1 Peter 1:3-4 – Hope is in Bloom
Let’s read our passage for today, 1 Peter 1:3-4, paying close attention to the idea of life in v3.
As I was preparing for this message last week, I was thinking about this Easter lily that I bought Michelle. We both love these flowers. They are really beautiful flowers when they are in full bloom.
But when I bought this, it had no flowers. It had the buds, but they weren’t opened at all. None of the four flowers was open when I bought it. But I bought it with the expectation that there would be flowers, that the buds would burst open, and that the plant would be in full bloom by Easter. You could say that I bought the plant in hope that it would become more than what I actually saw with my 2 physical eyes.
You see, my hope that it would bloom into something beautiful came not from what I could see. Yes, I saw others that had bloomed, but I wanted a plant that would last a little longer, so I bypassed those ones. I looked for one that carried the hope that the best was yet to come.
The idea of hope sustains us. It does a lot more than decide which lily to buy at Easter time. Hope motivates us to keep going even when our 2 physical eyes cannot see anything better.
I like the story about a man who stopped to watch a Little League baseball game. He asked one of the youngsters what the score was. "We’re losing 18-0," was the answer.
"Well," said the man. "I must say you don’t look discouraged."
"Discouraged?" the boy said, puzzled. "Why should we be discouraged? We haven’t come to bat yet."
That’s hope. That’s believing that things will be better, even though how things look isn’t all that appealing. That’s believing that things will improve, and that the best hasn’t yet arrived.
Hope factors in deeply to the very 1st Resurrection Day. Let’s go back and set the scene. Jesus had been placed on the cross on Friday morning, had hung there slowly dying for about 6 hours, and died at about 3PM Friday afternoon. He was taken down off the cross and prepared for burial by 2 closet followers, men who had not up until then revealed any allegiance to Jesus – Joseph of Arimathea, and Nicodemus.
It was now early Sunday morning. Jesus’ female disciples – Mary the mother of James, Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Salome, and others – started to the tomb in the private garden before it was even sunrise. They went to anoint Jesus’ body with perfumes and spices. Although they saw from a distance Joseph of Arimathea taking Jesus’ body, maybe they didn’t know that Joseph himself prepared Jesus’ body. Or perhaps they wanted to do one last act of service themselves. Either way, they went to say goodbye to their loved leader.
They had a certain amount of hope at this point. Their hope was to do one last act of service. They just wanted to love their now-dead leader. It was all the hope they could muster. I think sometimes we get that way. We will try to make the best of a horrible situation. There isn’t much hope, but we will cling to whatever we can. We will do what we can with what we have, but it’s more of a grim view of things, without much hope in it at all.
But the problem with this is that it is still limited by what we can see and what we cannot see. After all, the women had a problem: who would move the stone? The stone blocking the entrance to the tomb weighed 2000 lbs. That would be a problem. Maybe they didn’t think about it too much. Maybe they hoped someone could be there to help them. Maybe they were just going to do as much as they could do, and do no more. At any rate, they were still only using their physical eyes. Their hope was still pretty small.
But when they got there, they found that the stone was already moved. Apparently they didn’t feel the earthquake, when an angel rolled back the stone. Well, the guards posted at the tomb sure felt it – and saw the angel too. The angel just plopped down on the stone, and the guards passed out because of fear and shock.
It’s interesting to notice that their problem was solved without their even seeing it done. And it was solved supernaturally. While they were putting their hope only in what they could see with their eyes, they didn’t see God moving in mighty ways to turn their misery into joy.
So, by the time the women got there, the grave was open and empty, and the guards were unconscious nearby. The women entered the tomb. Suddenly the angel appeared, along with another one, sitting where Jesus had been. They stood up and said, “Don’t be afraid or alarmed. I know you’re looking for Jesus, who was crucified. But why are you looking for the living among the dead? He is not here – He’s risen! Remember the words He spoke when He was with you in Galilee? He said He would be betrayed into the hands of sinful men and be crucified, but would rise again. Come and see where He was. Now, hurry – go tell His disciples, and especially Peter, that they will see Him in Galilee.”
So when the women showed up at the tomb, their only hope was to love their dead leader. But when they left the tomb that morning, their hope had changed. It was now better than they had imagined. Even if they didn’t really understand it all, they had the hope that their leader was not nearly as dead as they had thought. They had the hope that Jesus was risen from the dead and was not just in heaven – He was somewhere nearby, waiting to be seen. That is hope!
The women ran back to tell the other disciples. They came to check it out too, and everybody eventually trickled back to where they were staying, except Mary Magdalene. She was the first one to see Jesus. She was confused, of course – she didn’t really know whether to believe the angels with the good news. But Jesus appeared to her and stilled her fears and doubts. She was filled with hope.
There is an interesting story about Jesus appearing that afternoon to 2 disciples walking to a town called Emmaus. The Bible says they were downcast. They had heard the news about Jesus’ missing body, but the fact of Jesus’ resurrection was too much to grasp. And they used these words about Jesus, not knowing that it was Jesus who was talking to them: “He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel.”
We had hoped. We thought He would save us from the Romans, but He didn’t. We thought He would save us from the oppression of the religious leaders, but He didn’t. Our hopes were dashed when Jesus died. We had hoped that Jesus would give us political or religious freedom.
Well, it turns out, folks, that their hopes were set too small. If what they were looking for was political freedom, then their hopes certainly were dashed. If what they were looking for was freedom from tyrannical religious leaders, then their hopes were dashed. But Jesus’ resurrection provided something better than kings or governors or priests. His resurrection provided freedom on the inside. Freedom from doing what we don’t want to do. Freedom from others’ opinions. Freedom from having to please everyone else.
So Jesus’ resurrection provides us with more than we can imagine. Like with the women disciples, it provides more hope than useless acts of service to a God who doesn’t know what’s going on. Like with the Emmaus road disciples, it provides more hope than a good government. Jesus’ resurrection gives us more hope than we can see with our physical eyes. Jesus’ resurrection gives us more hope than we can imagine.
You see, God speaks to each of us about grabbing hold of a hope that is available for anyone who believes. Ephesians 4:4 says, “you were called to one hope when you were called.” That is, when God told you that believing in Him is worth the effort, He’s also worth hoping in, too. Belief that God knows what He’s doing fills us with hope.
But a lot of this is about not using our physical eyes. That’s why Paul prayed for the church at Ephesus, “that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you.” God has called you to hope, but it’s not something you can see with your physical eyes. It’s about asking God to show you what you cannot see.
How can you see what you cannot see? Well, for Mary Magdalene at the tomb and the Emmaus road disciples, it took Jesus to help them see. They didn’t realize at first that it was Jesus speaking to them. But each time, He opened their eyes and they saw Him and their sorrow turned to joy, and their despair turned to hope.
Maybe that’s what you need too. Maybe you need to ask Jesus to open your eyes. Maybe you’ve been focusing too much on the hard realities in front of you and not enough on the God of all hope, who can even bring life from death.
Colossians 1:23 tells us that the gospel holds out hope. If we believe the gospel, then we cannot possibly be hopeless. Jesus’ resurrection gives us hope that the grave is not the end. Death will not have the final say or the last word. We call it Good Friday, surprising to some. But the good part is that our sins are dealt with. And the good part about Sunday is that we have hope over the grave.
And another thing: Good Friday says that as believers we have died to our sins. Easter Sunday says that we are alive to God. We don’t have to be held captive to our sins and failures anymore. The problem is not with the gospel; the problem is that we haven’t opened our eyes to good news that God invented.
Jesus’ resurrection provides the hope that there are better days ahead. Even as hard as this life is, this life is not all there is. Whether the circumstances of our lives improve, Easter tells us that heaven has much better days. And even if circumstances never change, we can. Oh yes, we will be changed, and we can be changed. You do not have to be the same person as you are today. If you stay the same, it’s because you fail to live up to the hope that Jesus’ resurrection offers us all.
You see, it was hope that drove the disciples to believe – “could it be possible?” It’s like Michelle’s Easter lily, buying it with no open blossoms with the hope that it will be beautiful. It’s this same hope that can spur us on to keep following Him, even in the winters of our lives.
I think that’s why Passover, and thus Easter, is in the spring – it’s such a time of hope. Jesus’ resurrection gives us hope, like the first green grass of the year. Winter will not last. Spring will arrive. And Jesus’ resurrection can change your life if you let it.
Listen: It’s not too good to be true. It’s very good, and it is true. So no matter how dark your situation is, know that hope can bloom in your heart. Romans 15:13 says, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
