5 Easter Year A 5/3/2026
Acts 7:55-60; Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16; 1 Peter 2:2-10; John 14:1-14
Rev. Mark A. Lafler
This Eastertide we continue to focus on the First Epistle of St. Peter…
Our second reading today…
Just like last week, it is from the second chapter.
As we have noted throughout this sermon series…
The background or context of the letter references the persecution of the early church.
And St. Peter emphasizes the hope we have in Jesus…
And more specifically the hope that Christians have in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
This is the grace…
Through hope in Jesus Christ…
That meets us in the thin places of life…
Perhaps its persecution or difficulty related to our faith…
It is also in the sufferings of this life.
Family concerns, health difficulties, moral challenges…
Christ is there with us.
In our reading today, Peter brings hope and comfort to the church by reminding them who they are…
By defining and describing the people of God…
Even in the midst of suffering.
It is important in the valleys of life to remember who we are in Christ Jesus.
So, what does our reading say about who the church is?
Another way of asking is, “Who are we?”
Who are the people of God?”
St. Peter answers this question with metaphors…
Images that have deep meaning…
Rooted in the Old Testament.
He writes:
“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people…”
3 images of the church: chosen race… royal priesthood… holy nation… and 1 statement – God’s own people.
Peter selects these images because he is connecting the titles of Israel in the Old Testament with the New Testament church
(cf. Exodus 19:5-6; Isaiah 43:20-21).
Which is important…
Peter is showing an “unbroken connection to the ancient past.”
The faithfulness of God to the chosen people of Israel follows right through to the chosen people of the church.
The church, just as Israel, is the chosen people.
A continual thread in the Bible.
It’s not as though God chose Israel way back in Genesis and somewhere before the New Testament begins, God changes his mind and says,
“Scratch that… I’ll do something different… I’ll create the church.”
No. The people of God continue straight through the scriptures.
And Peter is making this very connection.
He begins with a royal priesthood.
The church is a priesthood serving the royalty of God
(cf. Revelation 1:6, 5:10, 20:6).
Where do we connect with this priestly language?
Well of course the Old Testament and the ancient priests of Israel.
Just as Christ Jesus fulfilled the priestly line…
So we are his priests in this world.
He writes that the church is a holy nation…
a nation who was set apart from all the other nations…
just like Israel in the Old Testament.
The church is a people owned by God.
Again, just as in the Old Testament where God calls Israel “my people” (i.e. Exodus 3:7, 6:7),
Peter describes the church as the possession of God…
God says to us that we are his.
And even though the images are important in this text…
In our culture…
the plural noun might be even more important to recognize.
All of the you(s)… Y-O-U are plural.
In the South, we might say “you all” are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation…
We should be careful (especially in North America) not to read a sense of individuality into the text.
Peter is emphasizing the royal priesthood is God’s people…
A people group…
It is communal language.
Scholar Edmund Clowney writes concerning this text:
The church is not just a religious association formed by saved individuals to give united expression to their faith.
… Church fellowship is not an optional advantage, to be chosen or ignored, like membership in a social club.
It is the calling of every Christian,
There is a spiritual ‘ethnicity’ to the church of Christ;
Christians are blood relatives, joined by the blood of Jesus Christ. [1]
We are joined together…
This “spiritual ethnicity” reaches back to the call of Abraham and goes forward through the contemporary church.
The church continues the people of God and expands God’s people… making the people of God available to all persons (Jew and Gentile) through the blood of Christ.
So, when persecution comes…
When difficulties of life emerge…
When the challenges of this world rise up…
The church is to gather together all the more…
The Church is the chosen people of God set a part to worship God…
To intercede together for the good of our world.
You see even in the midst of suffering we are called to be a people on a mission.
In fact, our reading points to this very mission…
Listen to the whole verse…
It says:
“…you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”
We are called to share, to proclaim, to declare, to announce the ministry of Jesus Christ…
The same Jesus Christ who transformed our life…
Like a night and day difference…
we once lived our life for ourselves…
Now we live our life for the one who saved us – Jesus Christ.
The one who gives us eternal life…
Through his cross…
And his glorious resurrection…
We are God’s possession…
we are servants of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And this is our mission in the world…
Even in personal dark times…
Even in the strange times of the world around us.
We are a chosen race, his royal priesthood, a holy nation…
God’s own people so that we can share the Good News of Jesus Christ.
And…
All of this…
All of this is made possible because of Jesus Christ.
And here we have another image.
Earlier in our reading from I Peter we heard:
…like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house,
to be a holy priesthood,
to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
For it stands in scripture:
See, I am laying in Zion a stone,
a cornerstone chosen and precious;
and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.
It’s the imagery of a building (a spiritual building) …
A temple…
and we are the stones being used to create the building – living stones.
And all the stones are being placed on the structure because of
the cornerstone of the building.
The cornerstone of a building is the most important aspect of the construction…
Everything is measured to perfection based on the placement of the cornerstone.
It is the priority!
The building will not fall down, or be off kilter, if the cornerstone is properly placed.
We still use this metaphor today…
We might say…
“The cornerstone of our democracy is the Bill of Rights”
Or
“The cornerstone of the baseball team is their pitching.”
Well… our scriptures point out that Jesus is the cornerstone…
the foundation of the church.
We are stones that have been chosen to be placed properly because Christ is the cornerstone.
All of this to say…
We belong together with Jesus.
We are the people of God.
We are called and chosen to be with Christ to form his people…
The church.
St. Peter was writing during the time Nero ruled the Roman Empire…
A horrible leader who persecuted Christians…
Who was an enemy of the church.
It was a time of suffering and hardship.
And yet Peter, inspired by the Holy Spirit, wrote to the people of God to remind them that they belong together.
We, the church, belong together.
You know, when we go through the tough times of life…
Periods of suffering…
Hardships…
One of the worst things we can do is isolate ourselves.
It’s often one of the things we want to do…
We are tempted to withdraw…
To hide…
To recoil…
But Peter points us to the reality that we are one family.
16th century English writer and poet as well as English priest,
John Donne wrote:
No man is an island, entire of itself;
every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.
We were made for Christ Jesus and for each other.
And we all play a part…
For those who are hurting…
Struggling…
May we who are well be present for them…
For those who are experiencing the challenges of life…
Let us not withdraw…
But may we be present with the people of God.
For this is our calling…
To be a people for God’s name.
The good news today is that we are the people of God by faith…
Worshipping God as royal priests… as the family of God.
Because God chose us before the foundation of the world…
For us to be together…
And not just here on earth…
But to be his people forever.
People of God…
Let us share this good news with the world around us.
Amen.
[1] Edmund Clowney, The Message of 1 Peter, Revised Edition, TBST (Downers Grove, IVP, 1988, 2021), 70.
