Good Friday
1 Peter 1.1-7
Lila Viliamu
Although not ordained, she has been ministering with her husband Elekosi Viliamu for the past 15 years at Aleisa Christian Congregational Church in Samoa and also serves on the finance committee of the Women's Fellowship of her church.
Life in cities seems very different from the farm. Many see the first fruits of harvest as an opportunity for higher prices and bigger profits rather than as an offering to God. Yet we still depend on the soil; and at harvest we remember again the cycle of death and life, of hope springing from the dying seed.
The farmer sows in hope, because he also works to secure it. He tills the soil, feeds and irrigates it. This is like Christian hope, too. Peter is saying that we are given new birth into a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Living hope that is active, developing, and growing. Hope which causes us to work with God to achieve his purposes. Again it's hope which sprouts from the dying seed. It comes from the death of Jesus Christ and from the deaths that we die in actively living for him.
The revelation of our human condition as we see ourselves in his light is the death of pride and self-delusion. We face the reality, and the living Christ smashes "the fetters of our intellect and lets our desperation out of hiding", as Calvin Miller puts it.
Our fear of death is living as well, and it troubles us. It feeds on itself and creates the very things it is afraid of. It is only by taking hold of the hope offered to us that we can conquer our fear.
Our failures in life are somehow discouraging to us. But failure is part of the truth we have to face. How else do we learn? The great thing is that in facing the truth about ourselves, we are thrown into Jesus as the one source of strength and life.
And that is why our hope is real and alive - because it springs from the living God through whom the hope of harvest and harvest of hope are fulfilled.
The resurrection is to life, not to death. It is a tough enduring growth rising from the fertile soil of sacrifice. It is the ground of faith in which all our being is rooted and from which hope and action flowers and fruits.
How can I be sad and discouraged when Christ has died and risen for me?
While Christmas tells us of God's birth into the human family, Easter gives us the new birth of human beings as part of God's family. And the joy of it lies in our unity in him who is the origin and source of our lives.
