Resurrection Hope, 2EasterA, Immanuel Lutheran Church, Moses Lake, WA by Sr. Annette Fricke, OP

Luther loved this letter, 1 Peter, with its imagery of the royal priesthood from which he developed his crucial doctrine of the priesthood of all believers. Evangelism is the work of both clergy and laity as well as the religious orders. Yes, the Lutherans have those, too here in the United States, not just Europe. ‘Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.’ For those who have not seen the physical Jesus, which is likely to be all of us since none of us lived in Jesus’ day, these lessons from 1 Peter and the Gospel of John are for us. We weren’t there when he walked this earth or when he rose from the dead and appeared to several of his disciples, including those not of his original 12. We were not there for Jesus’ ascension. The reason we know about Jesus is from others who have passed on this knowledge from one generation to another. We may have been gifted with a King James Bible from our Godparents. We may have attended Church, Sunday School, and Vacation Bible School. We may have attended church camp such as Lutherhaven. We may have had grandparents who were part of the founding folks of the congregation. Your grandmother may have been a church organist. We may have ancestry that we can trace back to places like Norway or Germany. This is how many of us have been guided as Christians to live in the light of the resurrection. It came through relationships we had with several pastors, teachers, and counselors. Others may have come to the faith from outside the ethnic community. It was certainly very different from Jesus’ day. It is also very different from today in 2023. And so, the question comes up, because it is different, how can we reach out to our communities to spark an interest in Christianity and more to the point, our congregations who are not of the fundamentalist variety of what it means to be a Christian? The meaning of Christian varies widely at this specific point in time, including this community we call Moses Lake. How can we reach out to those who do not believe as we do with the good news of Jesus Christ? It does begin with building a relationship and respecting what others have to say, inviting them to come with you to church. It also means that some will reject what we have to say, just like when Jesus was mentoring his disciples on “mission trips”. How do we learn to follow and love the risen Jesus? Prayer and study of the scriptures perhaps. Living a life of confession and forgiveness. And what does ‘living hope’ of his resurrection presence look like in our world today? Meeting the needs of the community and beyond. What organizations already exist? Are there unmet needs? How can we meet them? This Christian letter of hope holds great relevance. Its rich store of images can speak to multicultural communities and people who have experienced dislocation or displacement. We are called to living as a hope-filled counter-community in the face of a dominant culture. Hope is one of the most vibrant themes of this entire letter. Hope gives people a sense of future. 1Peter is a vision of a hope that is a living hope. It is a call to always be ready to give an account of the hope that is in us. According to Donald Senior, a Catholic scholar, ‘begotten anew’ refers to the “entire inaugural experience of the Christian, not just to baptism. The letter is addressed not to baptismal candidates but to the entire community. The notion of a Holy Land is superseded by that of a Holy Community. ‘New birth is not an individual experience, but rather a community experience.’ All of us have been born anew. All of us have been birthed or begotten anew. It is not ‘Jesus is my personal Lord and Savior’. “It is new birth that has happened through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is not a matter of “I was born again at baptism, or ‘I was born again on September 4, 1954.’ 1 Peter says that we ‘were born again at the moment of Jesus’ resurrection.’ We must learn to say, ‘We were born again in Jesus’ resurrection.’ ‘The power of this letter comes in its persuasive picture of how together, as a community, we can experience the intensely personal and transformative life of ‘new birth’ to a ‘living hope’ and how we can love Jesus in the world today.’ About Thomas,'We first meet Thomas in the story of the resurrection of Lazarus, when he blurts out, “Let us go too so that we might die with (Jesus)! (11:16) At Jesus’ farewell discourse, when Jesus says, ‘And you know the way to the place where I am going.’ Thomas is the disciple willing to risk admitting, ‘We don’t know’ Thomas is showing his honesty and longing for proof to which many Christians can relate. Doubting is not a bad thing and neither is 'yes, but...' ‘In the Gospel of John, the beloved disciple is the only person who believes without seeing. All others, like Thomas, have to be brought from some degree of misunderstanding to full faith.’ Eight days later, Thomas’ request to be able to see and touch Jesus is given by Jesus from which he says the well-known words, ‘My Lord and my God’, one of the most powerful confessions in John. As John Wesley has stated, ‘I have come to see that to declare as a gift of God that which I do not fully possess is, nevertheless, a duty of obedience.’ Is God’s grace to be measured by my inventory? No. Is the great catholic faith of nineteen centuries to be reduced to my interior dimensions? No. Again, ‘Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.’ ~New Proclamation,Year A, 2005 Easter through Pentecost, Barbara R. Rossing, pp. 16-25, Fortress Press, Minneapolis, Copyright 2005.