Resurrection: A Living Hope

“It’s no use. All hope is lost. I’m a hopeless mess. God can’t love me. How could He? After all the times I’ve screwed up; all the times I’ve let Him down. I’m so ashamed of myself. How could God possibly love or forgive me? It’s hopeless.”
Have you ever felt that way? I know I have. And Peter also struggled with that feeling of hopelessness. For Peter had denied Jesus; denied being a follower of his Rabbi. He denied ever even having met Jesus, and not just once, but three times.
As PJ told us, denying your Rabbi was practically unheard of. The relationship between a Rabbi and his disciples was stronger than the relationships within one’s own family. To make matters worse, the one Peter denied wasn’t just another Rabbi. Jesus was the Messiah. Jesus was (and is) the Son of God. And Peter knew it! Peter denied—effectively rejected—Jesus Christ, the Son of God, God incarnate.
So we can imagine the hopelessness Peter felt as Jesus was falsely accused, convicted, sentenced, and eventually crucified. It was all over. Jesus was gone. He was dead, along with all of Peter’s hopes and dreams of overthrowing the Romans and establishing the Messianic kingdom.
But then, when we turn to I Peter 1:3, we read of a new hope, a living hope, that Peter had. And we might ask, “What’s this? Peter? Hope? Really?” Other than Judas’ betrayal, Peter had committed the ultimate sin. In fact, Matthew 26:74 tells us that Peter cursed and used foul language as he shrieked, “I don’t know that man! I’ve never met Him before in my life!” (My paraphrase). So how can Peter now talk about hope?
Peter answers this question in the very same verse by saying that we have been “born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” Jesus’ Resurrection gives us hope: The hope of a new day. The hope of a new beginning. The hope of forgiveness from God. The hope of a relationship with Him.
Last week’s sermon was titled, “Afflicted: Why Did Jesus Have to Suffer and Die?” This week’s message was, “Resurrection: A Living Hope.” But PJ could have just as easily entitled it, “Why Did Jesus Have to Rise From the Dead?”
In his sermon, John did not ask this question, but he did answer it. Jesus’ had to rise from the dead because you can’t have a relationship with a dead man. What point would there be in Jesus dying to bring us into relationship with Himself if His death was the end of the story? That relationship He died for would be nonexistent, and His death would have been meaningless.
Also, Jesus had to rise from the dead because He loves us. In this week’s sermon, Pastor John opened my eyes to a new way of looking at the Resurrection. Consider this: Romans 5:8 says, “God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” I John 4:10 says, “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”
Because of verses like these, we closely associate God’s love with the death of Jesus, and we should. But PJ told us that Jesus not only loved us enough to die for us. He loved us enough to come back from the dead, so He could engage us in the relationship that He died to make possible.
Many of us like to say that Christianity is not a religion. It is a relationship. And herein is the difference between Christianity and other major religions in the world: Buddha is dead. Mohammed is dead. Joseph Smith, Mary Baker Eddy, Caesar, Pharaoh—all the so-called great religious leaders of the world, who are worshipped by their followers, are dead.
But Jesus Christ comes to us and says, “I was dead, and now I am alive forever and ever!” (Rev. 1:18). This is why we worship Jesus. For what good is it to worship a dead man? A dead man can’t save you. A dead man can’t forgive you. A dead man can’t give you the eternal life, hope, and comfort Jesus gives.
We could also say that Jesus had to rise from the dead in order to prove that His death accomplished its intended purpose. As we learned last week, He died as our substitute, as the sacrifice for our sins. But how would we know the sacrifice He offered was accepted by God if He had not risen from the dead? We know His death atoned for our sins because He came back from the dead.
And what about Peter, who had denied ever knowing Jesus? On the day of the Resurrection, an angel told the women who had gone to the tomb, “Go, tell His disciples and Peter that He is going before you to Galilee” (Mark 16:7). Peter was mentioned by name. The Lord specifically wanted Peter to know that He was risen, and that not even Peter’s denials could negate His love for him.
Fifty days later, Peter preached the first sermon of the Church. Over the course of the rest of his life, he lived up to his name, Cephas, meaning, “a rock.” He became a rock, preaching the gospel and refusing to ever deny his Lord again, even at the cost of being crucified upside down.
No wonder Peter wrote about “a living hope.” No wonder the story of the death and resurrection of Jesus is called the gospel; the good news.

QUESTIONS FOR STUDY AND APPLICATION

1. Do you ever feel hopeless? What causes you to experience such feelings?


2. What aspects of Peter’s story do you most identify with?


3. Judas, after betraying Jesus, felt remorse, and hanged himself. Peter felt remorse after denying Christ. But after the Resurrection, he was restored. What is the difference between Judas and Peter, and what lessons can we learn from this difference?



4. How does the Resurrection provide hope in the areas of life you struggle with the most?