First Sunday in Lent

A quick point before we get started.

The interconnectedness of the lectionary readings is made clear this morning.

The Old Testament reading comes from Genesis 9 and has to do with God saving Noah and his family through the flood.

The Gospel reading comes from Mark 1 an has to do with the baptism of Jesus.

The Psalm speaks of God’s salvation, even as the Psalmist wrestles with fear of shame and suffering at the hands of his enemies.

The fourth reading comes from 1 Peter 3 and relates to all of these themes, and THAT’S the one I want to focus on this morning.

1 Peter 3:18–22 (NIV84)

18 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 body but made alive by the Spirit, 19 through whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison 20 who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, 21 and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also—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, 22 who has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand—with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him.

Of the seven different topics we could study from this text, what I want to press into is the theme of suffering.

The NIV translates verse 18 “Christ died for sins”, most other english translations choose “Christ suffered for sins”

And if you look at the context you’ll see that suffering is a dominant theme of the book of 1 Peter overall

Not necessarily the general suffering that is common to humankind.

But the suffering that comes with following Jesus.

The author is encouraging people that this suffering is neither unexpected or in vain.

No one in the history of the world has ever wanted to hear that following Jesus leads to suffering

But it’s an especially hard pill to swallow for twenty first century middle class and up Americans

As much as we hate death and do everything to push it out of our consciousness, WE HATE SUFFERING EVEN MORE

And I don’t think the church has helped us make sense of how suffering relates to following Jesus.

The Evangelical church likes to keep things happy and discussion of suffering is kind of a bummer so it gets avoided. It also tends to present overly simplified triumphal formulas like “Jesus suffered so we don’t have to.”

That’s partly true, but it forgets that we still live in a fallen world.

And denying the reality of suffering doesn’t make it go away. Does it?

Not too different from that, prosperity churches may go so far as to say flat out that suffering is only a problem if you don’t have enough faith. You need to claim victory over suffering in this life and if you have enough faith God will give you only blessing.

Again, that’s simply detached from reality in a fallen world.

Maybe you’ve heard it taught that suffering is just the consequences of your actions. Essentially, you bring it on yourself and obedience and wisdom are the antedotes.

The truth is some suffering is outside of our control.

But it can get twisted real fast to, for example, condemn the poor. They bring it on themselves. Of course it’s more complicated than that.

The truth is some suffering is outside of our control.

Our kids didn’t ask for a global pandemic.

Finally, you may have been taught in more Reformed circles that suffering is actually good because God is sovereign and so we’ve just got to find the lesson he wants us to learn in it.

Once again, there is some truth in this given that God often does a work in us in the midst of suffering

But that can get twisted real fast.

For example, there are plenty of stories of pastors telling wives who are being abused to go back home and just look for what God’s teaching them in it.

That’s wicked.

Suffering is real and unavoidable for everyone in our fallen, broken world.

We can’t outrun it

Ignoring it doesn’t make it go away

Even doing everything right doesn’t make us immune

And we should never try to spin it to call suffering good

So what do we do then?

Well, like everything else, we follow the way of Jesus.

And following the way of Jesus will lead us right into more of it.

But that is not in vain.

Jesus was pretty clear throughout his ministry that enduring suffering and rejection was a big part of why he came.

Even in prophecies typically attributed to Jesus’s coming like Isaiah 53 we see language like

“He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering...” Isaiah 53:3-6

Why was suffering central to his mission?

Because in order to set right what is wrong with the world he had to enter into it and disarm it

See Jesus didn’t just come to make a payment for the forgiveness of sins and bounce.

Forgiveness of sins is only part of the gospel and it serves the bigger purpose: the renewal of all things

That’s what Jesus is about. That’s what the kingdom is.

Jesus came to heal creation, to reconcile all things back to God.

and you can’t heal or reconcile anything by avoiding the problem

So Jesus walked right into the teeth of what’s wrong with the world

He entered in and willingly allowed himself to be rejected, hated, mocked, abused, and killed.

How does this accomplish anything?

By absorbing the violence and disarming its power.

He took the full weight of the consequences of human sin

But the darkness could not overcome him

He rose again

Going before us to open a way through suffering and death into new life

then inviting us to follow him

This is what our passage is saying, albeit in a slightly convoluted way

He suffered with us and for us but was made alive by the Spirit

The brokenness of this world bends toward destruction, like a flood that we cannot escape on our own

But Jesus has made a way through into new life

And the waters of our baptism offer us a reminder of this sure hope

This then is what we see in Jesus

A God who dies not ignore or deny suffering

A God who grieves suffering and goes to work to set it right

A God who is setting it right by moving toward what is wrong

Even as it makes him vulnerable to suffering

But in moving toward what is wrong he offers himself sacrificially to bring healing

Even now he is present in the suffering of the world and working

And part of how he is present and working is through his church.

He created a community of people empowered by his presence to follow Jesus on the path that he walked.

1 Peter 2:21 (NIV84) tells us

To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.

The path that exposes us to suffering and rejection just as it did him

The path that calls us to be

agents of reconciliation

non-coercive

non-violent

truth-tellers

who turn the other cheek and go the extra mile and give the tunic off their back and address the logs in their own eyes first

who don’t play the same games as the world

scheming

exploiting

competing

who dare to open themselves to love sacrificially even though there is a 100% chance in this fallen world that it will lead to pain

We don’t do this as saviors of the world, but as participants in the way of peace, followers of the one who is making all things new

Eugene Peterson puts it this way.

We, of course, are not Jesus ... But we can participate in what Jesus does with the sins of the world, the sins in the church, the sins in our family, as he takes and suffers them. We can enter the way of Jesus' cross and become participants in Jesus' reconciliation of the world. Salvation is not escape from what is wrong but a deep, reconciling embrace of all that is wrong. This is a radical shift from condemning sin and sinners - an ugly business at best. We no longer stand around as amused or disapproving spectators of the sins or troubles of others but become fellow-sufferers and participants in the sacrificial life of Jesus as he takes the sins of our children, the sins of our presidents, the sins of our pastors, the sins of our friends, our sins - names in the newspaper, men and women in the neighborhood.

Most of the messaging of this world would have us either

participate in the suffering in a survival of the fittest mindset

harden ourselves and life in a defensive competitive posture

or medicate ourselves and live in denial, the escapist route

But these are incompatible with the way of Jesus

If we follow the Christ who suffered, we should expect to suffer as well

We don’t chase suffering.

Simply living in a fallen world brings enough suffering on its own.

We simply move toward the hurt and pain and division of the world like Christ did.

We open ourselves to love.

We pursue reconciliation.

And when we are rejected we turn to Jesus, who knows what its like

We find him in the midst of it

And we find encouragement that this is in fact the way

And that even now he is working to set things right, inviting us to join him