"Now who will harm you if you are eager to
do what is good? But even if you do suffer for doing what is right, you
are blessed. Do not fear what they fear, and do not be intimidated, but
in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your
defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that
is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence. Keep your conscience
clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who abuse you for your
good conduct in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer
for doing good, if suffering should be God's will, than to suffer for
doing evil. For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the
righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put
to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which also he
went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former
times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah,
during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons,
were saved through water. And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves
you-- not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God
for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has
gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels,
authorities, and powers made subject to him."
--I Peter 3: 13-22
Since the second week of Easter we have been reading from the First Letter of Peter.
We’ve got one more week to go with that letter, but since—spoiler
alert—next week's blog will be about the Ascension, it’s now or never
if we want to talk at all about the First Peter this year.
An icon of the author of the Letters of Peter...maybe.
The big question most of us probably
have is: did the apostle Peter actually
write these letters? Well, Dude, we just don't know! Issues surrounding the style of
Greek and the fact that the writer uses Peter rather than Cephas or Simon—which
were the names Paul and Jesus most used for the guy—have caused speculation over
exactly who wrote the two Letters of Peter and to whom they were written; in
fact, it wouldn’t be until the later part of the fifth century that the letters
were being read throughout the whole Church. Nevertheless, in spite of all of
this the Letters of Peter got in, and we’re still reading them and searching
them for meaning and messages of hope.
Hope is what I would classify as the
theme of the letter we’ve been reading, and we hear that today. The writer is clearly addressing Christians
who are going through terrible times, enduring sufferings that we today cannot
even imagine. The writer tells the
audience that they are blessed, even when they are harmed, and that they should
sanctify Christ, rather than give in to fear and intimidation. You can see why this letter was so popular,
despite the controversies. Stand firm
and be hopeful, even when there are hardships.
This was and still is Good News.
But where does such hope come from? It comes from Jesus Christ, of course, namely Jesus' own sufferings. The letter reminds believers of Jesus' hardships in order to give them hope in their own. More than that, however, the writer points out that Jesus “went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in
former times did not obey.” In other
others, Jesus went to hell. Let that sink in for a second. This is one
of those icky parts of our faith, but it’s right there in our Apostles
Creed—not the Nicene, but that’s another blog post. “He descended to the dead.” is what our Creed says (or if you are a 1928 Prayer Book fan, "He descended into hell.") We even affirmed so at our church last week when we renewed
our baptismal vows during our Confirmation liturgy, although some of us may have muttered that affirmation under our breath; after all, it's easy to see Jesus enthroned in glory, but in hell?! That's tough.
At this point it's worth noting that what first century followers of Jesus knew as hell is not what we know. Our image of hell is due in large part to the influence of Dante's Inferno, where hell is a place of punishment and torment. For Jews and Christians in 1st century Palestine hell was not a place of torment, rather it was a place of shadow. It went by many names--hell, Tartarus, Gehenna, Hades, the Pit--and it was a place where all souls went after death. This hell was the worst place imaginable, not because of torture, but because it was the one place God could not reach. To be in dead and in hell meant that you could not be in relationship with God, or anyone else. It is this place to which Jesus went and preached, thereby destroying any power that death had over humanity and closing the gap between the dead and God. Thus, this is the
hope that Peter—or whoever—was giving those early believers. You can endure your sufferings and face any challenge because Jesus has gone to hell and destroyed all meaning that suffering once had.
Jesus goes to hell.
Maybe that’s why this Christianity
thing took root and gave hope to everyone from the richest to the poorest. Everyone suffers, after all. It cannot be avoided, no matter who you
are. But being a Christian isn’t about
avoidance. It’s not as if once we decide
to follow Jesus our job problems go away, our terminal disease magically heals,
or we are sheltered from the harsh social and political realities of our
days. If anything, it sometimes means
all these things get worse! But because
Jesus has died, because he has gone ahead of us into the depths of hell itself, we don’t have
to. Because he has suffered he has made
it possible for us to endure suffering and has helped us find meaning and
hope. As one person told me, her conversion to Christianity didn't fix the problems, but it gave you the strength to face the problems.
That is why Jesus going to hell is so important. By facing death and going to the place where the dead people resided, he took away the power that death and suffering had. No longer need we fear any adversity because Christ has already endured them and has given us hope. It's that hope that sustained the martyrs as they marched to their deaths. It's the hope that tells a Coptic Christian girl not to fear when her church is bombed. It's the hope that says to the young gay Christian man, "You are beloved and need not live in fear!" We have this hope, too. How do we know this? Because Jesus made a promise to his disciples:
"I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees her nor knows her. You know her, because she abides in you, and she will be in you."
--John 14: 16-18
Some of you may be enduring sufferings right now, and if you’re not you at least know someone who is. This is the message of hope for us this week: that Jesus has endured every suffering, and has conquered every evil, and in doing so has made it possible for us to do the same. Suffering and hardships are still a reality for us all, but thanks to Jesus, we can face them, and we have the hope that we are free from whatever power they may have had. And when we forget all of that, the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, is there to remind us. Thanks be to God for the hope that the Letters of Peter gave to our fathers and mothers and are still giving us today.
