Mid-Lent 3
Second
Article
1
Pet 1:13-21
3/23/22
Not doubt,
you have noticed that things have gotten more expensive recently. The inflation rate in February 2021 was
1.7%. The inflation rate last month was
7.9%, the highest it has been in four decades.
We are all experiencing the pain of having to pay more at the gas pump
and grocery store.
In our text
tonight, the apostle Peter also describes a kind of inflationary reality. He says “you were ransomed from the futile ways
inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or
gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a
lamb without blemish or spot.” The apostle tells us that our salvation was
more costly than any amount of money.
Instead, it cost the very highest price – the suffering and death of our
Lord Jesus.
In our text, Peter is urging his
readers to leave behind the ways they lived in the past. Instead, we need to live as those who live in
the holiness that reflects our holy God. He says, “Therefore, preparing your minds for
action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that
will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient
children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as
he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your
conduct, since it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy.’”
The reason that Christians will seek
to live in this way is because of what God has done for us in Jesus
Christ. Last week as we considered the
Second Article of the Apostles’ Creed, we focused on the person of Jesus
Christ. Scripture teaches us that our Lord is “true God, begotten of his Father
from eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary.” Tonight we focus on
the work that Jesus has carried out for us.
The events of this work are the very things that Lent prepares us to
remember.
Peter says that “you were ransomed
from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers.” People are ransomed because they are held
captive. They are ransomed so that they
may be free. This is the truth that the
Small Catechism expresses in its explanation of the Second Article when it says
that Jesus Christ “has redeemed me, a lost and condemned person, purchased and
won me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil.”
If there was only the First Article in
the Creed, then life would be great – it would be very good. But it is not that way because the sin of
Adam and Eve brought sin and death, and subjected us to the devil. Apart from
Christ, we are lost and condemned people. It’s not just that we sin and
die. Apart from Christ, the devil is our
lord. We belong to him from the moment
of our conception as sinful people. We
are powerless against him. In fact, his
power is so insidious that apart from God’s action we don’t even recognize that
he rules us, even as he drags us down the path that leads to eternal damnation.
But God sent his Son into the world
through the incarnation as he was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the
Virgin Mary. He came to ransom us – to
redeem us – to free us from sin, death and the power of the devil. That meant
winning the forgiveness of sins. Peter
says in our text that “you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your
forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or
gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a
lamb without blemish or spot.”
The apostle describes Jesus as a
sacrifice. Those animals offered in sacrifices to God in the Old Testament had
to be without blemish. We mentioned last
Wednesday that the Son of God took on a human nature that is like us in all
ways except one – he had no sin. Jesus Christ was the holy and sinless one, who
was then sacrificed on the cross bearing the sins of all people.
At the beginning of the season of
Epiphany we saw how Jesus was baptized in the Jordan River as he took on the
role of the Servant of the Lord – the suffering Servant sent to bear our
sins. Peter picks up this idea in the
next chapter when he writes: “For to this you have been
called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example,
so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was
deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in
return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting
himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on
the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By
his wounds you have been healed.”
Jesus redeemed us with “His holy
precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death.” He was the sacrifice that freed us as he
received God’s wrath and judgement against our sin. During Lent we prepare to follow Jesus on his
way to the cross. He goes to drink the cup of God’s wrath against us. He goes because it is Father’s will by which
God’s love saves us.
It makes no sense from our
perspective. St. Paul told the Romans,
“For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the
ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person--though perhaps for a
good person one would dare even to die-- but God shows his love for
us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
The obedient suffering and death of
Jesus was the revelation of God’s saving love. By his precious blood shed on
the cross, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot, he won
forgiveness for all our sins. With the
sacrifice offered, his dead body was take down from the cross and buried in a
tomb before sundown on Friday.
Yet Christ’s work did not end in
winning the forgiveness of sins. He was
also the One through whom God defeated death itself. Peter began this letter by writing, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born
again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the
dead.” On Easter - on the third day - God
raised Jesus from the dead. Jesus defeated
death by passing through it. Now by his
resurrection he has given us a living hope.
The Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead has called you to
faith. Peter says in this letter that
“you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable,
through the living and abiding word of God.” Forgiven and born again you have been
redeemed from the power of the devil and you now belong to Jesus – he is your
Lord.
In the Second Article we confess: “The third day He rose
again from the dead. He ascended into
heaven and sits at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty. From thence He
will come to judge the living and the dead.”
Having conquered death, the risen Lord ascended. As Peter says in chapter three, Jesus is the
One “who has gone into heaven and is at the right
hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to
him.”
When Jesus ascended, the angels said to his disciples, “Men
of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from
you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into
heaven.” Our expectation - our hope – is now fixed on the return of
Jesus Christ on the Last Day. Peter says
in our text, “Therefore, preparing your minds for
action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that
will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
The grace that will be brought to us at the revelation of
Jesus Christ on the Last Day is that he will raise and transform our bodies to
be like his. St. Paul told the
Philippians that “we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our
lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables
him even to subject all things to himself.”
Everything Jesus did was directed
towards the events of Holy Week. It was all aimed at the cross where he
ransomed us with his precious blood – by his suffering and death in our
place. But the cross was not the end of
his saving work, for in his resurrection he has defeated death. Ascended into heaven as the exalted Lord, we
now belong to him. He is our Lord.
And so we set our hope fully on the
grace that will be brought to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ on the Last Day.
No comments:
Post a Comment