Hand In Hand

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John — all four Gospels end with the Resurrection Story. All of the Letters of Paul are based upon the fact of the Resurrection. All of the sermons in the Book of Acts proclaim the Resurrection. And toward the end of the New Testament, we come to the First Letter of Peter, the Apostle who made so many mistakes; the Apostle who so many times said things off the top of his head that he later regretted; the Apostle who promised Jesus he would follow Him to the death, then denied Him, not once, but three times.

In his Letter, Peter focuses on one particular aspect of the Resurrection. He doesn’t say much about the Resurrection being a vindication of Jesus — though that’s important, of course. He doesn’t say much about the Resurrection as the death-to-life process in which God is always working to bring us to wholeness of life. He doesn’t say much about our physical death, which…