What Are You Hoping For?
First Sunday in Lent
Light of Christ Anglican Church
Rev. Michael J. Moffitt, February 18, 2024
SCRIPTURE 1 Peter 3:18–22
Today is the first Sunday in the season of Lent. So far in the seasons of the church we have come through Advent, Christmas and Epiphany. Lent is a 40-day season of prayer, fasting and almsgiving that began on Ash Wednesday and will end at sundown on Maundy Thursday which is March 21st this year.
For those who have been a part of a liturgical church you are most likely familiar with the traditions like the color of the altar coverings and the stoles worn by the clergy. During Lent the color will be purple. Purple is considered the color of humility, penance and wisdom that comes from inward discernment and reflection. It’s also the color of royalty.
The extreme differences between humility and wisdom express one of the great lessons of Lent. Christ as the servant-king becomes our example as we seek to reflect Him to the world. It should become the primary focus of the church and each of its members. This intense focus should prepare us to experience the wonder and joy of the resurrection of Jesus Christ on Easter morning.
Unfortunately, modern culture has sought to refocus our attention away from the resurrection of Christ and focus on a really big rabbit that brings children baskets full of chocolate, marshmallow chickens and a whole host of other prizes that literally have nothing to do with the risen Savior. Many churches in trying to find a middle ground with the culture offer Easter egg hunts for children. The goal is to find as many as possible because each one is filled with candy and other surprises.
The enemy has succeeded in blinding the minds and hearts of well-meaning people who have lost their focus on the most amazing and incredible gift imaginable. The reconciliation of sinful man with the God who is holy, holy, holy. This reconciling is found only through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
To leave that part out is not to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. There is no accommodating or middle ground as our epistle reading this morning reminds us.
1 Peter 3: 18,
“For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the Spirit.”
Now I bring this up because we are in the Season of Lent, which is described as the 40 days where we are to focus on Jesus’ journey to the cross, which began at his baptism. It should be the time when we focus on our sins and acknowledge that had it not been for sin Jesus would have had no reason to go to the cross.
As I have reflected on this I realized that most of us have been through this season many times, but—are we actually aware of what it means to focus on the cross and to use this season to allow God to deal with the sins that we have grown accustomed to?
Over the next six weeks we will be considering how we are to focus on the cross and deal with our sins, so that on Easter morning we will be prepared to renew our baptismal vows and to really celebrate the joy of the resurrection. I want us to be intentional in our journey to the cross so that we might find the power and the joy of the resurrection like never before.
This week our primary passage will be 1 Peter 3:18–22 but I want to begin with briefly explaining how our readings from Genesis 9:8–17 and Mark 1:9–15 serve as the backdrop and context for the Epistle reading. Let’s briefly look at Genesis 9:8–10; 13–15,
“Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, “Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the livestock, and every beast of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark; it is for every beast of the earth….. I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.”
It is important to remember that God usually does things in such a way that we can readily see his intention and/or his instruction about what he has done and what is tells us about what he is going to do.
God brought judgment upon the earth because men had become so evil that God was no longer willing to tolerate them. He did find one exception and that was Noah. You know the story, God told Noah to build an ark big enough for his family of eight and two of every animal upon the earth, plus some extra animals and anything else that served as food.
The most interesting part of the story is that up until this point there had never been a flood or rain because a mist would come up out of the earth to water the earth (Genesis 2:6). Despite this Genesis 6:27 records, “Noah did this, and did all that God commanded him.”
True to his word, God sent a flood upon the earth by causing it to rain for 40 days and 40 nights. Noah, his family, and the animals came through the waters in the safety of the ark and were saved. In our passage this morning God makes a covenant with Noah that he will never again destroy the earth by water, and he gave a visible symbol as a sign of this covenant. He places a bow in the cloud as a visible symbol of the covenant.
Some translations use the word “rainbow,” but that isn’t the word in Hebrew. The word is bow and it refers to an archer's bow which was a weapon of war. For instance, Psalm 18:13–14,
“The Lord also thundered in the heavens,
and the Most High uttered his voice,
hailstones and coals of fire.
And he sent out his arrows and scattered them;
he flashed forth lightnings and routed them.”
The Psalmist presents the Lord as an archer who takes his bow and sends lightning bolts as his arrows. Here in Genesis 9 the warrior's bow is hanging up pointing away from the earth, a sign of peace. The relaxed bow stretches from horizon to horizon reminding God of his covenant commitment. The transcendent God who has acquiesced to come down and deal with his creation, is deliberately choosing to reflect upon the beauty and color of the bow instead of the evil of humanity. It was God who took the initiative to make peace when he would have been justified in pointing out to Noah and his family what he had done in the flood as a warning against disobedience. Instead because Noah chose obedience to the command of God, he and his family were saved from the destruction of the flood and came safely through the water. They become the ones who entered into a covenant with God to continue the promises that God had first made with Adam.
The evidence that God had chosen the path of peace is certainly seen in the symbol of the rainbow, but it is most clearly seen in the coming of the Son of God to earth. In our gospel reading from Mark 1, Jesus begins the ministry that he had been born for.
Even though he had no reason to repent of sin he still submits himself to the waters of baptism as a means of declaring that he will be faithful to the will of His Father in Heaven. He would follow through with the plan for the reconciliation between God and man.
The Father's response to the Son’s obedience is to send the Holy Spirit to rest upon the Son and the Father declared publicly that Jesus is beloved and pleasing to Him. Immediately the Spirit drives Jesus into the wilderness to fast and be tempted by Satan for 40 days. During this time, he was helpless, vulnerable, and alone with the wild animals and without food or water. Mark records that the angels were there to minister to Jesus just like they had done for Israel during the Exodus from Egypt. God is always there for his people during times of temptation and testing. That is certainly a good thing to remember.
Jesus’ willingness to submit to the will of God through baptism and temptation prepared him to make the journey that would ultimately lead him to the cross, but he did not go alone. As he came up out of the water, the power of the Spirit came upon him and enabled him in his humanity to accomplish what the Father had sent him to do.
As we reflect upon the journey of Jesus throughout the gospels we always find that his focus was upon the will of the Father and the certainty of the cross. This model is to be ours as we commit to the journey of the cross during this season.
Like Jesus, our focus should be on the proclamation that he made to begin his ministry, “The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” This is to be our message too as we make our journey focusing on the cross and what it means to submit to the will of the Father.
Let’s now turn our focus to I Peter 3:18–22 and begin with verses 18–20,
“For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water.”
At our Ash Wednesday service, we briefly looked at 1 Corinthians 5:21
“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
This verse teaches us that Jesus didn’t just bear the weight of our sins but because of us he became sin itself: the righteous one, Jesus, suffering in place of the unrighteous, us.
This is the nature and the severity of the suffering that Jesus experienced on our behalf. It wasn’t merely the beatings, the thorns in his brow or the crucifixion itself but the fact that he became sin and therefore was so vile and repugnant to the Father that he looked away from the Son for the first time ever in all eternity. Jesus was completely alone—without the presence of his Father—which is and will be the very horror of Hell, a place where there is no merciful presence of God, only his judgment bringing despair and darkness.
Peter shows us that though Jesus was willing to suffer terribly and allow himself to be put to death in the flesh, his obedience on the cross caused him to come alive in the Spirit. It was in the Spirit that he went and proclaimed, like a herald, to the spirits in prison, who in the time of Noah had refused to listen and repent at Noah’s preaching to them that judgment was coming through the water.
Peter points out that God had patiently waited for them to repent as Genesis 6 indicates. From the time that God told Noah to build the ark until it was finished was 120 years, certainly time enough to turn from their wickedness.
Jesus, alive in the Spirit, preached a message of judgment and condemnation in light of his finished work on the cross to those who rejected God’s entreaty. The Bible doesn’t reveal what Jesus said to them, but I suspect he was announcing his triumph over evil, which was bad news for them but good news for Peter’s readers. While his body lay dead in the tomb, Jesus in the Spirit went into Hades and proclaimed victory over the enemy of God. Satan thought he had won at the cross, but he could not have been more mistaken. Let’s look at the final verses of 1 Peter 3 beginning at verse 20,
“…because they formerly did not obey, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.”
Peter is pointing his readers to an image that they could understand from the story of Noah and his family. In the same way that Noah’s obedience brought salvation from the judgment of God through the water, the Christian's salvation is seen through the water of baptism.
Some have wrongly assumed that this means that salvation comes through baptism, which is referred to as “Baptismal regeneration” but that is not true and is certainly not the point here. The water of the flood washed away the sin and wickedness and brought a new world with a fresh start before God. Peter taught that the water of baptism “corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ…”
Charles Spurgeon put it this way,
“Noah was not saved by the world’s being gradually reformed and restored to its primitive innocence, but a sentence of condemnation was pronounced, and death, burial, and resurrection ensued. Noah must go into the ark and become dead to the world; the floods must descend from heaven and rise upward from their secret fountains beneath the earth, the ark must be submerged with many waters — here was burial; and then after a time, Noah and his family must come out into a totally new world of resurrection life.”
Again, Jesus is our model here. He entered into the waters of baptism because he first chose obedience to the Father. It was through the water that Jesus was making a visible and public declaration that he would indeed follow the Father's will. When we follow this example of intentional obedience to the will of the Father then we enter the water of Baptism as a public proclamation that we intend to follow the will of God. We should expect the same result as Jesus experienced—the assurance of the Father’s delight, and the Holy Spirit descending upon us as a dove.
Baptism, being the sign and the symbol, points us to the reality of what we have done when we surrender to Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. Peter points this out by declaring that baptism reminds us that in Christ all things have been made new and there is now a clean conscience towards God for those who have come by faith to the waters of baptism.
Like Jesus, the Holy Spirit comes upon us and then goes with us into a life of temptation and trials. We are never alone and there is one last promise that Peter points to in verse 22,
“Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.”
Jesus’ work was complete, and he was exalted to the right hand of the Father. The result was that all angels, authorities, all powers and all created things were made subject to his power and will. Jesus went into Heaven, and though we long to see him face to face, it is better for us that he is there for now.
Again Spurgeon relates as to how the high priest, ministering for Israel on the Day of Atonement, disappeared from the people and went behind the veil,
“Though he was not with them, he was with God, which was better for them. The high priest was more useful to them within the veil than outside of it; he was doing for them out of sight what he could not accomplish in their view. I delight to think that my Lord is with the Father. Sometimes I cannot get to God, my access seems blocked by my infirmity; but he is always with God to plead for me.”
Just like with Noah and his family, it is God the Father, through Jesus Christ, who took the initiative to provide a way to peace with God though it came at a great cost. To reject the offer is to find ourselves in enmity with God, just as those that Jesus preached to in Hell found out. This season is the perfect time to come for the first time to Jesus Christ by faith in repentance of sins or to re-focus on the cross and the promises of it.
This leads us to the question of how we focus on the cross and deal with our sins on the Lenten journey. There are two things that I would like each of us to focus on daily during this season of Lent.
When Jesus came up out of the water of baptism, he both heard and experienced the delight of the Father and the anointing presence of the Holy Spirit. As you follow Jesus Christ are you experiencing the presence of God in your life? Are you seeking him through his word, through prayer and praise? If not, why not?
If we are to focus on the cross it’s imperative that we remember what the cross signified. To many today the cross signifies the Christian symbol of atonement, forgiveness of sin, grace and love, and that’s true, it does. The question is, in Matthew 10:38–39, (16:24, Luke 9:23) what Jesus meant by:
“And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”
This does not mean that those who follow Jesus must bear some burden that Jesus imposes on our lives. The cross was an instrument of death. What Jesus is referring to is commitment to Him, even unto death—obedience to the extreme measure and willingness to die in pursuit of obedience. Death on a cross was not pleasant. It was painful and humiliating. The implication is that even if obedience is painful and humiliating, we should be willing to endure it for Christ.
• Would you still follow Jesus if it meant losing your closest friends?
• Would you still follow Jesus if it meant alienation from your family?
• Would you still follow Jesus if it meant the loss of your reputation?
• Would you still follow Jesus if it meant losing your job?
• Would you still follow Jesus if it meant losing your life?
The Psalmist reminds us of this in Psalm 25:3–5,
Indeed, none who wait for you shall be put to shame;
they shall be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous.Make me to know your ways, O Lord;
teach me your paths.
Lead me in your truth and teach me,
for you are the God of my salvation;
for you I wait all the day long.
Let’s pray.
