Don’t be surprised, be faithful¹

As we continue to experience the Word of the Lord together, Let us Pray. Almighty God, you hold our whole being and existence in your hands. We again ask for your grace, so that we might experience more of your love. Come to us now, so that we might hear you. Speak Lord, your servants are listening. If these words are not Your Word, may they be forgotten and come to naught. But if they be Thy Word, may they adhere to our hearts, forever transforming us from glory into glory, into the creatures you would have us be, Thou who art our Rock and Redeemer, Amen.

The passage today has two texts forged together, that, while not immediately joined to each other by order, are related thematically. As we read them, I want you to notice the similarity in them. If you were to look at an outline of them, they would look something like this. Go to Outline. All of that is to show you how both sections are in a parallel structure, which consists of a strong urging for Christians to respond appropriately to suffering and of a theological rationale for action.

So, with that in mind, hear now The Word of the Lord as it comes to us in the first letter of Peter. Listen. Peter 4.12-14, 5.6-11. The Grass withers, the Flower falls, but the Word of the Lord endures forever…Thanks be to God.

The audience to which the letter was written is much like the audience to whom this sermon, or any sermon, is preached, is much like any audience would or could be. They have experienced suffering that has at times gone beyond the boundaries of their expectations, of what they thought it would be, and maybe even what they thought they could bear. So, it raises the questions, Why is there suffering and What is to be made of such suffering? And the answer offered in verse 13, But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed, is not really an answer to the question, but focuses attention beyond the experience of suffering to the past suffering of Christ and the future hope of glory.

So, why is there suffering. We get an answer in the chapter 5 section. Evil is alive and kicking in the world. Now, bear with this one for a little bit. Because God is in the world, and active in the world, that is why there is evil. If the God of goodness and grace were absent from the world, the battle between good and evil wouldn’t be here either, because it is the goal of evil to fight against God. So, because God is present and active in the world, so too evil is present and active in the world. If God were to vacate the world, leave us to our own, so too evil might leave. To evil, we are pawns in the fight against God, nothing more. To evil, we have no intrinsic value, other than that we are something that evil’s enemy, God, cares about.

Which is not to say that evil would be absent from the world if God were absent. It would just be that the fight between good and evil wouldn’t be ongoing. Evil is usually tricky enough to disguise itself well. So, if there were only the one choice, we would always choose evil and not even know. But you and I, see you and I are part of God’s family. You and I are baptized children of God. As Christians, we are called to actively join the conflict between good and evil. As Christians, we have to join the conflict between good and evil, or what are we doing calling ourselves Christians? Participation in this conflict requires the watchfulness called for in verse 8 and resistance by means of faith. So, when we suffer, we shouldn’t be surprised, it is part of the package that comes along with being Christian, with being a child of God.

How would you prefer it? Not that it is our choice, you see, but if it were. Would you prefer that there be no conflict between good and evil, that either both were gone, or that if evil were around, we would at least be spared the conflict and we could live in the bliss of ignorance? Granted the cost of that is that God and goodness are absent, but at least there is no conflict. Would you want it that way? Cause that choice is available to you, essentially. We walk daily among people who have decided to ignore the fight between good and evil, basically. Life is a series of events without meaning, and people who make that choice wonder why their life seems devoid of meaning. You’ve noticed them too, haven’t you? Nothing wrong with these people, they’ve just made a choice. Whether consciously or not, they have chosen to ignore the battle between good and evil, have chosen to stay out of the conflict. And maybe there is something to that. I mean, who likes conflict, who seeks it out? Many people don’t like conflict of any kind, and given the choice, will choose non-conflict over conflict every day of the week, and twice on Sunday. But not Christians. We hear the call to stand up to evil, and we faithfully respond.

So, we join in the fight against evil, not just to gain victory in the afterlife. Certainly we will, but that is not the reason to join the fight. We join the fight against evil because it is the only way to be joined with Christ. First Peter is not a celebration of suffering. It is a celebration of salvation in Christ. This point is made clear by underscoring how Christian action is rooted in the glory of God both in the present and future. The fact that God is active in our world and will one day bring this conflict to an end allows the passage to affirm the future with the Doxology at the end, even in the midst of unexpected suffering.

And I’d take issue with the word unexpected there. If we have joined the fight between good and evil, whether we knew that was what we were doing or not, if we joined the fight, how can we not expect suffering? Suffering is not merely a defensive attitude against the evil that we must endure. Instead, it is the result of Christ’s aggressive action in the world through his death and resurrection, which we, the Church, willingly choose to join. In some strange way, the suffering that we experience is proof that there is a battle between good and evil, that there is a God who fights for us, and whom we join through the power of Christ. So, to quote verses 10 & 11, “…the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, support, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the power forever and ever. Amen.”