Joy!

1 Peter: 1:3–9

Praised be the Abba God of our Savior Jesus Christ, who with great mercy gave us new birth: a birth into hope, which draws its life from the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead; a birth to an imperishable inheritance incapable of fading or defilement, which is kept in heaven for you who are guarded with God’s power through faith; a birth to a salvation which stands ready to be revealed in the last days.
There is cause for rejoicing here. You may, for a time, have to suffer the distress of many trials. But this is so that your faith, which is more precious than the passing splendor of fire-tried gold, may by its genuineness lead to praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ appears. Although you have never seen Christ, you love Christ; and without seeing, you still believe, and you rejoice with inexpressible joy touched with glory, because you are achieving faith’s goal—your salvation.

In the name of God, the mother, the father, the son, and the holy spirit who breathes through us all. Amen.

Right after Christmas, Angela and I left town and went to Albuquerque for a few days. On Sunday — the Sunday after Christmas — we attended our sister UCC church out there. It was a fairly humble service, as it was here no doubt. At that time, the Sunday after Christmas is usually like that. They shared their materials with us, and in them you could see that they modeled their church — or they wanted their church — to follow the life and teaching of Jesus Christ. Wonderful. I mean, that’s beautiful. It’s a perfectly great thing. We need to do something similar at Hillcrest. The teaching of Jesus Christ is central in our mission statement, if you want to read it sometime.

But it struck me that something is also missing. Any guess what I might be hinting at? I’ll give you a hint. It is Easter. The resurrection. Exactly. If you model your life on the life and teaching of Jesus Christ, what do we do with the whole idea of the resurrection? I understand why we do this. We are, you know, in the United Church of Christ — the rational church, the church with the thinking people. And all of us have friends and family members. If you want to talk with them about being risen from the dead — you believe what, exactly? Come again. I thought you were a reasonable person. So I get it. We get maybe even a little shy around it.

So let me just start with this one. You may be asking, “Pastor Nils, what do you do? Do you believe in the resurrection?” And my answer is yes, I do — although I don’t fully understand it. I believe in the resurrection first for this reason: there was nothing in the history of humanity that I can imagine that was comparable to the spread of Christianity in the first few centuries after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It spread like wildfire, and it is the largest religion in the world. Jesus was a phenomenal teacher, and if you could read the Sermon on the Mount over and over again, we’d all be better for it. We could do just that in this church every week and we’d be so much better for it. And yet there was a power and impulse and energy — a momentum — that was unleashed after the death and resurrection, that moved through the world in a way I cannot explain in any other way than by the understanding that something real happened around the resurrection. Even though I don’t fully know what it is, it ignited in people something that hadn’t been ignited before.

In the opening lines of this first letter of Peter, which we just read, around the year 90 is when it was written — it wasn’t really Peter. It was one of his followers, probably. Peter was dead by the 90s. It was written to churches in what is now modern-day Turkey, Asia Minor. And the people were persecuted. Christians at that time were still under the domination of the Roman Empire. “You follow who? A criminal who we crucified — and you say he did what? Rose from the dead? We won’t have anything of it. You will pay honor and submission to the emperor, to Caesar.” This was after Nero. They were persecuted. And so this letter is meant to remind the followers of Jesus that they can stand fast in their faith. He is trying to embolden them and give them ammunition: don’t worry about it too much.

[A child comes forward during the service.]

Hi there. You are so sweet. You are one of the people who brings new life — started three years ago. God’s special helper. Is that you? You’re giving that to me, but it’s you. Yeah. I love this. Because what I was going to say is: when you are believing in the resurrection, something happens to you that is new. You become like a new person. There is a new identity. You are no longer the people you thought you were before — the ones subject to persecution and harassment, the people who are bothered by all the things the world throws at you. No, no, no. You have your eyes set on something new, which we know as the resurrection. Because it was such a miraculous event that even the death of Jesus Christ, caused by the Roman Empire, was not the end of the story as the Roman Empire wanted it to be. It was the beginning of a whole new creation, and we get to live in that new creation. That is a phenomenal fact, which means we don’t have to be dissuaded by anything. That’s what Peter is saying.

God showed the world that his beloved Son — their beloved Son, pardon me, God’s beloved Son — was so precious that the death on the cross was not the end of the story. It is a sign of God’s faithfulness to us. There’s a lot of talk in the church about how we have to have faith, and that faith costs us something. But it begins with God being faithful to us. And how do we know that? Because of the resurrection. Heavy stuff. And because of that — because we can accept his faithfulness — we are being regenerated. That is the word Peter uses. And this realization then gives us cause for a kind of joy that is not dependent on anything we might experience in the world.

I have to say that this is a confusing part in the teaching of Christianity, and this translation even gets something wrong in that last sentence. I’m here to unpack it. “Although you have never seen Christ, you love Christ. And without seeing, you still believe and you rejoice with inexpressible joy, touched with glory, because you are achieving faith’s goal, your salvation.” Here’s a problem with that text. That word because does not exist in the original Greek. It’s not there — I looked it up. Which means in this translation, the salvation is giving rise to joy. But if you leave the because out of it, the order is this: you have the resurrection — a big sign of God’s faithfulness — which gives rise to joy. And the joy is what gives rise to our salvation, whatever salvation means to you. It can mean different things at different times for different people. I’m not necessarily talking about not going to hell, just to put it bluntly. That’s not really what I’m talking about. Salvation can mean: I’m in the doldrums and I need to get out of it. I’m financially ruined and I need a roof over my head. Salvation can be practical like that. And it has to be practical like that if it is to have any meaning. The joy precedes — even causes — the salvation, because the joy comes from God’s faithfulness to us. That is what Peter is telling us here, which is a little different than some people have thought, because of that translation.

I have a whole bunch of examples. And maybe I’ll come to some of them. But I’m so aware that we just lost one of our dear ones as I’m telling you this, and it’s hard to reconcile these two things sometimes — when we actually feel deep loss, and it’s real, and then we come and, well, the title for my sermon, “Joy,” was chosen earlier in the week when I hadn’t heard the news. Does it still hold true now? That is a very fair question. I’m thinking on my feet right now, because the news hit me pretty hard yesterday and still does.

And yes — first of all, don’t ever let anyone suggest to you that you shouldn’t feel your grief fully and deeply, in part because we have reason for joy. Yes, we have reason for joy, and it will come at the right time, when you’re ready — which means after you have had, or as you are having, your experience of grief, in community preferably, not in isolation. But don’t ever feel obliged to pass by your sorrow or to ignore your grief because somehow, somewhere, some preacher told you something about joy. Never, ever do I want to give that suggestion. You know this about me. You have heard me preach over time. You know this.

So always be grounded in reality. It is only when we go through that grief that we can have these moments when we get touched by the fact that we are actually, indeed, not alone. Jim is here with family — that’s where it begins. And then there’s a church community. And then, maybe over time — and he may already be there; I don’t know, as the faithful person that he is — at some part of him is already there. We can begin to feel again the presence of Jesus Christ, who is walking with us in that same grief. How do we know that we can count on that? Because Jesus Christ walked through it himself, many times over. You know, the Trinity — God, mother, father, the son, and the holy spirit — they’re not just three aspects or emanations. There is also a relationship. And when Jesus Christ was crucified, God felt it. So your grief is already part of whatever it is that God is experiencing. It’s already formed within the Trinity. It’s already embraced fully.

And so in our grief, we can have these moments when we begin to realize it and feel it again: oh, I’m really not alone. Not just mouthing the words, but an experience that is returning. When I can stand up and still cry. And maybe I can’t stand up — maybe I’m still on my hands and knees — but then I won’t be on my hands and knees alone. That is what the risen Jesus can give us. That is not the life and teaching of Jesus — as precious and amazing as that is. But it is the risen Jesus who can be here, now, present with us on the floor, in the dirt, in an unmade bed when dust is gathering because you’ve been too depressed to dust it off. In those spaces, the risen Jesus can show up and say: I know what you’re going through. I’m here. I’ve been there. I will not leave you. No matter what it looks like. No matter what anybody says. That is God’s faithfulness.

And so joy doesn’t always feel like dancing and singing from the top of your lungs. That’s not necessarily what joy needs to mean. It can be that straw, that thin thread of the presence of Jesus that you’re holding on to for dear life, particularly in those moments when you need it most. It is also a refusal to let yourself be so overwhelmed by everything that you give up, or that you pay too much attention to what everybody else has to say. Before you know it, you’re in a difficult situation and everybody goes, “Oh, that must be very hard.” Yes, it is — you know all too well. Anybody here who’s gone through some health crisis — everybody has advice for you all of a sudden. We’re all a bunch of doctors. “You have an upset stomach? Have you tried ginger tea?” “I have trouble sleeping.” “Have you tried valerian? I always have a glass of warm milk.” Everybody has an idea. All great, meant with love, full of heart. But it doesn’t feel the same as even a thin, almost breakable thread of the presence of Jesus that we hold on to for dear life — and that we have because of the resurrection. In those moments, it counts more than anything.

Yes, I drove by the ocean last week when I was away for a couple of days. All of a sudden I was compelled to pull over into a little parking outlet, and I didn’t know why. It was really one of those things you see in the movies. I get out of the car and I look out and I see the ocean is teeming with life. There are birds plunging down and there are whales breaching with spouts, and I was just compelled to pull over to witness the incredible outburst of life that was right there. I would have driven right by it and missed it. I know we’re a rational church in the UCC, and somebody may say, “Well, that’s a coincidence — the whales were there whether you drove by or not.” All true. All true. But something in me said: I need to go and witness this outburst of life.

I’m finding my way through my sermon — you can tell. In the early 20th century, there was a theologian named Karl Barth. He wrote a series of books called Church Dogmatics — it’s a library shelf in and of itself. There’s a handful of scholars in the world who have read the whole thing. He’s typically dismissed as being too conservative, but he had some insights that were amazing. For instance: you have to reason from the real to the possible. That’s not what we do in our modern-day world. We reason from the possible to the real. “Somebody rose from the dead? That’s not possible, and therefore it’s not real.” “You feel joy even though you have just lost someone very dear to you? That’s not possible, and therefore it’s not real.” “You were compelled to pull over to the side of the road to witness teeming life in the ocean? That’s not possible, and therefore it’s not real.” Karl Barth said no. What we see and hear and observe is real, and therefore we know it is possible, and our sense of what is possible expands exponentially. I was compelled to pull over to the side of the road. It was real. Therefore it is possible. And what else is possible?

And yes — Jesus was risen from the dead. It is real. And therefore, what else is possible? And if that’s too wordy and too vague, maybe try this one: what if it was possible? What if it was real? If you have a hard time grasping the reality of it, ask: what if it is real? What would that open in terms of possibilities — in my life, in the life of the church, in the life of the world, particularly now, in our country, when we are going through such incredibly troubling things: fighting wars, being divided all over the place? What if the resurrection is real? And what if the love of God remains present and available to us because of that resurrection? What is possible then?

The life and teaching of Jesus are fantastic. But the joy comes from this experience of life that rises well outside the normal purviews of our perception. It is in the realization of the resurrection of Jesus that life is not over when the powers of the world say life is over — that there is life teeming. Three-year-old life, teeming in all kinds of places. And sometimes you just literally have to pull over by the side of the road, screech your car to a halt, to witness the miracle of life that is happening right there. That realization — that eye on the prize — gives rise to joy. And it is that joy that causes whatever it is that you need to understand, in that moment, about your salvation.

Amen.