Wednesday after Laetare + 1 Peter 4:1-19

In the Name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

“Christ suffered for us in the flesh.” This is mystery of the gospel. What’s so mysterious about it is that Christ consists of two natures, a human nature and a divine nature. It’s impossible for divinity to suffer. Suffering is the antithesis of divinity. So God the Son, the second person of the Holy Trinity, condescends and assumes human flesh. He doesn’t possess a man that already existed. Nor did He come only in the appearance of flesh, like a hologram man. He assumes human nature so that He might suffer and die. This means that we can call Christ’s suffering God’s suffering. Christ’s blood is God’s blood. Christ’s death is God’s death. All these happened according to the human nature in Christ, but that humanity is inseparably united to the divine nature. That’s what makes this suffering and death so mysterious. On Sunday we enter into Passiontide, the final two weeks of Lent and those final two weeks focus our thoughts precisely on this point: “Christ suffered for us in the flesh.”

He suffered for us specifically. Not because He had to but because He chose to do so. He suffered for us in the flesh so “that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit” (1 Peter 3:18). He “Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness -- by whose stripes you were healed” (1 Peter 2:24). He assumed human flesh to bear our sins, to be the atoning sacrifice for sins, so that by His bitter, innocent suffering and death He might be the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. He pays the price for all our sins. He endures God’s full wrath for each of our countless sins, making full satisfaction, so that all who believe in Him receive all the benefits He wins on the cross: the forgiveness of sins and the promise of everlasting life. St. Peter has all this in mind when he writes that “Christ suffered for us in the flesh.”

And that suffering in the flesh for us has ramification for all who believe. Your sins are forgiven because you believe the gospel. You are an heir of everlasting life because you trust Christ’s word. You are a new creation because you have been “born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever” (1 Peter 1:23). Because you have been born again through the word of God and faith, you are to arm yourselves with the same mind as Christ. “He should no longer live the rest of his time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God” (4:2). Since you have been united with Christ by faith and holy baptism, Peter exhorts you to put aside the sins which so easily entangle you, the fleshly lusts which war against your soul, and spend your days pursuing God’s will. He mentions “lewdness, lusts, drunkenness, revelries, drinking parties, and abominable idolatries” (4:3). These are all outward, public vices that everyone can see but the list is only an illustration of the fact that Christians are to put off all sins and pursue holiness instead. We’re to live, not for the will of our sinful flesh, but for the will of God. St. Paul tells us very clearly in 1 Thessalonians 4:3, “This is the will of God, your sanctification.” The world will think it strange that you don’t join in its ways. But they will give an account to Him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. The world flaunts their sinfulness, to the point where it invents new ways to sin. It flaunts its sin and revels in it because it doesn’t believe that Christ will come again. But we believe this. It is the Christian faith. We live between these two poles: Christ suffered for us in the flesh and Christ will return to judge the living and dead based on whether or not they believe that He suffered for their sins.

Peter even reminds us, “The end of all things is at hand.” It could come at any moment. Like a thief in the night. Like a bridegroom coming for His bride. No man knows the day and the hour, not even St. Peter. So He must say “the end of all things is at hand.” His words are just as true now as they were when He wrote them in the first century, for Christ our Lord’s last words in the New Testament were, “Surely I am coming quickly” (Revelation 22:20). It’s true that the world scoffs at this. It’s been nearly two thousand years and He has not yet returned. But Peter tells us in his second epistle not to think of Christ’s tarrying as slowness, but as mercy so that more men may repent and believe the Gospel and have their sins taken away, so that they can be ready to stand confidently before the judgment seat of Christ, righteous by faith and sins forgiven.

And because “the end of all things is at hand” Peter urges actions and a certain state of mind. “Therefore be serious and watching in your prayers.” It is so easy to grow lax in prayer. But we’re to fight the temptation to spiritual sloth and be serious, or sober, and watching in prayer. The Lord has commanded you to pray so it’s not optional for you. That’s one of three reasons why we pray, the second being His promise to hear, the third being our great need. Believing that Christ suffered for us in the flesh and that the end of all things is at hand, be sober-minded and watchful in your prayers, lest the Lord come and find you spiritually sleepy and complacent. He goes on, “Above all things have fervent love for one another, for ‘love will cover a multitude of sins.” This isn’t ignoring our neighbor’s willful sins against us. Christ commands us to confront our neighbor when they sin against us in Matthew 18. By “love will cover a multitude of sins” Peter means that part of our love for our neighbors is choosing to overlook their many faults and the unintentional slights against us. We do so because we love them and also because we know the Lord forgives our many faults and sins against Him of which we are unaware. He goes on. Those with gifts, use it to serve others. If anyone speaks, let him speak as if he’s speaking God’s word, meaning speak to one other truthfully and compassionately. If anyone serves, let him do according to his ability which God gives. We behave this way toward the brethren out of love, but also to the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The motivation for all this, and the suffering which Peter describes at the end of the chapter, comes from those two facts of the Christian faith: Christ suffered for us in the flesh; Christ will return to judge the living and the dead. Since He has died to free you from your sins, fight against them now. Since He died to destroy the devil’s hold over you, do not willfully present your mind or members to his service through sin. Since Christ suffered for you in the flesh, arm yourself with that mind and thought. In temptation, consider what Christ suffered in His flesh on account of your sins and this will dampen the fires of temptation. In suffering, especially in suffering for the faith, consider the sufferings of Christ and this will lighten your burden, for you have a Lord who suffered far greater things for you, lovingly and willfully. Since Christ will return to judge the living and dead by whether or not they believed His gospel during their lives, continually be believing that Gospel that Christ suffered for us in the flesh. This is the gospel. It is our focus during Lent. It is the Christians focus each day because by it we have the remission of all our sins, everlasting life, and freedom from sin, death, and the power of the devil. Christ suffered in the flesh for us. Let us give thanks to God our Father for that.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.