1 Peter 4:12-19; 5:6-11 –
Christians in the world share Christ’s sufferings. Christians are to rejoice
over the privilege of sharing Christ’s suffering, and, after suffering, God
will restore and strengthen them. The exhortations to the newly baptized are
continued in this passage. They are warned of impending persecution for being
Christians, for at this time it was a crime to be a Christian. They are not to
be surprised when suffering comes, but to rejoice that they suffer as Jesus
did. When suffering comes, the new Christians are to be humble, trust in God’s
care, be on guard against temptation, and to remember that suffering is over
and God will strengthen them. They are to take comfort in the fact that suffering
is experienced by the whole church.
Ask 25 people what it means to be
a Christian, a follower of Jesus, and you’ll get a wide range of answers, most
of them-I’d guess-centering around some form of prayer, the attempt at keeping
the Commandments, and living a “good” life.
The one word you won’t hear is
“persecution,” because “persecution” means personal suffering, unpopularity,
and no doubt being “un-friended” on social media, which I suppose is the
modern-day equivalent of beheading.
No Christian wants to be
persecuted, yet all Christians make the claim inherent in what they call
themselves, to be followers of Jesus, and it is Jesus who makes no bones about
telling his disciples, that is those who truly follow him, that persecution is
a given. You see it in Sunday's Gospel and Epistle lessons: you’ll be out of
the synagogue, people will kill you believing they are offering God a
sacrifice.
In 1 Peter 4, we read that
suffering as a Christian is something to be cherished, moreover, that in
his/her suffering, he should glorify God! Earlier on in John’s Gospel he tells
his disciples that the world hates you, because it hated Christ; it will
persecute you, because it persecuted Christ. Expect to be crucified, because
your master was crucified and a servant is not greater than his/her master.
You’ll notice that this Sunday
doesn’t have the same musical/liturgical bounce in its step as other Sundays
have had. There was hardly a trace of pain in the Sundays leading up to this
day, there were no tears shed as Christ ascended into heaven, in fact we
rejoiced that our human nature too ascended with him!
On Easter 7, known as
"Exaudy Sunday," there’s no “Christ is risen” high-fiving going on,
in fact if you look at the introit, verse and collect, in addition to the
readings, you’ll see the voices raised are pleas for God “to listen,” hence the
term ‘exaudio,’ the Latin name that lends its name to this Sunday.
Persecution? Not among us, save
for what we often do to each other. None of this, not a single thing, bears
even the slightest resemblance to anything scriptural, let alone St. Peter’s
words in this Sunday’s Epistle, whose call to be “self-controlled and
sober-minded” is met with drooping eyelids, a yawn, and the notion that surely
St. Peter meant the person sitting beside you.
A prayer for steadfast faith: Almighty
God, our heavenly Father, because of Your tender love toward us sinners You
have given us Your Son that, believing in Him, we might have everlasting life.
Continue to grant us Your Holy Spirit that we may remain steadfast in the faith
to the end and finally come to love everlasting; through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
From
text notes in preparation for Easter 7
Image
of Psalm 32, copyright © Ed Riojas, Higher Things
Collect for steadfast faith, Lutheran Service
Book copyright © 2006 Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis
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