cross and yet lived again. And, he is still alive. Jesus is the risen and living Christ. Peter himself was witness to Christ being alive after the death on the Cross. This alone is our living hope in Christ!

So, if you are thinking that life is hopeless today for whatever reason, then be commanded to still have hope in the living Christ. Do not live in despair, live in hope. As we are celebrating the 250th birthday of the Declaration of Independence here in America, we see that the founding fathers saw this as a declaration of hope for “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Still today, this is our living hope in this country. Some say that this hope has died recently, but I do not agree. Americans are a people of hope. We love hope. We believe that tomorrow still holds promise.

Remember how Peter talks about girding up the loins of the mind and the uplifting conduct, the anastrophe? Our people, our country is still on that upward journey. We still have hope of a more beautiful future. We even have hope that our national soccer team will survive the next round of the FIFA World Cup! We believe that our children will have better lives. We believe that love will prevail over hate. We believe that life is everlasting through Christ. WE have a living hope.

Amen.