Third Sunday of Easter
1 Peter 1:17-25
April 19, 2026
Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed, alleluia!)
But…does it feel like or seem like He is risen? We say it, but we still walk in this very broken, very dangerous, very godless world. Temptation abounds, every reason to deny His resurrection and go our own way, seek our own purpose and meaning in life, it’s everywhere. Christ is risen, but we are walking. The road is long and it’s full of potholes and stones and pitfalls. It’s like driving east on Hwy 23 through town. It’s slow-going because there’s so many things that might take us off course or destroy our suspension. Can’t wait until next year when they finally rebuild the road.
The Gospel reading for today, that’s what’s going on. The two disciples are walking…they’re thinking about, talking about – confused about, perplexed about everything that’s happened. We don’t know which disciples are headed to Emmaus. One of them is named Cleopas, but we don’t know much about him other than he was among the extended followers of Jesus; not one of the 12. Emmaus, a name meaning “hot spring” or “spring of salvation” is not a place we could find on a map today, but that’s where the two disciples are headed, walking down the road from Jerusalem, thinking, talking, and bewildered.
St. Peter actually speaks to this Emmaus walk. See, these men are disciples; they’re believers. But that doesn’t mean it all makes sense or that everything is peachy keen for life. They had questions; we have questions. They are perplexed; we are perplexed. Perhaps they even feel a bit alone and exiled…where is Jesus, and maybe, sometimes, we do too.
St. Peter, in his letter to the churches in the dispersion, the scattered Christians of Asia Minor, speaks into that perplexity just as he speaks to us today. What does it mean to live and walk on this road, on this way to the “spring of salvation,” the eternal life awaiting us at the end?
Peter’s goal in writing his letter to those Christians was not to burden them down or cause them fearful trepidation that they might lose their salvation, nothing of the sort. His goal, for the whole letter, not just chapter 1, was to help the believers as they made their earthly pilgrimage to the promised land, help them live by faith with reverence and awe, to be confident in the hope of their own resurrections on the Last day, and finally to walk in earnest love toward one another. For the road they walked was not like Hwy 23 down town, but it was a fresh, newly paved road, built on the finished work of Jesus who is risen from the dead. Peter wants those Christians to understand who they are and where they are.
His letter is not a letter for unbelievers but for believers. And right away in verse 17, we see this. Peter writes, “IF you call on Him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds…” Now, we call this a “first class condition,” because of how the Greek grammar is written. Peter is saying, in this first class condition, “If you call on Him as Father (which you do)…” you see. Peter is not implying that he’s not sure if they call on God as Father or not; he’s assuming they do. This is very gospel language. The Gospel never demands or adds conditions but always says, “yes.”
These were redeemed children of God – believers in the churches. They were in exile, literally because of this dispersion, and on their way home to the promised land. Their hope, their faith, is secure, but how they get from A to B was unclear.
Christ is risen, but we don’t see it all. We walk by faith, but sometimes we don’t know where faith is taking us, and temptations dance around us like candy. So Peter calls the believers to live by a reverent, awe-filled fear.
Ooh, fear? That’s a dangerous word when it comes to salvation, isn’t it? Are we to be fearful, scared, frightened of God, scared that if we make a wrong step, He’ll send holy lightening down to destroy us? No, that’s not the type of fear Peter means, and in the church, such fear is not the type of fear we should have. The only people who might live by that sort of fear are those who refuse to repent of their sins.
But, it is true that we often do lack the proper type of fear, the reverent, awe-filled, God is God and we are not sort of fear which keeps us humble and relying on Him. In the Garden of Eden, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was put there by God to create this sort of reverent, awe-filled fear. Adam and Eve were not God, and should they try and put themselves into the position of God or rebel against God, there would be a consequence – death.
But God created Adam and Eve to truly fear Him in the right way. To be humble, to serve and to abide in what He said. When they gave that up, that’s when the wrong fear came alive – fear of death and judgment.
Oftentimes, we ourselves do not have the fear we ought. We call God our Father, which is proper and good, but then accountability, obedience, proper reverence in how we live our lives, hold ourselves, dress and present ourselves, or how we speak and act…sometimes you’d think that we don’t even believe in God. We squander God’s grace and kindness and think it’s permission to be irreverent and disconnected from He and His holy church. “I’m confirmed; I don’t need church anymore,” or “I’m in college; I don’t have time for prayer and the Sacrament,” or “I’m just too busy with work, too busy with school, too busy with my life to care about living obediently to God.” We may not say it outright, but we subtly think it and act it, and we write out our day planners often leaving little or no room for God, for church, for prayer, for study.
When I teach the confirmation kids, one of the things I find – and it’s a very concerning thing – is that they are just so busy. There’s just so many things they’re expected to do, or that they choose to do without thinking of the ramifications to their Christian walk. And they take this into their adult lives and it becomes who they are. Too busy, too casual in their faith, too unconcerned about the very road upon which the Lord put them in their baptisms.
And part of the lack of fear we have for our heavenly Father is due to the things we fear in life. We fear loss, judgment by others, we fear our futures, we fear failing health, emotional or physical suffering, we fear death. And so, to avoid fear, we do whatever we can to escape these earthly threats.
We talk about Jesus – sure – we talk about Him just like those two disciples heading to Emmaus. But do we talk about Jesus and His resurrection, not as a real, historic thing that reshapes our lives, but as an idea, a therapeutic or moral concept which gives us a jolt of feel good in the moment we might need it? It seems like there’s a lot of drugs and pills on the market today promising instant feel better, in the moment, experiences. But is that all Jesus is for us, a little blue pill or a low-dose aspirin?
Peter reminds those churches, and he reminds us today that this life is one of exile. We are not welcome members in this world. This world brings nothing but angst or bitterness or numbness and no matter how many pills we take or how much therapy we have, this world cannot give us what we need or what we desire.
Apart from Christ, it’s futility. As Solomon writes, it is a constant striving after the wind. It’s foolish, it’s vanity, it’s pride which always leads to fall. Without Christ, everything is lifeless.
Without Christ, even our great traditions are nothing. Without Jesus, family is nothing, moral foundation is nothing. Most American churches are about trying to make you a moral person, but without Christ, being moral is nothing – it’s meaningless. You might as well eat, drink, and make merry because without Jesus there is no hope anyway.
Without Christ, you have no true identity, no true dignity, no true fearful reverence. The two disciples on the Emmaus road, they were walking on a road leading nowhere, and it took Jesus to open the Scripture to them and show them what it’s all about.
Peter talks about loving – loving one another. But how often does our love come with strings attached, with stipulations? Or if not stipulations, we turn love into a worldly sort of love where it’s not really love but it’s affirmation; it’s acceptance; it’s edifying what is sinful in the eyes of God – and in the name of love? We don’t want to suffer; we don’t want people to hate us or speak ill of us for standing by the truth, so we capitulate. But again, that’s not love, that’s not loving the neighbor as the self.
Peter finally says what needs to be said about living without godly and reverent fear: “All flesh is like grass…the grass withers and the flower falls.” Pursuing earthly things, earthly, ideas, earthly endeavors, things that perish in the light of the truth – none of it endures; it all fades away.
But you WERE ransomed! And your ransom was not paid by these perishable, fading things, but by the precious blood of Jesus. Jesus, the Son of God born of the Virgin Mary, suffered and died so that you live. You are no longer enslaved to this dying, fading world, subject to sin’s consequence, death and wrath, but you have been set free and reality, the truth, what is real and objective and unchanging and tangible has been opened to you. Christ died, you live, and because Christ is risen, you shall rise on the Last Day.
And this gift of salvation and forgiveness and freedom, and hope of eternal life was given in your Baptism. Look to your baptism, see what God did for you there, and rejoice. Because in those blessed waters, God’s Word was spoken over you and His name written upon you forever. In other words, you are born again by the water and the Spirit, just as Jesus says in John 3:5.
And that same Jesus who spoke to Nicodemus about being born again by water and the Spirit walks with the two on the way to Emmaus and opens to them the Scripture. They don’t see with eyes, but they see by faith. And when they reach their destination, one of the two asks Jesus to stay and eat, and He does. They still don’t know who He is as He’s not opened their eyes to His identity just yet.
But then, Jesus the guest at the disciple’s home becomes the host. He takes the bread and gives thanks and breaks it and gives it to them and then He disappears and they suddenly know who He is. WOW, we have Baptism, and we have the Lord’s Supper right there plain as day, yet so many miss it because they look for Jesus with eyes and not by faith. The disciples’ eyes are opened, and they immediately connect the broken bread to Jesus because He is the bread of life.
And this is our life. In this new life of the Spirit, we live in reverent fear. We hold ourselves different than the fading world because we ARE different, and we’re not fading. We are a holy people, set apart by God and called His children, eternal citizens in His kingdom, and our lives should reflect to the world what it means to be children of God. It means that we fear, love and trust God above all things, and we, as we walk this road to our eternal rest, love our neighbor as ourselves. It means we hold ourselves differently, we speak differently, we act differently, and we prioritize our lives differently. Not because it earns us salvation, but because we are saved; we are God’s children; we are washed by water and the Word and we are different.
So walk – reverently, fearfully, lovingly, walk this road as you serve your neighbor. And as God’s Word remains forever, so too does Jesus and His mercy and forgiveness remain forever, so that you need not fear as the world fears, because you remain forever. Amen.
