[sunday meditations]

1 PETER 1.20-21

He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you, who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.

What we find here isn’t so much  a Christological declaration but a tie-in with all that has come before. Don’t imagine Peter is being pulled off-course, derailed from his train-of-thought up to this point, suddenly writing about Jesus just because he mentioned him in the previous verse (and, well, we all know that throwing Jesus into something makes it that much better). What St. Peter does here is similar to what he did earlier in his letter with his mention of the prophets: the echo itself is to focus the hopes of the Asia Minor Christians on God and their future in him. Whereas the prophets pointed forward to Christ, Christ himself points even further forward to the consummation.

The connection between Christ and believers rests here on two hinges: first, being foreknown. As Christ was foreknown, so Christians are foreknown (1.2). Secondly, as Christ suffered (and died), so the Christians in Asia Minor are suffering (2.21). Peter locates Christians on the same map of Jesus, putting them in the same situation.

The Christians in Asia Minor may have found themselves in their own versions of Gethsemane, sharing in Jesus’ anxiety, dreaded anticipation, and fear in the garden. With Nero’s maniacal persecution looming, Gethsemane wouldn’t be a shot in the dark. But Peter doesn’t just say “Christ suffered, you’re suffering, too.” No, he points beyond the suffering to the glory. Christians, suffering like Messiah, and being conformed to Messiah in that way, will be further conformed to Messiah not only in suffering but also in glory.

God raised Jesus from the dead, the firstfruits of the resurrection of all God’s people. Christians, although perhaps suffering now, have the hope of sharing in Christ’s resurrection when God raises them bodily from the dead.

As God raised Christ, so he will raise believers.

As God exalted Christ, so he will exalt believers.

As God vindicated Christ, so he will vindicate believers.

As God glorified Christ, so he will glorify all those who belong to him.

Thus both the Christian’s faith and hope is in God. The person who professes allegiance to Christ professes allegiance to God; and come what may, the loyal person—the faithful person, the one characterized by the badge of faith—will persevere, with hope in focus.

The hopes of worldly people are centered upon many things: their own abilities and skills, the riddles of fame and fortune, the tantalizing appeal of sexual fetishes and pleasurable fantasies. All these hopes, however, are marked by death and decay, and lead only in that direction. The Christian’s hope, however, is in God, in the hope that what God did for Christ—resurrection and glorification—he will do for all his people. And this hope, though not yet fulfilled, is a hope that is promised, a hope that is sure, a hope that will come to pass. It’s already happened once with Christ, in the middle of time; and at the end of this present evil age, it will happen again to all Christ’s people. As Peter opened in 1.3, so now he closes in 1.21, and the classic refrain holds everything together, serving as an inclusio, an old writing technique whereby one sandwiches sections of text between what’s super important. And, as we see in 1.3 and 1.21, what’s important, so critically crucial, is HOPE!

Once again, the ultimate question: WHERE IS YOUR HOPE?

            Is your hope in the passing pleasures of this current life?

            Is your hope focused on the fleeting phantoms of this not-so-golden age?

            Or is your hope in the God who resurrects and glorifies?

These questions are critically important. Where we place our hopes, and who we hope in, guides our lives like fly-by-wire missiles. The wrong hopes and the wrong hoping will find you stranded while you sleep, but the right hopes and the right hoping will lead you not just through some clean-&-polished pearly-white gates but to a fully-flourishing human life in a recreated cosmos.