1 Peter 3:15 The Sixth Sunday of Easter May 14 & 21, 2023
Water of Life Lutheran Church Racine, WI Rev. Terry L. Laabs
Prayer: Lord of the Church, you not only give us the faith to believe in God’s forgiving love, but also the courage to confess our faith to the world around us. Help us trust the gifts of your Holy Spirit so we can with boldness and confidence stand up for you and tell the world why we do. Guide us today through your Word of truth into that bold confession, for your holy name’s sake. Amen.
In today’s lessons, on the Sixth Sunday of Easter, we hear a strong encouragement to live out our Christian confession in word and action, just as many of us promised to do in our confirmation vows however many years ago. That’s no coincidence. God doesn’t prepare us for things he knows we’ll never need to do. If God has given us the faith to believe in and confess his powerful, rescuing love for us, he will also put us into situations where we will be called on to stand up for that faith.
That truth seems especially clear in our second lesson for today, as St. Peter writes to Christians facing persecution and danger on account of their faith in Jesus. He writes to encourage them to hold firm to their Christian confession, even if it should prove painful in their present human circumstances. And the reason why he wants them to stand firm in their confession is because in this way they would bring glory to their Lord Jesus Christ and lead others to see his greatness. St. Peter in this lesson encourages all of us Christians to prepare ourselves to tell others why we believe in Jesus. He says to us:
Be Ready to Confess your Hope
How does Peter say we can do that?
1. First confess your sins
2. Then confess your faith in Jesus
3. In that way you will prepare to confess your hope
1. First confess your sins
St. Peter understands that feeling hopeful about the future isn’t something that comes natural for us, let alone talking about the hope we have in Jesus. Being happy and positive and hopeful is a gift. Naturally, we’re much more likely to whine and moan, to complain about what’s going on in our lives now and to expect that it’ll only get worse in the future. One thing you have to give to pessimists: they’re realistic about seeing the effects of sin in our lives.
Peter reminds us here that apart from Christ we would have no hope for the future. Each of us was born into this world sinful and dirty and evil. We may not have looked that way at first; we were no doubt new little bundles of joy all cute and cuddly. In the first days—perhaps weeks—of our lives, it seemed we could do no wrong. But eventually the sinful heart in us began to show. I’ve never yet met parents who have worked hard to teach their little ones to be selfish. We try to teach our kids just the opposite. Yet every child is hard-wired for selfishness. Every toddler knows the concept of “mine,” and soon learns to fight to keep others away from what is “mine.” Very early in our lives it becomes clear that, if we hope to have a future relationship with a Holy God, we need to be washed clean of our selfishness and sin.
That’s why Jesus gave us Holy Baptism. The water of Baptism isn’t there to wash away dirt from our bodies but rather to purge away sinful guilt from our consciences. Through the Gospel in the spoken Word and the Sacraments God is happy to offer us forgiveness of sins, but only if we admit we need it. God freely offers the cure if only we admit we’re sick and desperately need his help. That’s why the first part of confessing our hope in Christ is confessing our sin and asking for His forgiveness.
To a world of sinners feeling the weight of their sins Jesus came to take our place. He joined us as a human being, living under the same laws of God we struggle with on a daily basis. Only Jesus never gave in to selfishness and sin. He never once let what he wanted overwhelm what God wanted him to do. And then he took his perfect, sinless human life and laid it on the line for us. He stepped into God’s courtroom as our defense attorney and offered to take the punishment each of us had coming. He served our sentence by letting the insults and the blows and the torture fall on him, so it didn’t have to fall on us. He let himself be sentenced to death, to give us a shot at life.
St. Peter put it this way, “For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh but made alive [three days later] in the spirit, in which he also went and preached to the spirits in prison who disobeyed long ago.” St. Peter there is referring to that event we call Christ’s descent into hell, when Jesus early on Easter morning went with his resurrected body to make a victory proclamation in Satan’s own back yard, proving that death couldn’t hold him. There is resurrection symbolism in the gift of Baptism Jesus gave us to call us to faith in his shed blood. “Baptism now saves you,” says the Apostle Peter—”not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a good conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand.” When you and I were baptized, we were given the faith to believe in Jesus as our Savior from sin. So that throughout our lives we could every day confess not only our sins but also our faith in the blood of Jesus to freely forgive those sins and, because of his resurrection from the dead, make us sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father. The water of baptism only seals that covenant.
3. Prepare to confess your hope
In light of the work of Christ and the power of Holy Baptism, St. Peter can encourage every Christian to “set apart Christ as Lord” in our hearts. What does it mean to “set apart Christ in our hearts”? I think it means what Jesus meant when he said, “My sheep listen to my voice.” When we set apart a place in our hearts only for Jesus, we are committing ourselves to listen to his voice and set that voice apart, above all the other competing voices we hear in this sinful world. After we have set apart a place in our heart for Jesus, St. Peter encourages us to be ready to tell people why. “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” The only way we’ll ever be ready to confess our hope in Jesus is if we have been sitting down with him regularly to hear the clear voice of his Gospel teaching, and to receive his gifts of bread and wine, of his own body and blood, to assure us our sins no longer keep us from God.
The best way to be ready to confess our hope in Jesus Christ is to walk with him and listen to his Word on a regular basis. That means to gather each week with God’s people in his house for feeding and leading in Word and sacrament, and to read and study the Bible privately and with others, at home and at church. Because that’s where Jesus’ sheep listen to his voice. That’s where our hope is strengthened and we are prepared to confess that hope.
You know, once we have made the commitment to listen to Jesus’ voice above all the other noise in this world, and to follow where he leads us, we’ll find ourselves standing alone often enough, apart from the crowd. We won’t easily be able to take part in things that are out of sync with Christ’s plan for our lives, even if it’s what “everybody else is doing.” At that point, perhaps the most difficult part of being ready to confess your hope in Jesus is being able to explain to the people around you why you do the things you do, why you don’t do the things you don’t do, and why you believe the things you believe. But that’s also the key opportunity for God’s kingdom to advance, as his people share with others why God’s way—the way of forgiveness and faith—is also the way of peace and freedom and happiness and fulfillment and everlasting joy.
“Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” That’s St. Peter’s inspired advice to Christians. When people notice that you’re not taking part in what everybody else is doing, when they see you handle the trials and difficulties of life with calm and confident trust that God is good and will care for his people no matter what—that’s when you need to be ready to explain yourself. That’s when you have a chance to say, Look, it’s not me. It’s not that I’m so strong or so calm and collected, or that I’m so good. It’s the God I serve, the God who accepts me for what I am. He forgives my shortcomings and is hard at work re-making me in the perfect image of his Son Jesus. That’s why I follow his will. And you know what? My God wants to do that for you, too. That’s all it takes for us to share the reason for our hope in Christ. And that small confession, that simple testimony is all the Holy Spirit needs to begin his saving work on yet another sinful heart.
As we think about St. Peter’s encouragement to be ready to confess our hope in Jesus, let us give thanks to God for the faith he has given us. Let us give thanks that God has already led many of us to “set apart Christ as Lord in our hearts,” and to listen every day and every week to his voice leading us. And let us pray that we will be ready to confess our hope in Jesus every day of our lives, always ready to share with the people around us the reason for our hope. It’s the forgiveness we have through the shed blood of Christ. It’s the washing away of our sins we received in Holy Baptism. It’s the body and blood of Jesus we receive again and again at God’s altar to remind us of Christ’s gifts to us. That’s why we have sure and certain hope—because of Christ. May he make you ready to confess that hope every day. Amen.