The Sauntering Pilgrim

For the Christian, being baptized is not like beginning a new year or a new calendar. It’s not about turning over a new leaf in life. It’s about starting a new life entirely, a life in which everything old has passed away and everything becomes an entirely new creation (2 Cor. 5:17)! Here’s a baptismal sermon from St. Peter to the early church (1 Pet. 1:3–4:11), in which Peter reminds us who we are and recalls us to the life we began at our own baptisms. [The text is adapted from Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of scripture, The Message.]

How fortunate we are to have the God we have! Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we’ve been given a brand-new life and have everything to live for, including a future in heaven – and the future starts now! God is keeping careful watch over us, and the day is coming when you’ll have it all – life healed and whole. So roll up your sleeves, put your mind in gear, be totally ready to receive the gift that’s yours. Let your life be shaped by God’s life, energetic and blazing with holiness.

Now that you’ve redirected your lives by following the truth, love one another as if your lives depended on it. Your new life is not like your old life. Your old birth came from a union of flesh; your new birth comes from your union with God’s living Word. Just think: a life conceived by God and born in you! You’ve had a taste of God. Now, drink deeply of God’s pure kindness, then you’ll grow up mature and whole in God. Welcome into your lives the Source of life itself, and give it the highest place of honor. Then present yourselves as living stones for building a spiritual sanctuary vibrant with life, in which you serve as holy priests offering up to God lives that are approved and blessed by Christ.

You’ve been chosen by God, chosen for the high calling of priestly work, chosen to be a holy people, God’s instruments to do God’s work and to speak God’s message, to tell others the night-and-day difference God made for you and can make for others. Once you were merely so many individuals; now you are the people of God. Once you lived life on your own; now you live in partnership with God.

Friends, the world you see around you is not your home, so don’t make yourselves cozy in it. Don’t indulge your ego at the expense of your soul. Live an exemplary life among your neighbors so that your actions will show them there’s another way to live, a life-giving way. As the scriptures say, “Whoever wants to embrace life and see the day fill up with good, here’s what you do: say nothing evil or hurtful; snub evil and cultivate good; run after peace for all you’re worth. God looks on all this with approval, listening and responding well to what you ask.”

If with heart and soul you’re doing good, do you think you can be stopped? Even if you suffer for it, you’re still better off. Through thick and thin, keep your hearts at attention, in adoration before Christ your Master. Be ready to speak up and tell anyone who asks why you’re living the way you are, and always with the utmost courtesy. Keep your conscience clear before God. It’s better to suffer for doing good, if that’s what God wants, than to be punished for doing bad. That’s what Christ did definitively: suffered because of others’ sins. He went through it all – was put to death and then made alive – to bring us to God.

Since Jesus went through everything you’re going through and more, learn to think like him. Think of your sufferings as a weaning from that old sinful habit of always expecting to get your own way. Then you’ll be able to live out your days free to pursue what God wants instead of being tyrannized by what you want.

You’ve already put in your time in the old way of life, without God at the center. Now it’s time to be done with it for good. Of course, your old friends won’t understand why you don’t join in with the old gang anymore. But you don’t have to give an account to them; they’re the ones who will have to give an account to God.

Listen to the Message. Take nothing for granted. Stay wide-awake in prayer. Most of all, love each other as if your life depended on it. Love makes up for practically anything. Be generous with the different things God gave you: if your gift is words, let them be God’s words; if your gift is help, let it be God’s hearty help. That way, God’s bright presence will be evident in everything through Jesus, and he’ll get the credit as the One mighty in everything.

Well, that’s the end of Peter’s baptismal sermon, but he added these words of encouragement. Friends, when life gets really difficult, don’t jump to the conclusion that God isn’t on the job. Instead, be glad that you are in the very thick of what Christ experienced. This is a spiritual refining process, with glory just around the corner. . . . So if you find life difficult because you’re doing what God said, take it in stride. Trust him. He knows what he’s doing, and he’ll keep on doing it. . . . I’ve written as urgently and accurately as I know how. This is God’s generous truth; embrace it with both arms!