https://youtu.be/W60DPQeL6lM
3 Easter Year A 4/19/2026
Acts 2:14a, 36-41; Psalm 116:1-3, 10-17; 1 Peter 1:17-23; Luke 24:13-35
Rev. Mark A. Lafler
As we continue our walk through the book of 1 Peter…
This first letter attributed to St. Peter…
The occasion of the letter…
The context surrounding the letter is suffering…
Particularly around Christian persecution.
It is a common theme in many of the New Testament books that come after the four Gospels.
Christian persecution is also very common around the world today…
In places like Nigeria, China, and in most Muslim controlled countries.
In our North American context, we do not have daily examples of persecution regarding Christianity.
There may be hardships…
There may be biases and difficulties with ideologies.
But actual physical Christian persecution is pretty rare.
However, we do know what suffering is in this world.
The suffering we experience in life regarding mistreatment…
the agony and sorrow we face through disease and tragedies…
seeing the ones we love go through pain and difficulty…
Yeah, we know what suffering is.
The heartache, the grief, the emotional and physical pain.
In fact, it is hard going through the difficulties of our world and to not ask…
Where is God in this?
Why did God let this happen?
Or just simply…
Why God, why?
If you live long enough, those questions come.
And the temptation is to be mad at God for what has happened…
To blame God for the mistreatment, the pain, the suffering of what we are experiencing.
The emotion is real…
The pain is intense…
And it must be channeled somewhere.
And, I believe, the place to channel that pain and emotion is toward the curse of sin.
All of the hardships, mistreatments, and suffering derive from the sins of humanity.
My sin causes pain and hurts…
My sin does more than just impact my life…
My selfishness and pride brings pain and suffering…
It impacts others…
And it has been that way since the fall of humankind.
Sin causes suffering and death.
And St. Peter in our second reading today is talking about what God has done concerning this problem of sin.
He writes to us describing this sinful problem like this:
…the futile ways inherited from your ancestors…
You see, sin begets sin.
And the sin problem continues in this world.
The late Charles Colson describes an interview on television, where Mike Wallace was speaking with Yehiel Dinur, a concentration camp survivor who testified against Adolf Eichmann at the Nuremberg trials.
Wallace showed a film clip from the 1961 trial of this Nazi architect of the Holocaust.
Colson describes the scene as Dinur walked into the courtroom to come face to face with the man who had sent him to Auschwitz eighteen years earlier.
Dinur began to sob uncontrollably, then fainted, collapsing in a heap on the floor as the presiding judicial officer pounded his gavel for order in the crowded courtroom.
Was Dinur overcome by hatred? Fear? Horrid memories?
No; it was none of these.
Rather, as Dinur explained to Wallace, all at once he realized Eichmann was not the godlike army officer who had sent so many to their deaths.
This Eichmann was an ordinary man.
Dinur said:
I was afraid about myself…
I saw that I am capable to do this.
I am exactly like him. [1]
What a powerful reminder of the problem of sin in our own life.
Scholar Edmund Clowney writes:
It is the reality of sin in the heart of everyone that patterns the evil and oppression in the world. [2]
And we can’t overcome this problem on our own.
We need help.
St. Peter describes this help in our Lord Jesus…
He writes:
You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold,
but with the precious blood of Christ,
like that of a lamb without defect or blemish.
He was destined before the foundation of the world,
but was revealed at the end of the ages for your sake.
Jesus took our place on the cross…
He stretched out his arms upon the cross, and offered himself,
in obedience to God’s will,
Jesus is the perfect sacrifice for the whole world.
(BCP, 362)
He shed his precious blood for us…
The fulfillment of the sacrificial lamb of the Old Testament…
He gave his life for our sake.
Jesus didn’t say: My God, My God, why have you forsaken me for no reason!
He took on the sins of the world and experienced the suffering it brings.
He took on sin and suffering…
In order to save us from it…
And the proof is in what happened three days after he died.
He rose again.
This is what we celebrate every Sunday…
The whole point of Eastertide…
Jesus Christ rose from the grave.
St. Peter writes:
Through Jesus you have come to trust in God,
who raised him from the dead and gave him glory,
so that your faith and hope are set on God.
Our faith, our trust, our hope are set on God through Jesus Christ.
And its because of the sacrifice of Jesus…
Because he rose from the dead…
That we can live in this world…
In a world of suffering…
Not to minimize suffering…
Not to say – just look past the suffering in our life or in this world…
But to say – suffering and death do not have the final word.
I love what Lutheran Pastor Bob Hiller says:
As we deal with chronic pain,
The suffering of loneliness,
When our bodies feel like they are betraying us,
When we work through the aches and pains of this life,
The resurrection is the way that says God is actually going to do something about this.
Our state right now is not what is going to be forever…
Our suffering is not meaningless,
There is going to be a fixing of all this. [3]
The promise we have in Christ Jesus…
Is the proclamation we have in the book of Revelation…
Chapter 21…
Where it describes the throne room of God…
Saying:
God will wipe every tear from their eyes.
There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain,
for the old order of things has passed away.
And then
He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!”
God cares about our suffering…
And what does he do about it?
He doesn’t let it go on forever…
He sent his Son, the God-Man, Jesus Christ to fix the problem of sin, suffering, and death…
And He will make everything new.
In the words of our bishop, Justin Holcomb:
Suffering, death, and anxiety are real common parts of everyone’s story, but the resurrection says if you’re in Christ,
(those are real, just like death is real).
It’s not the last words on your story, so you don’t have to deny it,
But it also doesn’t have the last word because something else does… [4]
I want to finish with an excerpt from one of the most meaningful books in my own life…
It is called The Magician’s Nephew written by C. S. Lewis…
Lewis lost his own mother when he was nine years old.
In the story the young boy, Digory, had a mother who was very ill and probably going to die.
This was on his mind as he spoke with the lion named Aslan, who is a Christ-like figure.
Here is the exchange:
“…are you ready?” Said the Lion.
“Yes,” said Digory.
He had had for a second some wild idea of saying “I’ll try to help you if you’ll promise to help my Mother,” but he realized in time that the Lion was not at all the sort of person one could try to make bargains with.
But when he had said “Yes,” he thought of his Mother, and he thought of the great hopes he had had, and how they were all dying away,
and a lump cam in his throat and tears in his eyes, and he blurted out:
“But please, please – won’t you – can’t you give me something that will cure Mother?”
Up till then he had been looking at the Lion’s great feet and the huge claws on them; now, in his despair, he looked up at its face.
What he saw surprised him as much as anything in his whole life.
For the tawny face was bent down near his own and
(wonder of wonders) great shining tears stood in the Lion’s eyes.
They were such big, bright tears compared with Digory’s own
that for a moment he felt as if the Lion must really be sorrier about his Mother than he was himself. [5]
That story has a way of helping us understand how God feels about our suffering…
And that is why he sent Jesus…
And this is what the resurrection means.
As the prayer from our Prayer Book says:
…let the whole world see and know
that things which were cast down are being raised up,
and things which had grown old are being made new,
and that all things are being brought to their perfection
by him through whom all things were made,
…Jesus Christ our Lord… (BCP, 280)
Amen.
[1] Story is from Edmund Clowney, The Message of 1 Peter, Revised Edition (Downers Grove: IVP, 2021), 46-47.
[2] Clowney, 47.
[3] Paraphrased from the White Horse Inn Podcast, Answering the Most Common Criticisms of the Cross and Resurrection, April 5, 2026.
[4] From White Horse Inn Podcast, Answering the Most Common Criticisms of the Cross and Resurrection, April 5, 2026.
[5] C. S. Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew (New York: HarperCollins, 1955, 1983), 153-154.
