“For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. (1 Peter 1:18)
Fellow believers in the Risen Christ, this is our text. How many of you were the only child in your family? How many of you were the first born? How many fall into the category of 2nd, 3rd, etc….or “last in the line?”
If you were a first born or an only child you likely never had to deal with the dreaded “hand-me-down” disease that afflicts almost every family with multiple kids. And if you were the last in the line you probably kept coming down with the disease multiple times – depending on how many brothers or sisters you had ahead of you!
As the 2nd in my family, I suffered the trauma of having to wear my older brother’s clothes, which was tolerable when I was in grade school but totally un-cool as a teenager. I remember the fear of growing an extra inch or two over the summer, or putting on weight (back when that was a good thing). All my friends wanted to grow while I was fearful of getting as tall as my older brother because that only meant more HAND-ME-DOWNS!! Having to wear Hand-me-downs was so much worse than suffering through leftovers for supper 3 times a week. Leftover clothes –which someone else has worn before you? No way!
All these years later, I’ve learned to appreciate my parent’s position and to see those Hand-me-down’s not as a degrading thing…but as a blessing. And I can look back on those days and have a hearty laugh, although I still cringe when I look at old pictures of me in my brother’s clothes!
While suffering through having to wear someone else’s clothes is often an unfortunate reality of childhood, it is only a temporary problem. Outgrowing my brother solved the problem for me, as did growing older. There’s another hand-me-down however, that we cannot classify as merely “unfortunate;” one that is a menacing reality which has the potential to be anything but temporary: Original sin.
This greatest, most damaging, most communicable and eternal life-threatening of all “hand-me-down” diseases has been around since Adam and Eve. And it will be that way as long as there is human life. But it doesn’t have to be permanent. Jesus Christ saw to that when He gave up His life for us on the cross. He took a permanent, indelible stain on human life and erased it for those who believe; replaced it with redemption and eternal salvation for those who accept in FAITH (itself a gift of God) the promise of the Father.
But what about those who don’t know about God’s blessed gifts; those who still bear the permanent, indelible stain of Original Sin; those who wear only the hand-me-downs of a sin-filled life without hope?
Through our baptism we died to sin and were made alive again in Christ, overcoming the permanence of Original Sin, outgrowing the stain of sin, death and the devil as we received the blessed hand-me-downs of the Father in His Word, His Promise and the Holy Spirit. But what are we doing with these gifts? How do we “wear” these blessed hand-me-downs?
Peter, in his first letter to Christians in the Roman Empire sought to remind them of the fragile, perishable, Hand-me-down world of their past, a past that did not include Jesus Christ, and to restore them to an active faith of hope, trust and perseverance.
“You know,” Peter said, “That it was not with perishable things such as silver and gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers…”
We know it too. In our hearts we know it, but often in our actions we don’t SHOW what we KNOW! Some people keep their God-given Hand-me-downs hanging in the closet, only to be worn on Christmas or Easter. Some keep their gifts tucked away in their “life suitcase” stored in the attic or locked up inside of them, afraid to let others in on what they have been so blessed to receive. Some even treat their faith and other precious gifts of God as just more Hand-me-down burdens that they’re expected to wear rather than priceless gifts that that they just can’t help but share!
How often when we do act, do we act as though we Have to go to church or have to do what God wants out of fear for what He’ll do if we don’t; and not out of a passionate and personal commitment to demonstrate our love for Him and our praise and glory to Him? How often are we uncomfortable talking about our faith in public; too reserved to talk about Jesus outside the confines of our homes or the walls of this church? How often do we live in FEAR OF GOD instead of REVERENT FEAR FOR GOD?
It’s easy to slip back into bad habits. It’s easy to get complacent, to de-prioritize our faith to compensate for sinful pleasures. We fall into those life crevices when we think too much about ourselves, focus too much on the perishable things of this world and allow the fear and uncertainty of life to consume us to the exclusion of the gifts that were freely given to us, bought and paid for at so great a price. It’s easy to let these blessed hand-me-downs, which are the real and imperishable good things not OF this world but FOR this world to get us to His World, slip through the cracks in our life when we don’t exercise our faith; don’t actively participate in the joy of spreading His Gospel; don’t honor Him with our lives.
Peter said it so beautifully “These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.” God, our Father handed down His Only Son to us as an atoning sacrifice for us that we might glorify him, that we might embrace the salvation he secured for us, that we might not lose hope in life, but that we might see beyond this life and trust in Him once and for all, just as His Son died for us…once for all.
Jesus didn’t die on the cross so that we could keep our redeemed lives, our faith, our hope, our trust and confidence in him neatly packed away in our “Life suitcase,” stored in the attic with a note on the top; “Open only in case of life-threatening emergency.” And he certainly didn’t die so that we could go on sinning more and more.
No. Christ died so that we might live…and live godly lives where fear and sin are beaten back, held down and overcome by compassion, mercy, agape, joy, trust and an abiding sense of hope that rises above every obstacle, that closes all the life crevices into which we are prone to fall, and that opens up the way to eternal life.
“The Lord Jesus Christ gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father.” (Gal 1:4). That’s not me talking. That’s the Word of God speaking to you through the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Christians in Galatia. Written nearly 2000 years ago, what has changed? Have things gotten better? Has mankind learned anything?
We still live in a “Present Evil Age;” a time that is by all accounts getting increasingly darker. As Christians we often feel like strangers in our own world – disheartened, depressed, dismayed and disgusted at the genocide, inhumanity, immorality and alarmingly violent culture of life that prevails around us and in which we live, raise our families and worship our God. And it is abundantly clear that we should today, more than ever, cling to His Word, hang on to His Promise, hold steadfast and dearly to the truth that we were reminded of and joyfully trumpeted again two weeks ago in the celebration of Christ’s Resurrection.
More than that, it should serve to prove to us that the resurrection to eternal life is not only possible but attainable for us. That death: the fear of it, the preoccupation with it and the reality of it is not however (and does not have to be) PERMANENT -THE END OF LIFE – but the start of a new and eternal life.
Peter said it best: “Live your lives as strangers here in reverent fear.” Written to early Christians who were being tortured, persecuted and sometimes put to death for their faith, Peter’s letter was one of hope, of promise and assurance in the face of life’s trials. It was a loving and encouraging letter of challenge for them to set their hearts and lives NOT on present troubles, not on material, fleeting, temporary things; but on Him who was “chosen before the creation of the world,” and who was “revealed in these last times for your sake.” It was a letter of FAITH that called upon them (and us) to remain steadfast in the FAITH; a faith that is “sure of what we hope for and certain of what we can not see.” (Heb 11-1)
So it remains for us 2000 years later. We are called to faith in a certain hope of that which we cannot see, and in one whom we know only from a distance. Christ came into this world so that you and I would never have to worry about an “empty life” with only a single beginning and end in sin. He wants you to close that “distance” between Him and you.
He came to show us the way, to lighten our sinful burdens and to replace them with Hand-me-downs that we don’t dread wearing but in which we seek to drape ourselves and to humbly wear throughout our Christian lives. He only asks us to follow Him, tell others about Him and to love Him back the way He loves us.
“Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy,” Peter wrote. Does that fit you?
Is your “inexpressible and glorious joy” neatly packed away in your “life suitcase?” As we go through the coming weeks I want each of you to examine your own spiritual suitcase. How is it packed? What’s in it? How much does it weigh? Where is it located? When was the last time you carried it? We’ll open them up (and our hearts as well), unpack them, unclutter them and replace them with the only burden worth carrying and the only Hand-me-down worth wearing. Amen.
