Easter 3
1 Peter 1:17-23

Dear friends in Christ,

If you were here last Sunday, you will recall that the focus of my message was on confidence. We are living in a time where people have very little confidence in their lives or in the future. The consumer confidence level fell to a five year low in March, and the consumer expectation index, which measures the outlook for the future, is at a 35 year low. Not since the days of the Arab oil embargo and Watergate have people felt so uncertain about the future.

Last week I said gas had moved to $3.15/gallon locally, and now it’s at $3.29. Another airline, ATA, shut down and went into bankruptcy, caught by the high fuel costs and decline in travel. In addition to the economy there are political issues, especially the war in Iraq, that bring discouragement, not to mention the local issues we hear about around here. I heard this week of a New York Times poll again confirming our lack of confidence, indicating 81% of Americans are feeling the country is moving in the wrong direction.

The message of last week’s sermon was that although all of this is very real, we, of all people, who believe the good news of Christ’s resurrection, ought live our lives with confidence. Although Peter and the other disciples at times lacked confidence in God and God’s plan, all of that changed with the resurrection. Peter in the book of Acts and in the letters he wrote that are part of the New Testament, speaks with confidence and boldness about God’s presence in his life and the world.

Well, this is such an important message for us in these discouraging times, that I decided to follow up the theme with a sequel. Again today we hear from Peter in both Acts and 1 Peter, and again his confidence shines through. So let’s call this message, “Confidence Continued,” and I want to focus more on how Peter says we receive this resurrection confidence in our lives.

My main focus today is going to be on the very last verse of the second lesson, 1 Peter 1:23. It is here we find Peter’s understanding of what I’m calling “resurrection confidence.” Here he tells us how we can receive this confidence. Here we read that he boldly says believers have been “born anew.” I wonder if Peter was aware of the conversation Jesus had with a Pharisee named Ni¬codemus, a story recorded in the third chapter of John’s Gospel. In that conversation Jesus told Nicodemus that if he wanted to see the Kingdom of God he would need to be born again. “How can an old man come out of the womb again?” he asked. And Jesus told him that it was spiritual rebirth he was referring to. This re-birth begins in this life and continues to eternal life when the flesh dies.

It is the Holy Spirit, working through the words and witness of others, that brings about this spiritual re-birth in a person’s life. It certainly happened for Peter and the other disciples. On Good Friday they were lost. After seeing and hearing of the resurrection, they were found again. They received the Holy Spirit. They went forward with their lives with full confidence in God’s presence. I know God continues to this day to work the miracle of spiritual re-birth in people’s lives. Sometimes people can point to a very specific time that they remember God entering their lives in a special way. Sometimes it’s a more gradual process. Either way, God brings about a spiritual re-birth, the gift of faith, and that then becomes the key guiding principle in a person’s life. Spiritual re-birth brings about the resurrection confidence Peter shows in his words and actions.

Peter then goes on to give a picture of what occurs in this new life, when one is born anew. The image is a seed. He says we have been born anew “not of perishable but imperishable seed.” Now I don’t know about you, but I’m glad spring is finally pushing winter aside. Some of you are gardeners, and you are already thinking about what seeds to plant, what vegetables and flowers you’d like to grow this year. You can’t wait to run your hands through the warm soil and begin planting.

I’m looking at my lawn. It’s a mess right now, and it’s going to take some work to make it look decent again. There’s picking up after the dog, gathering up all the sticks from the branches that fell over winter, and then raking. Another thing I’m planning to do is fertilizing the lawn with a fertilizer that has a pre-emergent crabgrass killer. What this does is kill the thousands of tiny crabgrass seeds lying in my lawn waiting to germinate when the soil temperature warms up. I don’t know if it’s a particularly “green” thing to be doing, but it does stop the crabgrass from taking over by killing the seeds.

Peter tells us that all who are born anew are planted with an “imperishable” seed. It’s not something that can be killed or will later die off. What a promise that is. God, through the Spirit, plants this seed in us and it is imperishable. That should fill us all with confidence. Even though things are really tough right now in many ways, we have an imperishable seed growing in us, a gift from God.

And this imperishable seed of faith really is a gift. It grows because God makes it grow. Spiritual growth in our lives is not intended to be a burden, something we have to work at or strive for.

Think about those seeds you’ll be planting in your garden. You can provide good soil. You can provide nutrients. You can provide water. But the seed does the growing. It doesn’t strive to become a carrot or a cucumber or a green bean. It grows into what it is intended to be.
So it is with our spiritual lives. We don’t make ourselves grow in Christ. It happens when we yield our lives to the transforming power of the Holy Spirit. It isn’t up to our effort any more than a cucumber seed struggles to become a cucumber vine. Far too often Christians have taken the Good News of God’s grace and turned it into the bad news of human effort. We turn Christianity into a self-improvement program.

But that is not the promise of the Gospel. The Good News is that we are saved by grace and it is by grace that we grow into the likeness of Christ. Our job is to yield to the power of God; it is the Holy Spirit’s job to transform. Yes, we should provide a good growing environment. The seed within us needs nutrients and water. That’s why we worship. That’s why we receive the Lord’s Supper regularly. That’s why we pray, study, and serve. But it is God that finally provides the growth. It’s not a striving after some ideal spiritual life. It is rather living with confidence that the imperishable seed provided by God is growing within us.

There’s another hopeful thought that come from this seed image, that should give us confidence. This seed image implies that God is not done with us. A seed is a beginning and not an end. A cucumber seed is not a cucumber vine. But given the chance, God has placed within this tiny seed the power to become a fruit-bearing vine. In fact, it has no other choice. It can’t become a grape vine. It can’t become a rose bush. A cucumber seed becomes a cucumber vine, period!

Think about what that means for those of us who are born anew in Christ. We are destined to grow into the very likeness of Jesus. Our life in Christ is a journey of becoming, of becoming day by day more like Christ. As surely as a cucumber seed will grow into a cucumber vine we, who have been born anew by the seed of Christ, will grow into the likeness of Christ. That should also give us confidence as we look ahead. Yes, times are tough. But the seed is still growing. The gardener is still working on the soil of our lives. Living by faith, having been born anew, we have every reason to hope.

Peter’s life was changed by the resurrection. He went from no confidence, denying three times ever knowing Jesus, to complete confidence, becoming the first apostle to stand and proclaim Christ is Jerusalem. And did his confidence make a difference? You bet it did. We see this at the end of his sermon in Acts, the last verse of the first lesson today. This is what is written. “So those who welcomed his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand persons were added.” Three thousand people responded to Peter’s confident proclamation of the resurrection. It’s amazing what a little confidence, and the power of the Holy Spirit, can do.

We are all called to continue on with this work of confidently proclaiming the good news, to be evangelical in our world. It’s not easy in these discouraging times. Recently, the Presiding Bishop of our denomination, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, wrote a letter to pastors about what it means to be evangelical, to be people that share the good news in today’s world. I’d like to close by quoting a portion of his letter, which speaks eloquently of the resurrection confidence of the gospel.

He writes, “The challenges of this moment in history can be discouraging, especially if we succumb to the great pressures on us. (Pastors and) Rostered leaders serving congregations are expected to attract and hold members in an increasingly competitive and consumer oriented religious market place. Many of you are serving congregations that have experienced significant losses, which can often lead to a nostalgic longing for an idealized past that depletes energies for ministry today… We can lose ourselves in discouragement when we view ministry as if it were all about us.

Rather than wondering anxiously “how are we doing?” by ourselves, I invite you, to take a fresh and confident look at where we are by asking the question out of your daily baptismal renewal: “What is God doing with and among us?”

On the cross, all of our self-absorbed attempts to “survive” or save ourselves were crucified. Through the gospel the Holy Spirit claims, gathers, and sends us into a new life as an evangelizing church for the sake of the world. The Holy Spirit is the source of the power, strength, and gifts as together we proclaim Christ and engage in God’s mission for the life of the world. In this mission we follow the way of the cross, losing our lives for Christ’s sake and the sake of the Gospel.” So this Easter season of resurrection, let us all take our Bishop’s words to heart. Let us not get absorbed with questions of survival, as if God’s church depends entirely on us. Rather, let us all be about confidently living and proclaiming the good news of the gospel and allowing the Holy Spirit to do the work. For this good news is a message of confidence and hope, so many are longing to hear. Amen