1 Peter 1:1-9
1 Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,
To those who reside as aliens, scattered [NRSVUE: to the exiles of the dispersion] throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, who are chosen 2 according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling with Jesus' blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the fullest measure.
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, 5 who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
6 In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various temptations, 7 so that the genuineness of your faith, being more precious than gold which perishes, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ;
8 and though you have not seen him, you love him, and though you do not see him now, but believe in him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, 9 obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your lives. …
Easter
The day of resurrection is the day after the Sabbath (Shabbat never changed from Saturday; Sunday is the main worship day for most Christians because of Jesus' resurrection); the day after Shabbat is the first day of a new week. The day of resurrection is the eighth day of the old week. This eighth day initiates a new creation, and therefore is a new first day of creation.
Easter is a season of 50 days, 7 times 7, a weeks of weeks. "7" is the number of perfection in Hebrew numerology. In many words, the prefix "pent" means 50: pentagram, pentagon, pentangle, pentameter. The Day of Pentecost is the 50th day of Easter. This year the day of Pentecost will be on May 28. Where will you be then?
Especially Orthodox churches celebrate the seven days from Easter Sunday through Easter Saturday as Bright Week, and consider the entire week a single day, the first day of the new creation. Bright Week also is the 8th day of [the old] creation. We sometimes talk about Eighth Day Theology.
Some baptismal fonts have 8 sides (octagon) to help demonstrate our baptism into the new creation, our baptism as a new creation In Jesus Christ's death and resurrection.
It's important to remember the new creation is not pristine; it carries scars from our old, deadly pasts. Today's gospel reading in John 20:19-31 shows us Jesus' scars. It also recounts Jesus' bestowing the gift of the Holy Spirit and the office of the keys—binding and loosing (retaining and forgiving sin) in the gospels of Matthew and Luke.
1 Peter and 2 Peter Authorship
The pair of letters or epistles 1 Peter and 2 Peter definitely were not written by Peter the Apostle, and most likely the same individual didn't write both. Despite many Old Testament quotes and allusions the actual apostle Peter would have known, 1 Peter and 2 Peter were written to mostly gentile churches who wouldn't have been familiar with them, though some Christians in the massive geographical area these round robin communications may have reached probably were diasporic Jews.
Because of textual references, casual readers long have insisted 1 Peter and 2 Peter were written to "a persecuted church," though scholars now say there's no historical evidence of systemic, targeted persecution of individual Christians or groups by any official entity. However, people apparently were being harassed and mistreated because of their trust in the risen Christ and their resistance to empire. How about us? How about people around us?
Claiming authorship then was very different from now; there weren't any copyrights, trademarks, or other legal protections for creative or inventive output. Using someone else's name was a compliment, and a famous person would be more likely to get readers than an unknown would.
Today's Second Reading
During the Great Fifty Days of Easter, the first reading comes from the Acts of the Apostles instead of from the Old Testament. Today's features a sermon by the historical Peter recorded in Acts 2:22-32.
This letter addresses recipients as aliens, exiles, as a diaspora, people far from home, yet chosen and sanctified for the obedience that implies faithfully keeping Torah. Love of God and neighbor, justice and inclusion for everyone would defy what Paul of Tarsus and his cohorts would refer to as the powers of this world. Covenantal obedience would resist the dehumanizing violence of empire and in the wake of his life, death, and resurrection, it would affirm Jesus as Lord, as the letter's author does. In any case, whatever their geographic or religious origin, those who received this letter had been "born again" or reborn into God's family. What about us?
Birth. Inheritance.
In God's mercy we have been born again, birthed a second time. through Jesus' resurrection from death. The apostle Paul tells us the good news of the gospel is death and resurrection, and next week's scripture from 1 Peter 1:23 announces we have been born again through God's living and enduring word. I love that the NRSV says born "anew" because it reminds us our old identity and ways of being and acting are gone as creatures reborn of Water, Spirit, and Word.
We do nothing to achieve our first birth. Our second birth also is by grace and not by our own choice. We only need to live into birth.
Like birth we cannot enact, we only need to claim and receive an inheritance. Over the next few weeks we'll be hearing about a lot of outreach and direct action in the Acts of the Early Apostles. We'll observe how the freedom of knowing life as gift over, beyond, and in spite of anything they could do gave those early apostles confidence and effectiveness they otherwise wouldn't have possessed. How about us?
Where We Live
Those of us who receive this letter along with Luke's Acts as twenty-first century apostles may marvel again at the boldness and world-changing power of the nascent church's testimony in words and action. Despite being written later than Acts, our readings from 1 Peter make a fabulous coupling with it to help us consider our presence and ministries (outreach and direct action?) as Jesus' representatives.
Although technically the world has basked in the reign of the Holy Spirit of Pentecost for two millennia, every year we revisit stories of Jesus and his original disciples to literally inspire us into possibilities God gives us as new creations in Christ, called and sent as the obedient presence of the (crucified and) risen Jesus Christ into a devastated world and a desecrated creation.
Can we, do we, greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, or as my illustration says, rejoice with unutterable and exalted joy?
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