A Hope You Can't Lose

James was not the only one writing letters to God's scattered people. Far off in a great city he called Babylon, Peter the fisherman had a letter to send too. (Most people think he meant Rome, which was every bit as big and proud as old Babylon.) His friend Silvanus sat beside him with a pen.

The letter was going to Christians spread across Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. (Try saying Cappadocia three times fast.) Since they began following Jesus, they no longer bowed to idols or joined the wild parties, so their neighbors called them names and told lies about them. Some were beaten by their masters for doing nothing wrong. They felt like strangers in their own towns.

Peter began with a shout. "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope, through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead!"

Peter knew what it was like when hope dies. When Jesus was killed on a cross, every hope Peter had went into the tomb with him. Then on the third day, Mary Magdalene came running. "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb!"

Peter and John ran for it. John reached the door first and only peeked in, but Peter puffed up behind him and went straight inside. The grave clothes were lying there with no one in them. Before that day ended, the risen Lord had come to Peter himself. So the only hope Peter could write about was a living one, because Jesus is alive.

"God has kept an inheritance for you," Peter went on, "that can never perish, spoil, or fade."

An inheritance is what a family hands down to its children: a field, a house, a chest of coins. Coins get spent. (Anyone who has found a forgotten banana at the bottom of a school bag knows how fast things spoil.) This inheritance stays new in heaven, and God's own power guards the people it belongs to, the way soldiers guard a city wall.

Peter knew his friends were crying. "For a little while," he said, "you may have to suffer grief in all kinds of trials."

Then he talked about gold. A goldsmith melts it over a roaring fire until the dirt floats up to be scooped away. "Your faith is worth more than gold," Peter said, "and even gold tested by fire will be lost one day. Your faith, tested and found true, will bring praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed."

Peter had walked the roads beside Jesus for three years. These people had never seen him once.

"You have not seen him," Peter said, "but you love him. You believe in him, and you are filled with a joy too big for words!"

Peter's friends had his words, but not one of them had seen Jesus' face. And Peter would not be in the world much longer. Jesus had told him that one day he would die for following him, and Christians have always remembered that he did.

Ever since, people have read that letter aloud, loving someone they have never seen. The gold in the fire, the soldiers on the wall, the grave clothes left behind: each picture leans toward one morning, the day Peter called the revealing. Then the One they loved without seeing will step into plain view, and the best treasure kept in heaven will turn out to be Jesus himself.