Living According to the Gospel – What Does This Mean?

Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Grace, mercy and peace be unto you from God our Father and our Lord and Jesus Christ. Amen.

In St. Peter’s epistle, we hear about the precious, priceless gift, the inheritance of salvation. And that we are to endure through the sufferings that come our way, for by the sufferings that are placed upon us in, God tests our faith, refines and strengthens it. And Peter continues along those lines today in our reading.

The Epistle Lesson for the third Sunday of Easter in the three-year lectionary, series A, sets up in a chiastic structure hinging on the Resurrection of Jesus. Peter exhorts us first to serve the Lord with fear. This is a call to the first commandment. “You shall have no other gods. What does this mean? I should fear, love, and trust in God above all things.” This call to conduct ourselves in the fear of the Lord is good and right because we know what has taken place. We who have heard the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ have no excuse, as it were. We should lay hold of it and keep it precious. So, Peter rehearses the Gospel for us here again.

Notice, it is the Gospel that motivates true fear, love and trust in the blessed Trinity. It is the Gospel which motivates us and to actually do good works in love for our neighbors. Sure, the Law can scare us into submission and order, but it is only through the Gospel which we desire and willingly do what the Law of God commands. By the Gospel we see the Law as God’s will for his creatures. This is what is called the 3^rd use of the Law. In this use, the Law is seen as a guide for the way we are to live. And how does the Law become something that which we desire to do? Peter tells us, by knowing the Gospel. But not just knowing it but knowing it as it is preached. Knowing that the Gospel of Jesus is for you and then living in the truth of the Gospel.

Peter lays out his argument this way: “And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile (that is your earthly life and here comes the rationale for living this way), KNOWING that YOU were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver and or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.” Notice again, that you are to conduct yourselves in fear of the Lord because you have been ransomed. That is you have been redeemed.

You were born of perishable seed, says Peter a little later in the reading. Perishable means you have an expiration date. Because of the fall of Adam and Eve, our parents, we have been exposed to sin and death. We are now inclined to sin and do things which are against the will of the Lord. We are inclined to chase after other gods, and set them up as our idols. We are inclined to forget our neighbor and only care about ourselves. And we will die because the wages of sin is death. All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers and the flower falls. Human futility abounds. We are unable to stop sicknesses from ravaging our bodies. Oh we might think we have found a cure for one thing or another, and by God’s grace perhaps we have in some cases, but then something else comes. Crops fail. By the sweat of our brow we will eat our bread. Nothing comes easily, but we will toil in the earth to carve out our lives. We act violently against one another via words and actions. And at some point we too will wither and fade away, expire.

But Let us remember what Peter says, “you were ransomed by the blood of Jesus!” You know the full story for you have heard the Gospel preached to you. Do not forget it, for the Gospel preached for you is life giving. You were ransomed away from these futile ways! You have been brought of the ways of death and into the ways of life. You are set free! And this is again the gift which is far more precious than gold or silver. For if gold or silver could have been used to make our problem of sinfulness go away, what good would Jesus coming in the flesh be? But your salvation cost much more, and required an imperishable payment: the very physical body and blood of Jesus Christ, God in the flesh on the cross. Given as a ransom for you. What love the Lord has for us. Hear the words from a favorite hymn of mine 544. Oh love how deep, how broad how high, beyond all thought and fantasy, that God the Son of God should take our mortal form for mortal’s sake.

And at Easter Christ was raised from the dead. “True God He first from death has burst! (LSB 483, stanza 2)” Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! And his death is death’s undoing. Jesus’ death not like a grass withering and fading away. Instead it was the brilliant plan of salvation. Isaiah 53 says that the suffering servant Christ, who is our ransom, grew up like a young plant. He appeared weak in the eyes of the world and Satan yet it was by his death at the cross that death’s grips on all humanity came to an end. Since Christ was sinless, death had no claim on him, and likewise death has no claim on you who have been brought into the body of Christ Jesus through the waters of holy baptism. “And yours shall be like victory over death and grave.”

So you are set free, ransomed from the futile ways, ransomed from sin and death by the Lord Jesus Christ who came in flesh and blood to die and redeem you. And this gospel is what is preached to you. This Gospel is for you. That you live now a life of faith and hope in the holy Trinity, who has worked your salvation, loving God and neighbor.

No longer are you mere perishable seed, but have been born again by the living and abiding word of God that comes to you in the Sacrament of Holy Baptism. Oh sure our flesh is still broken and futile and will ultimately fail us and succumb to death in this life. But by the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ you have the imperishable seed planted within you. You are given the imperishable life won for you by Christ. And this life begins in the water and the word being poured over you, when you were made a temple of the holy Spirit, who took up residence within you and gave you new life. A new life that is obedient to the exhortation that Peter spoke at the beginning of our reading. By the Spirit, we actually desire and want to obey the commandments of God. We then do fear, love, and trust in God above all things and love our brothers and sisters as ourselves all because of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, who ransomed us from death and gave us life that is imperishable just as he is imperishable.

What comfort then that Christ Jesus through Peter gives to us this day! Christ’s blood sets us free from sin and death, and Christ’s resurrection and everlasting life is made ours by the preaching of this Gospel to us that we might live according to the Gospel of Christ now and always, trusting in God, who raised Christ from the dead, that we too will be raised to life everlasting and that we can even live this way now for the sake of our neighbors.

Alleluia! Christ is Risen! Alleluia!

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
St. Peter’s Lutheran Church
La Grange, MO