Empty Promises
1 Peter 1:3-9
“The world makes a lot of promises,” writes Christian recording artist Carolyn Arends. “Smoke and mirrors, mostly. Frantic, cartoonish attempts to distract us from the gaping holes in the middle of our souls (or to sell us the latest product in order to fill them). But there’s no life in those promises.”
She would go on to write, “A couple years ago, during a jubilant Easter service, our pastor said something that stopped me in my mental tracks: ‘The world offers promises full of emptiness. But Easter offers emptiness full of promise.’ Empty cross, empty tomb, empty grave-clothes … all full of promise.”[i]
“The world offers promises full of emptiness. But Easter offers emptiness full of promise.” St. Peter, the man who penned the words we are looking at this morning knew well the empty promises of this world. He and his brother Andrew were running a fishing business in the Galilean city of Capernaum along with their father. And in the impetuous, novelty-seeking, change-seeking style common among the people of Galilee, they dropped everything to follow the newest great teacher on the scene, a man from Nazareth named Jesus.
In their three years with Jesus they had heard the most powerful teaching they’d ever heard, and they had seen the most amazing displays of power they’d ever seen. They saw him multiply meager amounts of food until all present were satisfied and plenty was left over. They had seen him heal the sick and oppressed time and time again. They had even seen him show his power over nature by calming storms that caused them, seasoned sailors that they were, to tremble in fear.
Over time, they came to believe that this Jesus they were following just might be the Messiah they and their people had been waiting for. The one who would raise up a great army and lead them to victory over a long chain of oppressors once and for all. Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, with the masses chanting for him had their hearts pumping. Now the time had come! The rebellion would start in Jerusalem and spread over the entire eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Jesus was the Messiah, he was going to lead them to victory over the Romans, and they were going to be a part of it. Peter would be one of his generals for sure.
And then the bottom fell out. The rug got pulled out from under them, like it does for so many, maybe … for you and me. Ever feel like the rug has been pulled out from under you? Have you ever felt like you had things figured out … I mean the really big things, the really big questions? The questions philosophers call the existential questions. Have you ever thought that you had a real handle on questions like “Why am I here?” “What’s the purpose of life?” Or even things like “I know where my life is headed?” “I know what I am going to do, or supposed to do?”
Life is good. Everything is moving according to plan, And then he leaves. Or she leaves. Or you’re following a speeding ambulance to a hospital. Or you find a pink slip attached to your pay check. Or you’re driving to a section of town you’ve never been in to pull a child out of the gutter. Or you find the suicide note. Or you flunk out. And just like that, nothing at all makes sense. The answers you offered yesterday just don’t add up anymore. The promises of this world, of safety and security, of hope and a future, of lasting love, of health and wealth and long life, have come up empty.
That’s how Peter felt. He strode into Jerusalem right behind Jesus, head up, chest out, his direction sure. A week later he ran hiding, bloodied and beaten with his tail between his legs. The conversation would haunt him forever. “Even if all of these other folks fall away and leave you, I never will Jesus. You can count on me. I’m here until the bitter end. If anyone tries to hurt you, I’ll step in between you and the danger.” “I will lay down my life for you” (John 13:37). Jesus’ response had baffled him. “Will you lay down your life for me? Truly, truly, I say to you. The rooster will not crow till you have denied me three times.” Peter thought he had proved himself too. When they came for Jesus in Gethsemane, Peter had drawn the sword he carried, and he had drawn blood with it. This was it! This was the moment! The rebellion was starting! But instead of rising up to fight, Jesus knelt down, picked up the bloody stump of that man’s ear, and put it back in place, instantly healing him. Why didn’t a man with that kind of power, power obviously befitting the Messiah, rise up and fight? Why did he go along with them? Something didn’t add up. Jesus stopped the insurrection before it got started.
Then things went from bad to worse. He, the only one who declared his loyalty to Jesus above all else, had denied he even knew the man. And he did so three times in one night. As the rooster crowed Jesus turned and looked right at him. He had failed. He knew it. Jesus knew it. Things would never be the same, even if Jesus managed to get out of this one alive.
And then he watched as Jesus was crucified. The one he’d watched heal so many. The one he’d seen speak to a raging sea that became instantly calm. The one who had taught with such power, crucified like a common criminal. Killed by the very people he had come to help.
Peter didn’t have any answers anymore. He had only questions, and the knowledge in his heart that he had denied knowing his best friend in his darkest hour. The only thing Peter knew was that he didn’t know anything. That he had gotten something somewhere very wrong. A life that made sense just a few days before no longer had any rhyme or reason. Peter must have felt as bloodied and broken as the body of his friend hanging on that cross. This is the man, Peter, who is responsible for writing the words of hope we’re looking at today. The man who in fear had denied knowing his best friend three times would soon be crucified because he refused to stop talking about him. So what did Peter find in the emptiness of Christ’s tomb? Turn with me to 1 Peter 1:3-9.
First, he found hope. Look at Vv. 3-5. A living hope. In one really long sentence, Peter describes the amazing, indescribable power, majesty, and beauty of the salvation Christ purchased for us when he died on the cross and rose from the grave – the grace that transformed Peter’s life. These verses almost feel like they are tumbling out of his heart faster than his mind can process. It flows, but not as a trickle. These words come gushing out with a power that cannot be contained. There are explosive, and there is a reason for that, for they are describing the explosive, life-transforming power of the salvation and renewal we have in Christ. This salvation is so powerful, so amazing, so beautiful, so dramatic that it can be described as nothing less than a new birth. A second chance at life. Rebirth into a new life.
The city of Ann Arbor, Michigan, is home to one of the most fascinating museums on the planet. The facility run by GFK Custom Research goes under the informal name of the “Museum of Failed Products.” At first sight, the shelves and aisles look just like a supermarket – except there’s only one of each item. And you won’t find these items in a real supermarket anyway: they are failures, products withdrawn from sale after a few weeks or months, because almost nobody wanted to buy them.
This is consumer capitalism’s graveyard. It’s the only place on the planet where you’ll find Clairol’s A Touch of Yogurt shampoo a few feet from a now-empty bottle of Pepsi AM Breakfast Cola (born 1989; died 1990). The museum is home to discontinued brands of caffeinated beer; to TV dinners branded with the logo of the toothpaste manufacturer Colgate; to Fortune Snookies, a short-lived line of fortune cookies for dogs; to self-heating soup cans that had a tendency to explode in customers’ faces; and to packets of breath mints that had to be withdrawn from sale because they looked like tiny packages of crack cocaine. It is where microwaveable scrambled eggs – pre-scrambled and sold in a cardboard tube with a pop-up mechanism for easier consumption in the car – go to die.
If the museum has a central message, it’s that failure isn’t a rarity; it’s the norm. For every insanely successful product like the iPhone or the Big Mac there’s a whole host of ideas that only a mother could truly love. According to some estimates, the failure rate for new products is as high as 90 percent. Ever felt like one of those products? Not wanted. A mistake. Not usable. Not loveable.
Truth is, in the marketplace and in life, failure happens. It happens a lot. It happens to everyone. But the good news gushing out of Peter’s heart as these words are written is that we don’t have to be destined for the “Loser’s Shelf” like those failed products. Because Christ dealt with our sin, our faults, our mistakes through his death on the cross, we can experience a transformation that is nothing less than a rebirth. He’s describing life in Christ as a whole new life, as a life that really is life.
And that kind of hope leads to the second thing Peter found in the empty tomb that day. He found joy. Look at Vv. 6-9. Hope leads to joy, and both are often paired with times of trial and suffering in the Bible. The word “rejoice” does not mean that we have a continual feeling of happiness or that we deny the reality of pain and suffering.
What it means is that we can, because of Christ, look forward to the time, no matter how dimly we may see it, when salvation is complete, when everything that is broken is made right. When every scar, no matter how deep in this life, is finally and permanently healed. Peter is not saying “just ignore the pain” or “just get over it” or “put a smile on your face no matter what happens.” What he’s saying is, “Trust me, God is not done writing the story yet. There is another chapter yet to be written. You do not have to like where you are now. But know that death itself does not get to have the final word. And you will not believe the way the story ends.”
Look at the phrase “for a little while.” Peter is not diminishing the pain and suffering we all experience in this life or telling us to be happy about it. He’s painting a picture that neither his own mind nor ours can really comprehend: that this life is not all that there is. The problem for us is that no matter how hard we try, we simply cannot comprehend the concept of eternity, of something that really has no end.
Physicists tell us that the radius of the known universe, not the whole universe, just the known universe, is roughly 45 billion light years. That’s the radius. In other words, from where we are now, the universe extends outward for AT LEAST 45 billion light years in all directions. That makes the known universe roughly 90 billion light years from end to end. That means that if we could travel at the speed of light, which we can’t, but if we could, it would take us roughly 45 billion years to travel from earth to the edge of what we now know is there. It would take billions of years to get from where we are to the edge of what we know is there just flying at the speed of light in a straight line. If you imagine the vastness of our universe as eternity, our lives are roughly the size of a single atom.
Peter is saying, “I know that the pain, the tragedy, the failure makes it feel like forever, but trust me when I tell you that it really is just a drop in the bucket.” The important thing is not what we can see – our pain, failure, and struggle, but what we cannot always see: the strong arm of our Savior holding on to us no matter what we face. Even when all we can see is our pain, our failure, the tragedy we have had to endure, there is something we cannot see, and that is the saving work of Christ.
So what happened to Peter anyway? What was it that caused this brash braggart who could talk the talk but couldn’t walk the walk, who failed miserably, to write these words three decades later? On that first Easter morning, three women who were followers of Jesus went to his tomb to anoint his body with spices. And when they got there, they found an empty cave, with the cloths that had wrapped the body of Jesus carefully folded and laying where his body had been laid, and an angel sitting next to the cloths. And he said to them, “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples AND PETER that he is going before you to Galilee” (Mark 16:6-7). Tell his disciples … and Peter. It almost looks like the writer doesn’t think of Peter as a real disciple of Jesus anymore. Go tell the disciples, and Peter. Peter certainly no longer thought of himself as a disciple of Jesus. He didn’t deserve that title. Jesus singles Peter out not because he is now excluded from the group of disciples. No. Jesus singles Peter out not because he is excluding Peter, but because he wants Peter to know that he’s included. Go tell the disciples … and make especially sure you tell Peter.
I want Peter to know something. Tell Peter that his denial does not define him. Tell Peter that his failure is not final. Tell Peter that the story is not over, that the final chapter has not yet been written. Tell Peter that the one he denied with a curse will not deny him. Tell Peter that Jesus is alive, and that changes everything. This is one of my favorite passages in the Bible. I love it because it shows the grace of God in living, breathing form.
And so Peter found himself on a beach by the sea, cleaning and eating some fish for breakfast … a breakfast with Jesus. And when breakfast was over, the resurrected Christ leaned over to Peter and asked him, “Do you love me more than these others do? Do you love me more than anything else?” As I have often taught, the Greeks had several words for love. And the word Jesus used here was the word for the highest level of love, the kind of love only God is really capable of. It was the kind of love Peter claimed to have for Jesus when he said even if all these others forsake you, I will not.
But that was before. Before the betrayal. Before his denial. No longer did Peter think he could love his Lord that loyally. No more bragging. No more posturing. No more high and lofty words from Peter. Peter was a broken man. He had failed miserably, and he knew it. So when he answered Jesus, his words were, “Lord, you’re like family to me. I love you like a brother.” He no longer claimed to be better than anyone. The look on the face of his beloved Messiah as he turned toward Peter as he denied knowing Jesus for the third time still haunted him.
A second time Jesus asked him, “Do you love me above all else?” And a second time the broken Peter answered him, “Lord, you know I love you like family.” Peter was saying, “This is all I’ve got. I messed up. I blew it. I turned my back on you to save my own skin. I’m broken. I know it isn’t much, it certainly isn’t worthy of you. But it’s all I’ve got.” And so Jesus looked at Peter with love a third time and asked, “Peter, am I like family to you? Do you love me like a brother?” He said, “Peter, I know you’re broken. I know you’ve messed up big time. I know you think you blew it for good. But you’re willing to give me the mess that you’ve got, and that is all I’m asking of you.” “Peter, do you love me like family?”
And in that moment, Peter knew that his failure would not define him. That the chapter written on that dark night a few weeks prior was not the end of the story. That he was no longer living in a “one strike and you’re out” kind of world. He had been reborn. And the words he wrote in his letter were Peter’s own story. In that moment, Peter experienced for himself the grace Jesus had been talking about for three years, a grace Peter never, ever thought he would need, but desperately needed all along.
He gave up this world’s promises full of emptiness for Easter’s emptiness full of promise. And it transformed him. Peter, the brash braggart who was all bark and no bite, who denied knowing his best friend in his darkest hour, who blew it on a public stage for all the world to see, who believed, like many of us do, that in this life its one strike and you’re out – Peter found out that he too could experience a rebirth. That he would get another at bat. In the empty tomb he found hope. He found joy. And so can you.
[i] Carolyn Arends, “What’s So Good About Good Friday?” Kyria.com (4-10-09)