Gird Up Your Mind: A Meditation on 1st Peter 1, for the 3rd Sunday in Easter

Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end

for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ;

As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts

 in your ignorance:  But as he which hath called you is holy,

so be ye holy in all manner of conversation;

Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.

 

 And if ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth

according to every man's work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear:

Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things,

as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers;

 But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:

Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world,

but was manifest in these last times for you,

Who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead,

and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God.

Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit

unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently:

 Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible,

by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.

 

For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass.

The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away:

But the word of the Lord endureth for ever.

And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.

 

The epistle readings this week and last splits 1^st Peter 1 into two sections, which are best understood when read together.  St. Peter addressed his fellow Christians by appealing to the common faith, grace, forgiveness, and life they had received in the same resurrected Jesus Christ.  It was not a peculiar or mysterious faith for the Apostles and something general or watered down for the rest, but one Gospel which enlivened all who would hear it, believe it, and live by it.  Unlike an abstract philosophical consideration, or a fanciful mythology of Olympian gods woven out into moralistic tales, the Gospel of Jesus Christ was to St. Peter the power of God to transform and give new life to everyone who would receive it, and he knew this was true because he saw the Risen Christ transformed from death to life on Easter day.  This wasn’t a moldering Socrates who could not rise from his hemlock cocktail to continue witty banter with the ignorant, nor a Caesar self-proclaimed god who could not rise from the stab wound of a traitor to resume his Roman throne, but the actual Author of Life whom death could not hold down in hades.  Unlike every other material thing in the universe which will fade or burn away, the Incarnate Word of the Lord endures forever, gathering into Himself by grace through faith all who would abide in Him.  This Gospel Word is one of power and action, able to create what it declares, and to give life to all who trust in it.

 

Such power and transformation has real consequences in a real world.  The Word of Jesus’ forgiveness, life, and salvation quickens dead hearts to beat again, restored to harmony with their Creator; it opens blind eyes to see what had previously been hidden by self-idolatry; it opens deaf ears to hear the music of the spheres in nature which testify to their Maker, and the testimony of those whom the Maker has sent to speak unto dead and dying men; it invigorates minds to perceive the righteousness of divine law, the riches of divine grace, and the unavoidable choice each soul must make between which of those two standards will judge him.  It is in this context that St. Peter encouraged his readers to gird up their minds for action, to be sober and temperate in disposition, to place their full hope in the Risen Christ whose resurrection will be made manifest in them on the Last Day, and to strive each day for the holiness which reflects the holiness of God.  This is what St. Peter meant when he directed us to conduct our lives here on earth in reverent fear, knowing that it is not we who save ourselves, but God alone who seeks and saves the lost.  We are not called to follow cunning fables or cleverly composed myths, but the Risen and Returning Christ who abides with all who trust in Him.

 

Of course, it is the curse of fallen man to fixate on the wrong things, and to covet that which kills him.  Each soul is given its brief time to sojourn here below, and then an eternity either in the joyous fellowship or horrifying judgment of their Maker.  Like grass which grows today and dies tomorrow, or flowers which arise in spring and disappear before the summer heat, human life in the world is like a fleeting moment compared with our eternal destiny.  We were not made to live only in this time, to span a few days or years or decades, but to live forever.  It is easy to get lost in the minutia of a day, in the struggles of family and livelihood, in search of toys or pleasure or revelry.  But in reality, each of our days in this world is given to live in the grace of our God and Savior, to reflect Him into the world around us, and to carry His life-giving Word to every soul we meet.  Like a soldier on deployment to the front of a war, who knows his time of service is limited, the Christian is called to do their duty according to their vocation each and every day—to discipline their minds for action, to train their hands for work, and to condition their bodies for sacrificial labors.  Each soldier on the front leans on the faithfulness of their fellow soldiers, their conviction and their zeal, maintaining the war effort together as they press forward toward the victory the Captain has promised.  Except this war is not about the slaughter of enemies, the conquest of land, the enrichment of contractors or the pride of politicians, but the rescue of souls from the crippling delusions and slavery imposed upon them by demonic hordes.  It is a war the Church has been empowered to conduct since the Word of God first came to men for their salvation, and it is a mighty host into which every Christian is enlisted to serve.

 

And as good soldiers of our Lord of Hosts, it does not become us to be infatuated with the deceptive baubles that blind the eyes of those we’re sent to rescue.  Our minds, if they are to be made ready for faithful action, must be made so by the Word and Spirit of the Living God.  Since our minds are still fallen in this world and inclined toward the evils we abhor, that Word must be poured out upon our intellect over and over again to beat back the evil inside us.  And thanks be to God, that He has given us His Word so freely with the power of His Holy Spirit, to do for our minds what we could not do for ourselves.  No program or system of our own devising can shape our minds like the Word of God, because only the Incarnate Word brings eternal life.  Jesus alone is the Author of the Scriptures because He is the Word to whom every Prophet and Apostle points, and He is in Himself the fulfillment of every prophesy and promise they make.  By His Incarnation, by His Cross and Passion, by His Resurrection and Ascension, and by His Return on the Last Day, it is Jesus alone who is the LOGOS of God which enlivens, transforms, and prepares for service each mind which trusts in Him.  Only by His Word can our minds be girded up for lives of service and good works, as only by His Word can we be made holy as He is holy.  It is the Word of God which conforms our mind to His mind, that our whole life of body and soul might be conformed to His good and gracious will.

 

Be of good courage, dear Christian, for He has not left us orphaned.  To us is given His Word of Law and Gospel that we might be transformed as He is, that our hope might fully rest on the revelation of Jesus Christ in our resurrection on the Last Day.  Though our sojourn here may be short, our life is secure in Him forever, because the Word of the Lord endures forever.  Let the grass and the flowers come and go, along with all the shiny things which vie for our attention, and be girded up in your mind for action by the grace and forgiveness the Risen Jesus speaks to you.  For today you are called, and today you are chosen, to carry that life-giving Word to every blind, deaf, and enslaved soul you have been ordained to meet, that they might live forever by grace through faith in Christ alone, just as you do.  Soli Deo Gloria!  Amen.