Musings on 1 Peter (3:17)

17: We have been encouraged to live well before all men. To live in such a way that warrants the question, "Why do you have such hope?" is to live the life of the Spirit. Psalm 118 speaks of the stone that the builders rejected, the stone that became the chief cornerstone. This stone is the one which the whole building rests upon. This stone determines our own position in the building. This building - made with living stones, little peters, both broken and unyeilding, fallen and firm, wretched and redeemed, sinner and saint  - this building will rise and will stand in the face of a cruel and wicked world. Can we not expect eggs to be thrown, windows to be broken, graffiti on the walls? We live in a world that hates Christ. As Christians, as little Christs, will not the world hate us as well? Will they not see our testimony of hope and despise us, ridicule us, revile us for it? Why would they not? To their eyes it is foolishness. In the light of their wisdom it is nonsense. To live by dying, understandably, does not at first seem like a good idea. It is not a safe place for the one protecting his own skin. But what the world does not understand is that we all live by dying. Either others die to our needs and demands - in which case, a tyrant emerges - or we die at the needs of others. Something must give. We, by the Spirit's leading, have chosen a life of selfless giving. This flies in the face of self-preservation, and therefore the world labels it suicide. But it is at precisely this point that they fail to understand how God's world works, not having eyes of faith. All the world is a tomb; this they understand well enough. But it is an empty one. And that has changed everything. Creation, fallen and broken, longs to see the physical and temporal restoration of all things, a restoration that has begun in the hearts and lives of the people created to inhabit it. To the blind world, we are rejoicing in a mausoleum. We are setting up shop in the cemetery. "Why?" they say. "What do you hope to accomplish?" "Spring," we reply. Spring. To the eyes of winter, spring seems ridiculous. The bare branches, shivering in the snow, will laugh at ideas of warmth and foliage. And so they persecute. They scorn. They despise. Even if the faithless world leaves us alone, we still must deal with a fallen wintered world, where bodies break and the ice grows strong. It is the testing ground of our hope. Do we really believe in a spring? Do we really believe that the tomb is empty, that all will be resurrected? Do we think Christ-like in all things, for the joy set before us? Do we endure our cross? Or do we complain, and whimper, and actually consider our sufferings - these momentary light afflictions - as something worthy to be compared to the indescribable glory to come? To put flesh on Paul's words, it is like preparing for a ten-year, all- expense-paid vacation to your dream-location. A few seconds before you board the plane, you get a toothache. Not even a very bad one at that. In those brief moments, would we despair of ever seeing our waiting paradise? Would we say to ourselves, "It just isn't worth it. It just hurts too much. Maybe there won't be a vacation. Maybe there is no such thing as a dream-location at all,"? Of course not. The joy of a ten-year paid-vacation would be overwhelming. So overwhelming that a little toothache would probably go completely unnoticed. Now, I do not wish to make light of our present sufferings. They are many, and they are real. But neither do I want to make more of them than the apostle Paul does. And when it comes to toothaches, he had the worst. We are going to suffer, because Christ suffered, and we are not better than our Master. It is better to suffer for the right reasons than for the wrong ones. Suffer for hope rather than for stupidity. Suffer for trusting in truth rather than doubting what is real. When we suffer for righteousness' sake, we suffer the blows on the outside. By the mercy of God, we are given armor for this, and its name is Hope and Joy. But if we suffer for wallowing in our own filth, we suffer the blows on the inside, and no armor in the world can protect us from that. In the mire, we call our sin by another name. We spew our own filth onto those that rub us the wrong way, on those that expose the sin we are hiding. So trust not in yourself. Hope in God. Spring will come. These branches will bear fruit. The Sun has already risen, and the snow has already begun to melt.