4th Sunday of Easter

Good morning.

Welcome to our Redeemer.

The resurrection of Christ introduces a bit of tension into our life, both the anticipation of the resurrection to come and the new kingdom that will last forever.

And yet the time that we are even now waiting for that great moment to come, and often that we feel stuck in the tension in between.

And yet that period of time has a specific character to it, a specific posture we follow, and a hope that undergirds it all.

That'll be a focus of our service today.

We'll begin with the opening hymn, 449.

Grace and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Amen.

When you've become quite familiar with the scriptures, reading them, studying them, perhaps through school or other forms of Christian education, soon you start to think of the word exile.

And at least my experience was often this.

When I heard the word exile, I thought of the people of God in the Old Testament who, after the siege of Jerusalem, were taken off into Babylonian captivity.

And so the term exile in my mind always meant something like being forcibly taken away from your home, living in a foreign land, against your will, always hoping to get back to where you once were.

So in that sense, the word exile means something back then, for other people, but not for right now or for people like us.

But in the second reading today, in Peter's letter, the Apostle Peter uses that term exile not to describe something back then and for other people.

He uses it to describe a state of being even now for Christians who are waiting for the time of the Lord's return.

He calls us exiles in the reading today.

And today we're going to go through parts of that reading and see this rich image of what it means to actually identify ourselves as those sojourners and exiles in this world.

And from it to learn what Peter is teaching, that there is a particular kind of posture that we bring in our life that reflects the hope and joy that is at the center of the Christian life, even as we are exiles.

You see, Peter starts by saying this I urge you as sojourners and exiles.

He referred to them as exiles yet again, and so here already it's the third time he's drawn this image to mind.

He keeps coming back to this idea that to be an exile is to be someone on the way, to be someone who isn't truly home and has a different home in another place.

Now, right away, this can be a little strange or unusual for us because a lot of our life is spent trying to settle in.

A lot of what we do is meant to build stability or endurance.

We buy homes, we build structures, we settle into career paths, we get our kids involved in schools and communities, and all of this, of course, is meant to create some kind of grounding.

We invest in our future, we save money, we try to arrange such a thing, everything in such a way that we really can feel as if we're pretty well settled.

In fact, we'll often talk about a feeling being unpleasant if we feel unsettled.

And yet, Peter is urging us to not grow too comfortable in the place that we are, even as we are exiles.

The language he used for that is to watch out for the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.

And that idea of war is a strong one, of course, and we know from this testimony and other parts of the scripture that sin does wage a war against our very soul.

And that's what's in mind here for sure.

The kinds of things that are sins, that are wicked, the kinds of things that we don't want people to find out about us, the kinds of things for which we must repent and apologize, that these wage war against our soul.

But in this context of exile, it also can carry this idea that if we're if we are not, or if we're being waged against, then there's this temptation always to simply settle in, to grow accustomed to the way that things are, and to become of such a posture that this world that we live in starts to feel a bit too comfortable and too much like our home, that perhaps there is no real distinction between us and the world around us, us who are following Christ and the world around us that has no such allegiance to such a king.

And so Peter talks about this waging of war that can also come in as an impulse to settle, to treat what is temporary as actually permanent instead of recognizing the temporary status of our life in this world.

And so Peter is telling us here to keep a little bit of distance, yes.

But it's interesting because at the same time he holds another idea in mind.

And this is pretty critical, I think, to understanding this posture that Peter is getting at, this posture of a Christian life as an exile.

He doesn't say, beloved, build a bunker.

He says, keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable.

So on the one hand, he's saying, watch out for something, but on the other hand, he's talking as if we're going to be right here, always among the very people with whom we live, even as we are exiles, and to keep our conduct among them honorable.

Among them, that's critical, right in their midst, not off somewhere else where we're only ever encountering one another in the family of God, but even here among the people.

That means to keep our conduct honorable among those who don't share our hope, who don't share our view of the world, who don't share the joy that we have, who don't have the same goal or the same destination, or even the same values, even there we are to keep our conduct honorable because we live among them.

And our living among them is meant to be, according to Peter, something visible.

It's meant to be something that people will see and encounter.

So what does that look like then?

This is where Peter gets practical.

He starts to lay things out for us.

He says that this is a kind of posture, a way of orienting yourself to this standing you have as an exile, to be among the people that you're living in.

And he describes it this way: he says, for one thing, be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it is to the emperor as supreme or to governors as sent by him.

Now, Peter, we have to realize, is not naive here.

He knows who the emperor is, he knows what the power of Rome will do to people who step out of line.

And yet, even at the same time, he says that the Christians are to submit themselves in honor and obedience to those very authorities.

And the secret here, of course, is that Peter's idea of weakness is not what we think of as weakness.

That to submit this way as an exile is not weakness.

It's actually a great and even radical kind of freedom.

For if you and I are really free, it means we can say, I don't need to overthrow the powers that be.

I don't even need their approval, because my king has already won the day and rules and reigns over all things.

In fact, this means then I can live under another authority and not be ultimately controlled by it.

And yet I can live in a way in this posture Peter is describing.

See, he's not trying to take the word of God and the kingdom of Christ and convert it in a one-to-one fashion to some kind of either political strategy or a culture war approach.

It's nothing like that.

Instead, he says that we are going to live a life that is so patient, so consistent, so stubbornly good and wholesome and virtuous, that the people who would complain or oppose us will in the end have nothing left to say because of the testimony of our lives as followers of Christ.

That's the picture he describes there.

It's what he gets at when he says, It is the will of God that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people.

That's interesting because he doesn't say you're going to persuade them, he says you're going to silence them.

That the life itself that you lead as an exile, with this posture toward Christ and his kingdom and also to the kingdom of this world, that this will actually silence these ignorant and foolish people.

It keeps showing up again and again that this doing of good will act as a living testimony to the truth of Christian gospel and the power of the Spirit at work in your life.

And so these are intention in a way, and yet they come together in this moment of testimony in a life that answers.

And then Peter just keeps going with this picture.

He continues with a sentence like this: live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.

And here we start to get off the map we're used to working our way through, because here we have ideas like servanthood and freedom coming together in one biblical sentence.

This is part of the paradox of the Christian faith and this time we often describe as a tension between the realization of Christ's resurrection and the kingdom that is yet to come.

Servanthood and freedom go in the same sentence.

And this is so different than what we're accustomed to.

We think of power as the one who has the most authority or who has the loudest voice in a situation.

And yet here Peter is telling us that the freest person in the room is the one who has nothing to prove anymore, nothing to protect, has nothing where they need to claim a victory because they know that in Christ all of the victory they need has been achieved, that in God's esteem, everything that they need to be has already been accomplished.

There's no condemnation for them, for they are in Christ.

That everything that matters has already been secured fully in Jesus, and therefore that person is free to serve, free to honor, free to love people, even when the love is not returned to us.

That is freedom and service merged into one idea.

And Peter then takes this and the momentum starts to build, and he has four short statements that come like four hammer strokes right on the heels of this radical new idea.

He says, honor everyone, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the emperor.

Right there in four statements is that exile's public posture.

That you and I are not here to pick and choose who deserves our honor and respect, that we are actually called into a brotherhood by God that transcends our own decision making, placed under authorities that, yes, perhaps we never would have chosen or designed for ourselves.

And yet here he commands us by the apostle to love and honor and serve these people.

And the honor and fear of God is mentioned too because it puts every other authority in its proper place, subservient to God our Lord.

And that this then is the ground from which this great freedom and confidence and joy and the ability to relate to a world like ours starts to flow from this.

We can honor and love and serve one another, even those who are unjust, not because they have earned it or deserved it, but because we are free in Christ to give it, even as the apostle has commanded us to do.

That's the public posture.

But then Peter begins to wrap up by talking about a posture that would be more appropriate for maybe the household situation or the relationships that are a bit smaller than the ones that we might think of as larger scale or public postures.

He turns his attention to the idea of servants and masters.

He addresses people for whom maybe this is a very real and daily struggle to understand how it is that they can be in one kind of circumstance even as they look forward to freedom and liberation in the end.

And so Peter here says that when someone suffers for what is unjust, he calls it a gracious thing in the sight of God.

And this is a powerful idea for any one of us who have faced some kind of suffering that isn't right.

That isn't just, say, some kind of consequence of our own sin where we say, yeah, I suppose that is something that I had coming.

Or maybe something that was out of anyone's control, a natural disaster or something like that.

But the times that sting most when we are suffering for doing what is right.

And in those moments, a word like this can be very, very comforting, that it is a gracious thing in the sight of God.

You see, there is a kind of suffering that comes from just being maybe in the wrong place at the wrong time or doing the wrong thing.

But sometimes suffering comes because of our faithfulness.

And when suffering comes because of our faithfulness, this word really matters.

That it costs you and me to love and serve the Lord.

And Peter's not excusing injustice.

He's not saying just be a doormat or something like that.

But he is saying that when these moments occur, God sees it, God honors it, God knows it, and he calls it gracious.

He calls it gracious to suffer for doing what is good.

Because doing what is good is something that endures and it reflects this life, this posture as an exile.

One that the deeper and deeper we get into it, the more and more we realize is shaped exclusively like our Lord and Savior Jesus.

So where does all this leave us?

It leaves us in a place where we start to understand where Peter has begun with us.

That we are elect and chosen, and yet we are also exiles on the way.

But we're not hopeless exiles, we're not bitter exiles, we're not exiles who throw up our hands and say, what does it matter?

Forget it all, we're not going to deal with this anymore.

Instead, we are exiles with a deep and abiding hope at the center of it all.

And the hope isn't that the world will finally understand, or that the world will finally accept us, or that all the suffering is going to go away in this life.

But the hope is that God sees it, God holds it, God rules over it, and that through it all, God is sustaining us through this posture to match evermore and be shaped into the image of his Son Jesus.

You see, undergirding all the words that Peter writes is the resurrection of Jesus.

And more than that, the story of Christ's life, death, and resurrection.

Perhaps you've noticed the similarities already that Jesus is the one who submitted himself.

He's the one who suffered.

And not just justly, but unjustly for sins he did not commit, for liars and cheaters and robbers.

And that this same Jesus then, through it all, maintained a constant hope and faith.

Never once said, That's enough.

I'm throwing up my hands.

Enough with this place, let it go.

But always leaning into people, loving God, loving neighbor.

The very pattern that then the Apostle Peter calls us to follow as well.

The pattern the rest of the New Testament holds out to us as the pattern for the Christian life.

That Jesus is the one who was the exile before us, the one who was far from home, the one who went on his way in courage and grace and conviction and freedom.

And the one who has returned home and is now preparing the way and the place and calling you and me, together with the other brothers and sisters in Christ, to walk this exile life, sojourning in this posture of tension, yes, but holy goodness the whole time.

Until the moment comes when he will welcome us to the place he has always been making for us, this kingdom that is to come, the kingdom that will never end.

And through it all, what holds us up is that his conduct on his sojourn was our salvation.

His confidence led to his victory.

His trust in the Father was rewarded with resurrection.

And now because he has risen, we too have new life, baptized into his name.

So now we go out today.

We live as sojourners and exiles.

But we don't live anxiously, as if everything in the world is going to depend on us, for it does not.

It depends on Christ and His authority.

We live not angrily, thinking that we need to get our due in this life, for we do not need that.

The time is coming when all wrongs will be righted and all joy will be complete, and that is enough.

Nor do we live in anxious separation from our friends and neighbors, fearful and saying, enough of that, away from the world.

Instead, we lean into those relationships, knowing that right there is where God works, that he sanctifies us in this tension as exiles, and that as we love and serve them and our conduct among them testifies to the goodness of Christ.

And through it all, to be in exile is not something just for people long ago in a distant land.

It is a posture for us.

People who know we are not home yet, but all the while utterly confident that we know and have the way.

Amen.

Please stand.

The peace of the Lord, which passes all understanding, guard and keep your hearts and minds through faith in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Good morning once again to all of you.

Welcome to our Redeemer.

Special word of thanks is due to our students from grades three and four for singing our opening hymn.

We really appreciate hearing your voices lifting up these glorious Easter truths to us today.

Thank you also to families for getting your students here bright and early on this Sunday morning.

Word of thanks is also due to those who were able to help with the campus uh maintenance and cleanup day yesterday.

We really appreciate your efforts, so thank you for that.

You can review upcoming events on the blue sheet and in the weekly email.

As you head out today, you're invited to stick around for our Sunday school and Bible study hour.

We have our Connect class taking place downstairs in the gymnasium.

Sunday school classes also meet in downstairs in the classrooms of our school, and our Sunday Bible study takes place in the community room.

So I hope you can stick around for that hour.

As you head out, take a moment and greet those worshiping with you.

And God's blessings to you this day.