Musings on 1 Peter (4:8)

8: This is one of the most oft quoted verses of Scripture. For good reason too, but perhaps without fully understanding what we are saying. Peter notes the high importance of his own phrase by beginning with 'above all else', 'before anything else', or perhaps, 'if you don't get anything else out of this letter, get this.' He has heightened our anticipation. What is it that he wants us to understand 'above all else?' It is what everything he has been talking about boils down to. It is the gospel response in miniature. Love one another, or more literally, always have unceasing and intentional love among yourselves. Why? Because love covers a plethora of sins. How though? How does love cover sin? What does he mean by cover? Sweeping sins under the rug? Ignoring sin? Well, actually, to a certain extent, yes. The word for cover literally means, to cover, or hide. Uncomfortable as we are with the thought of hiding sin, let's start with what Peter does not mean. Throughout the Word we are given exhortations to judge others, especially leaders and teachers, by their fruit. By judge I mean examine or discern. This can only be done with a complete and honest understanding of their faults. So in this sense, we are not ignoring sin or sweeping sins under the rug, but rather holding them up in order to discern whether or not it is wise to listen to or follow a certain leader. Nor does Peter mean that when we cover sin, it magically disappears and all consequences automatically and instantly vanish. You can hide a bowling ball under the rug, but people will still trip over it. So we cannot use this verse to justify ongoing sinful behavior leading to annual harvests of bad fruit. Nor can we bring this verse to our aid when we want the inevitable consequences of major sins to simply fade gently into the forgotten past. Sin is still sin, and it is serious, and it will be judged, either on the cross or on the last day. We cannot ignore this all important truth.

So what does Peter mean? As always, context is key. The main phrase in this verse is to love one another. It is odd that it is never quoted when the subsequent phrase is. And the love covering sins bit only makes sense if this first phrase is what it is referring to. We are a new people, a new humanity, forming a new culture. Peter has gone to great lengths already to establish this point. We are a holy priesthood, with a new way of living. Our lives are different now because Jesus has been born, has died, was buried, has risen and ascended to His throne. All things are new. As His growing city on a hill, we are called to emulate His grace. We become 'little Christs' to an onlooking world. And our love for one another is our most potent testimony. Indeed it is one of the primary ways our nation-discipling takes shape. Around the central tenants of our Faith, a community is built up, manifesting itself in local expressions. We call these local visible manifestations of the great community local churches; local bodies that are part of the much larger whole. In these communities Christians live in close proximity to one another. We share our lives and share our bread. We indwell one another, living as one even as the Father and the Son are one. In this context we live in the presence of one another's faults as well. Thus Peter's exhortation is spot on. Unceasing and Intentional love. Both words are fit for the human existence. Unceasing because we grow tired. We don't see any growth in our friends and so we want to give up loving them. We want to throw in the towel because we are tired of their faults and failings. But Peter is firm. Unceasing. Don't stop. The thought that hides just under the surface of this verse is this: Did Jesus cease loving you? Did Jesus throw in the towel because He was tired of you? Of course not. How can we, then, stop loving one another when Jesus never did? Especially when the offenses against Him were far, far greater than the offenses against us. Therefore our love for one another must know no bounds.

Our love must not only be unceasing, but intentional as well. The word translated as 'fervently' comes from the Greek word meaning, to put forward, or to cast out. Either way the direction is the same. Love must come from within and move outward, and we must be the ones to do it. When a man goes fishing, he does not simply hold the pole upright at the edge of the lake, hook and lure dangling from the top. He winds up his arm, and throws the hook and lure as far out as he can. With purpose and intention he casts his bait into the environment before him, with hopes of catching a fish. Our love for one another must be the same. Too often we take a passive approach to love, which says, "Just don't get in their way." Or we define love as 'not offending'. But these are weak and anemic non-loves. Love must take initiative, love must be purposeful. We need to be casting our love into the environment before us, with the hopes of catching a friend. Again, Jesus did not simply 'leave us alone'. Nor did He seek to 'not offend'. He put Himself forward, while we were yet sinners, while we were still dead in our sins, while we still were lying in the Lazerine tomb He cast Himself upon the cross. And praise God He did.

Here we begin to see the meaning of sin-covering love. Among other things it is a matter of perspective. Being forgiven of our million dollar debt, how can we demand the quarter from our neighbor? Our sins against a thrice Holy God having been forgiven, how can we hold in contempt the sins of a imperfect saint against another likewise imperfect saint, namely ourselves? We cannot. It is hypocrisy. It is two tongues in one mouth, and God hates a double tongue. Our love for the brethren looks past the particular brother and sees the Spirit that dwells there. We all are a work in progress, and the same Spirit is at work in each of us. How can we get impatient with each other then? How can we cease loving without unwittingly growing impatient with the Spirit who is at work within them? Do not our demanding natures and our bitternesses speak lies about the Spirit's work? We return to perspective. The Father is infinitely patient with us. He gives us each breath, even the ones we use to complain and grumble about our brother. Does it make sense? No. Grace is far to wild and crazy for us to comprehend. But its not too crazy to emulate. We are called to. It is what we are remade for. In this sense, in so far as it can be, we do ignore the faults of one another. We emulate the grace that remembers iniquity no more. We must see the Lord first when we see our friends and brothers. When we see one another through that lens, love truly will cover a multitude of sins.

Peter is writing to the dispersed Jewish Christians who are scattered throughout the known world. They are without physical homeland. We are in their shoes. Our homeland is Jesus, and He is not physically present with us. He has given us as tokens of His presence both His own Spirit, and His own Body. The Spirit is at work to grow the body up into maturity, to prepare it for the eternal weight of glory that lies just beyond the great river. He has called us to live with one another in such a way that reflects the holiness and the beauty of the Father. When we hold on to grudges or do not let love cover offenses against our own self, we are not reflecting the love shown to us on the cross. We are reflecting instead the pettiness of our own sinful hearts. We, the pot, in the end, call the kettle black. How then can we reflect His grace? Let your love for one another be intentional and unceasing, because Love Himself has covered our sins. In this way the new community is built. Upon these stones the walls of this new kingdom are erected. With this foundation, this holy house cannot fall. It is the very soil in which the mustard seed grows into a giant tree, giving shelter to all the birds of the air.

Musings on 1 Peter (4:7)

7: We live in a fallen world. A world that has been ripped apart by sin. Through our sin, Death has entered. Our enemy and our deceiver. But though he be our foe, he lies on the ground both conquered and vanquished. His sword is dull, and his shield is beaten down. His armor is all but gone. O Death, where is thy Sting? Where is thy Victory? The Death Slayer stands poised, with His holy heel firmly pinning Death's head to the blood soaked ground, the shadow of a cross stretching out before his face. Death no longer holds the keys. He no longer claims his victims. He is forced to watch as his most dreaded fears come to pass. His only trick, the death of the human body, has become the means by which his Enemy, the Father Almighty, ushers in mankind to eternal rest and glory. And if that wasn't enough, Death will go to his destruction knowing that his gift to mankind, the corruption of the flesh, the dark night of the soul, will be once and for all resurrected into perfected and reflective light. The whole man will be whole again. No longer will the Spirit wage war with a fallen nature so deeply imbedded. Death despairs. Millennia of work, completely undone. Millennia of work, shown in the end to accomplish His good plan all along. Death's humiliation is complete. He is a stooge, a fool, the court joke. He is shown to be ridiculous. Holy laughter will reign down on his beaten and crushed head. Good wins. The story ends in marriage. All live happily ever after. All is comedy. Further up and further in.

Here is the backdrop for Peter's words of encouragement, "The end of all things is at hand..." This phrase refers either to the end of this created world, the end of the reader's life, or the end of Judaic age in 70AD, with the fall of Jerusalem. Either which way these words are taken, the encouragement stands. Death comes to us all. Either at the last trumpet, the martyr's flame, or in the wave of violent persecution, death will find us. We will cross the great river. When it comes to living on this earth, there is a 100% mortality rate. But what is death? Has not death simply become a door? Our modern philosophers want death to be final, complete, the end game. If death truly is a wall and not a window, then there can be no justice. A lack of final justice leads to complete and utter relativity and chaos. Nothing truly matters. And it is where self aware, honest, materialistic atheists end up. A dismal prospect. Also a lie about the world we live in. It is the lie that whispers in our ear in the final moments of life, "What was it all for?" "Did your life really matter?" It is the fear of these 'sweet nothings' that cause us in our youth to cry out with vigor, "Carpe Diem!" We must make something of ourselves. We must make our mark in the world. For death will come and then we will be gone. Kaput. No more. Lights out. Game over. And for many, many people that scares them, no pun intended, to death. To dwell on utter futility, utter meaninglessness. For in the absence of a God and without final and complete justice in the world, the universe is simply apathetic to your insignificant efforts to make a name for yourself. It's as if a grain of sand somewhere rose above the rest and declared, "I am Sand. And I matter," blithely unaware of the massive wave quickly, and unfeelingly, descending upon his podium. To the man without God, this is what his attempts to distinguish himself amount to. But there is a God. There is final and complete justice. And therefore, there is final and complete peace. Thus we rest in the justice of our God, for in a world governed by His just hand, there is meaning and purpose. We are no longer surrounded by chaos but by story. And if it is His story that we are surrounded by, and it is, then there is nothing in this world that can bring us harm. For we are the beloved children of the almighty and sovereign Author of all things. And that is comfort.

This is the thrust of Peter's exhortation to be sober minded, and self controlled, or watchful. We remember that Peter is writing to the Dispersed. Those Christians who were blown to the four winds of the known world, to the Christians suffering severe persecution. For many of them the end of all things was in deed very near, for them at least. Death was approaching quickly. And their persecutors, their murderers would have taunted them with these words of hopelessness. But their hope was this: death had lost on Golgotha. Therefore their own deaths would be mini-victories that embraced and partook in that Great Death, where Death itself received its first death blow. With each of our own deaths, the heel increases downward pressure. When the last saint dies, heel and ground will meet. Sisera, twice nailed to the floor of Jael's tent. So be sober minded. Think about these things. Be aware of what the implications of the cross and the empty tomb are. Not only understand it, but live in obedience to it. Be self controlled. Do not let fear of death, fear of unknown, fear of uncertainty bring despair into your life. Control the fear. Say to the Deceiver, "I see the cards you are holding, and they are nothing. You have shown your hand. You are bluffing." We have been given a spirit, not of fear, but of power, love and self control. This becomes our life: a life radically redefined by the empty tomb. We become invincible. Who can touch us? Who can harm us? If God is for us, who can stand against us? The answer is simple: no one.

Peter then adds the odd clause, "for the sake of your prayers." I believe Peter's goal is to lay the ground work for a life of dependancy. Pay attention, he is saying. Be aware of the story you are in. If we are with brutal immediacy aware of the human condition, and at the same time with ecstatic humility aware of the empty tomb, our prayer life will simply be our life. We will know our place before the throne. We will simply assume our dependance on Jesus is complete and touches every area of life. Through this dependance, the Gospel goes out and changes the world. Through this dependance, our lives begin to look like Jesus.