By Pastor Harlan Heier
I Peter 1:3-9: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who are being protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith-being more precious than gold that, though perishable, is tested by fire-may be found to result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Although you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
What happens to a man when an incurable, slow-progressing illness confines him to a wheelchair and restricts his eyesight to distinguishing lights and shadows? Does he become bitter? Does he demand to know why his faith is so weak and ineffective and his prayers are like rubber balls hitting the ceiling and bouncing back into his face? Does his life become an endless chorus of “Why me, Lord?”
Such thoughts are in the mind of a seminary student assigned to visit a man living with those circumstances. He knows bitterness and questions are a distinct possibility and he doesn’t know what to say to a person angry with God or how to answer the “Why’s.” He’s put off the visit as long as possible, but he can’t avoid it any longer. I know because I was that seminary student. As I approached that door I remembered a skit on the Fred Allen Radio Show in which the comedian was a door-to-door salesman. The skit always began with Allen knocking on a door and saying to himself, “I hopa, hopa, hopa nobody’s home.” Of course, my man was home and I ended up glad he was.
Part of my problem was I knew Christians who see faith as a cure-all, saying things like, “If you only have enough faith, God will miraculously cure your illnesses, heal your infirmities, resolve your conflicts, and make your business profitable.” Or, “If you only have enough faith, God will tell you exactly what to do and how and when to do it, will solve every dilemma you face, will leave you with no unexplained circumstances, no loose ends, and so on.”
There are elements of truth in these ideas. The Bible reveals God as all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving. Therefore, God can and sometimes does what these witnesses to faith propose. However, if that is all there is to faith, God is reduced to a powerful magician for whom faith is the magic word, the “abracadabra,” that brings forth the desired result. And getting God to do what I want becomes the test of the genuineness of my faith.
Unfortunately, most of us know devout Christians—perhaps family members or dear friends—who, like the man I was asked to visit might describe their life in the words of God’s warning to Noah in the play The Green Pastures: “Everything dat’s fastened down is comin’ loose.” Perhaps the good health they relied on is no longer theirs, the ties of love are broken, or the job or the home they’ve loved and enjoyed is no longer possible for them. “Everything day’s fastened down is comin’ loose” and the hurts in their lives have not been cured by faith.
Perhaps you can sympathize with my dread in facing such a person. Faith doesn’t always give us easy answers. It doesn’t matter whether our theological education is limited to Sunday School in grade school or expanded to seminary in our adult years. Questions like, “Why do the good suffer and the evil prosper?” or “If God loves all people, why doesn’t God remove the hurtful things from life?” loom large and threatening.
But thank God, through the cross, we are one with “a great cloud of witnesses” who point to “Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame.”
In his first letter Peter approaches the dilemma of faith and suffering in a manner different from the witnesses I mentioned earlier. To Peter, faith doesn’t guarantee an absence of pain or provide an easy answer for difficult questions. Instead, he sees faith as able to carry us in pain or difficulty. Each time faith is mentioned in today’s text the words associated with it imply strength and confidence-“You, who by God’s power are guarded through faith, . . . the genuineness of your faith. . . . As the outcome of your faith.
Peter is writing to a suffering church, a church being persecuted for its faith. Into the despair of such a time he interjects the gift of “a living hope” and points to “an inheritance which is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.”
I can imagine one of those first century Christians saying, “It’s wonderful to have the promise of such a gift kept for me by the watchfulness of God. The treasure is safe, but what about me now? I feel so unsafe, so threatened by illness, pain, guilt, discouragement, or sorrow.” All that’s promised, writes Peter, is “for you, who by God’s power are guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who did not permit his Son to remain in the grave is in charge of our defense. When God says, “Trust me,” it’s no con game. It’s for real.
In the visit I described a few minutes ago I was relieved to learn that’s what the man I was visiting was discovering in the illness that was doing its best to destroy not only life as he had known it, but also his dignity and feeling of self-worth. The torment was still there. His limbs are as weak and his eyes as blind after his discovery of God’s faithfulness as they were before. But he was more aware God was there-loving and caring, understanding and forgiving. God was there, and he began to see his sufferings, his dependence on others, and the despair that gnawed at the pit of his stomach in a different light. In at least a small way he understood what Peter meant when he wrote, “In this you rejoice, though now for a little while you may have to suffer various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold which though perishable is tested by fire, may redound to praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” He wasn’t spared the wounds of the battle or the pains of life in a sinful world, but daily his confidence that God will see him through grew stronger. The worst life could throw at him did not destroy his faith, but, like the refiner’s fire, purified it. And one day he will know the truth of the promise, “As the outcome of your faith you obtain the salvation of your souls.”
The secret is, of course, in the object of the man’s faith-“our Lord Jesus Christ!”-of whom Peter writes, “Without having seen him, you love him; though you do not now see him you believe in him and rejoice with unutterable and exalted joy.”
What did I learn from that visit? I learned it was okay for me not to have all the answers-and after nearly 63 years as a pastor I still don’t have them. I also learned that whatever hurt I was called to walk through with one of God’s children, God was in the middle of that hurt long before God called me on the scene and was sharing a loving presence with all who were suffering.
“The cross and our witness to faith.” Through the empty cross, the cross robbed of its victim by the resurrection, we are one in a faith that is “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” We are one in a faith that may not lead us around troubles but will carry us through them. We are one in a faith that may not give us an easy answer but will always give us an eternal assurance. We are one in a faith that may not bless us with gold but will withstand the refiner’s fire like gold.
Blessed in that faith, you and I are given the grace to be one with those who have witnessed through their faith over the centuries-Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Mary, the Evangelists, the Apostles, Peter, Paul, the Church Fathers, Luther, the Apostles, the friend I made in my visit, and those countless people known only to ourselves and God whose faith has touched our lives. What a company of faith that is!
