April 7 2024
1 Peter 1:3-9; 4:12-15
As the NFL draft is the cause of a lot of speculation right now, I couldn’t help but remember that the quarterback from Kentucky who was drafted by the Tennessee Titans last year, Will Levis, made headlines because he had the disgusting habit of putting mayonnaise in his coffee. That to me was just a shameful waste of coffee. I cannot even begin to understand why any one would put these two very differently tasting substances together. Maybe my feelings about mixing weird food groups together are too strong but you have to understand that one time I was at a lunch served by nice, little old church lady’s who you would think that they of all people would not put together two very different kind of foods, but they did. For desert at this church luncheon, I was given a nice big slice of orange Jell-O that had what looked like green grapes mixed into it. Now, green grapes already seemed a little weird, so imagine my surprise when I bit into one of those little green blobs and it turned out to be a green olive! I guarantee you that orange Jell-O and green olives do not go together, at least in the universe I live in. Needless to say, I have had trust issues with little, old church lady’s ever since.
Thinking about two things that do not go together, much like orange Jell-O and green olives, or coffee and mayonnaise, is this strange pairing that can be found through out the New Testament, that of the putting together of suffering and joy. To me, whenever I read yet another passage about how we are to find joy while in the midst of suffering, I get this image of finding a jalapeño pepper in my morning oatmeal. I think you can kind of imagine joy being like this warm sweet, comfort food and all through the New Testament, you find people saying that a tangy, burning, jalapeño, something like the fiery trials of suffering, that it should be expected to have this painful experience right there in the middle of the sweet comfort of our joy. I mean, am I the only one who finds James just a bit annoying when he begins his letter by telling us that we should count it all joy my brothers and sisters, when you meet trials of various kinds. Or as Paul says in the seventh chapter of his second letter to the Corinthians, that he is sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. Or as Paul says much the same thing at the beginning of the fifth chapter of Romans, “…we rejoice in hope of the glory of God, more than that, we rejoice in our sufferings…”. We can understand finding joy in the hope we have in the glory of God but seriously Paul, to you really expect us to find delight when we are hurting, when we are in the midst of a trial which is anything but fun. But just so we do not somehow believe that this odd pairing of suffering and joy is Paul or James’ idea, listen to what Jesus teaches us in the fifth chapter of Matthew, ‘Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets before you.” What Jesus describes to us seems like the greatest of impossibilities, doesn’t it? I mean, the norm is that happiness is found in the absence of suffering, that is what we hope our efforts of being happy ultimately will do, remove any remaining hurts, loss, or grief from our lives. In just putting our attempts at happiness like this though tells us that this pursuit of happiness is a constant struggle because in our world the hurts just keep coming, the losses just keep piling up, the grief seems to always find us, doesn’t it.
Perhaps we need another image to help us understand this strange idea that suffering and joy belong together. Maybe we could think of our attempts at happiness like trying to start a fire in the rain. Even if you do somehow get a small, flickering flame it won’t be to long until the rain comes along and snuffs it out. But what if, in that same rainstorm, you saw a fire that did not go out, no matter how hard the rain poured and showered down upon the flame. You obviously would be intrigued, wouldn’t you? Of course. And this is, I believe, the reason why all through the New Testament joy is spoken of being in the presence of suffering, a continual flame in spite of the downpour.
You see, we need to never forget the importance of the joy that is offered to us as we decide to follow Jesus. How does God expect us to day by day, carry our cross, to extend mercy continually to those who may judge us as being unworthy of life? This is a pretty grim scenario, by and of itself. You have to wonder just what attracted people to follow Jesus when, as one theologian stated it, all Jesus does is to call people to come to him and die? If this all there was to following Jesus then I believe, it would be hard to make sense of what it means to be a Christian. No, what happened when people offered mercy in the face of opposition is there, in that moment which seemed so bleak, is that there a joy was found that could not be extinguished. There at the moment of greatest suffering they found a kind of happiness that the worst of this world could not wash away.
No one seemed to know this better than Peter, at least this is how it appears when we read the beginning of his first letter. Now while we are told, in verse six of this first chapter, that we are to rejoice, this is a rather odd way of describing what we are actually told in the original Greek. If you do some study, you find that what Peter says here is, “In this you jump, and shout, and leap with excess….”. I wonder if the person who translated this verse was somewhat embarrassed by Peter’s over-the-top enthusiasm. Just for a moment imagine these big, burly, fishermen, there in the assembly of the faithful suddenly laughing and shouting, leaping and jumping around like someone had set them on fire. Not what we normally think of when we consider what joy might look like.
Now in addition to giving us the phrase, “jumping for joy”, Peter also penned the phrase, “trial by fire”. These tough times that we go through, you know, the ones that cause us so much grief, these Peter tells us, are the way that our faith is tested to see if what we believe is the real deal. When Peter calls these testing times, fiery trials, he seems to be recalling what was written in the third chapter of the book of Malachi, where the prophet asks, “ Who will endure the day of the Lord’s coming? Who will be able to stand when the Lord appears? For God is like a refiners fire…, he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver and and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver…” As Peter teaches us, even though gold is refined by fire it nonetheless will perish, but our faith when refined by the trials we go through, this will keep us from perishing so that when Jesus returns, we will be there praising him glorifying and honoring Jesus our King.
You see, Peter is emphatic about how important it is that we go through these so called trials by fire, because he would never forget the words that Jesus spoke to him on that dreadful night when Peter had denied knowing Jesus not once but three times. As recorded in the twenty-second chapter of Luke, Jesus turns to Peter after their last supper together, and he says, “Simon Peter, Simon Peter, behold Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, to put you in great tribulation, but I have prayed that your faith may not fail.” Then Jesus continues, “And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers and your sisters.” Now, for most of us when we consider how Simon Peter denied Jesus those three times on that night when Jesus was arrested, all that comes to mind is that Peter was a miserable failure. How else can you understand what Peter had done, as he saw his best friend for the past three years, and turned and acted like he had no clue who Jesus was, if you don’t somehow believe that Peter was nothing but a complete scandal? Yet, we must consider this, Jesus knew what Simon Peter was going to do, and even in spite of knowing this supposed failure, Jesus expressed his faith that Peter would turn and come home to the family. Jesus prayed for Peter, not that he would not deny him but rather, that the faith of Peter would still be there after his failure. What Jesus knew is that the Father’s favor is greater than anyone’s failure. It is the favor of the Father, the wide welcome of the one who loves us best, this is what Jesus hoped Peter would cling to in the aftermath of his betrayal.This assurance in the Father’s welcome for all who come back to him, this is what would cause Peter to turn and come back to the family, so that in his returning Peter could strengthen the faith of his brothers and sisters.
So is it beginning to be clearer why Peter has a jumping, shouting, leaping kind of joy? He had found that it is not his failure that defines him in the eyes of God. No, instead Peter writes in this first section of his letter, he was one of those who understood that he was guarded over by the very power of God through faith for a salvation that was getting ready to be revealed. This is the same power that raised Jesus from the dead, the very resurrection power that has caused us to be born again into a living hope. We can now know ourselves as being the sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father. This is how all of us who come to Jesus begin our life with him, hearing his word, this call to love and finding that through him we can love our Father fully, with all of our heart, our life, and our power. Right there in our beginning, when we know God as our Father, we also know that our Father has an inheritance waiting for us in the age to come. This treasure that is securely held for us in heaven, this wondrous gift will never perish, it will never be found to be polluted, and it will never lose its original glory. None of the ways that this world destroys what brings us happiness, none of these will be found in the age to come. This is our living hope because this hope is held securely in the hands of our living Jesus who reigns now, and forever.
From our being born again until that time we receive our blessed inheritance at the end of the age, what we can be certain of is that God, in all of his power, watches intently over us. This is the favor of our Father, the one who always looks longingly toward us, this is what causes us to keep turning back to him when we lose our way. This welcome we find from the God whose eyes are ever upon us, this is where we must begin to understand about this joy that is stronger than our suffering. In the next several weeks we are going to look closer at this joy, this ecstatic, over-the-top, experience that can come over us even in the worst that this world has to offer. There in those times that threaten us, there is when that it is not our faith that anchors us but rather what we rest in is this certainty that our Heavenly Father has never left us out of his sight. When the ground beneath our feet seems to be slipping away, this is when we discover that our God has become the living hope which anchors our life and in this we rejoice. In the next few weeks, we are going to ponder just what did Jesus mean when he told his disciples on that fateful night when he was betrayed as recorded in the fifteenth chapter of John, “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” Have you ever considered that the reason that Jesus taught us all that he did was so that we might experience joy in exceeding, overflowing, abundance? I wonder if those who follow Jesus have really thought about this statement that he has made, that he has taught us everything that he did just so that we might have joy, not just a part time joy which shows up on sunny days, but a different type of happiness that can even be found in the hardest, most troubling experiences that life can throw at us. Truly in this joy is a fire that no driving rain of sorrow can extinguish.
When I read of this great joy which is available to us, I am a little confused as to why it seems that so many followers of Jesus seem to be such a sad, unpleasant lot especially from what I find on social media. When I read this account found here in the first chapter of Peter’s first letter, I wonder just what has happened to the followers of Jesus who can’t help but jump, and leap and shout for joy because our God has made our happiness his concern. So often, we as followers of Jesus, act surprised at the hardships that come when we express our allegiance to Jesus and his cause. After our surprise, we then want to complain and cry about what we have to endure yet I wonder, when we do so, if we have not lost an occasion to witness to all those who are searching for an enduring happiness. It is in our hardships, this is when we must remember that all that Jesus has taught us is so that in the worst of times, we can still find joy, a fire that no amount of rain, no amount of suffering, can ever extinguish what Jesus has promised to us.
Peter, the one who had failed so miserably in his loyalty to Jesus, did not let his failure and the sorrow of that moment define him. Instead Peter discovered joy, the joy that came from the certainty that Jesus had that came from knowing that Peter had come to know of the great love that his Heavenly Father had for him. This is what gave Jesus the confidence to tell Peter that when he turned from that moment, not if you turn from that moment. What Jesus knew is that all Peter had to do is to remember that the favor of the Father is always greater than our failure. We are precious in the eyes of God, the same eyes which watched over Peter with holy love. When Peter turned back to his brothers and sisters just as Jesus knew that he would he was welcomed home with lavish kindness and in that moment of undeserved grace and favor, we should have no doubt that Peter experienced a greater joy than he had ever known. This is how, as we are told in the twelfth chapter of Hebrews, that Jesus endured the cross, because of the joy that was set before him. This is how we endure our trials, how we endure the cross we are called on to carry, because this same joy that guided Jesus home, this joy is ours as well. This is the joy that comes from the favor of our Father that is always greater than our failures. This is what guides us on our way until we arrive home in glory. Amen!
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