Misericordias Domini 2025
Misericordias Domini
1 Peter 2:21-25
May 4, 2025
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
Today’s Epistle is from 1 Peter 2. What we heard drops us into the middle of a conversation about putting others ahead of yourself. In 1 Pt 2:18, God’s Word tells servants to “be subject to your masters with all respect.” Then ch. 3 opens, “Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, when they see your respectful and pure conduct.” All of this is highly un-American! We live in a culture of self-assertion, self-promotion. But God’s Word teaches a hierarchy inside the family, where the wife respects her husband as the head of the family.
This is no license for abuse and selfishness on the part of the husband; Peter goes on to say, “Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel.” Men are stronger than women; the man is to use his strength to honor and protect his wife, never to harm her. St. Paul in Eph. 5 will use the simple verb “love” to capture the husband’s responsibility to his wife: “Husbands, love your wives.”
So what do we have in 1 Pt? Servants, be subject to your masters; wives, be subject to your husbands; husbands, be understanding and show honor to your wives. There is an order to the world, but each person in his office (or calling) serves Christ by serving his neighbor within the hierarchy of loves.
And smack in the middle of all that is the opening of today’s Epistle reading, “For to this you have been called.” To what? To this life of showing honor and respect to others according to your station in life. “For to this you have been called”—this life of respect and honor, this life of putting the needs of others ahead of yourself—“because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example.” We dare not pit the forgiveness of sins and the example of Christ against each other, as though we have to choose between the Gospel and leading a holy life. Both are true: Jesus dies for us, and the way He lives and dies is something for us to imitate. “For to this you have been called.” Every Christian is a disciple of Jesus, called to “follow in his steps.” Luther put it this way: “Christians … after they have faith … are to demonstrate its fruits by good works in all kinds of situations. But [Peter] especially admonishes them to the fruit which is called ‘patience in cross and suffering’” [LW 77:154]. The Lord has designed special crosses for each of us, to train us in the imitation of Jesus, who “committed no sin.”
“To this you have been called.” We issue a call to pastors, and we hear that language in the absolution formula. But do not forget that every Christian has a calling, you have a call to confess Christ before the world, and be Christ to your neighbor.
His sinless life is then described for us: There is no “deceit found in his mouth.” Everything Jesus says is radically true. Not so for us! We love to spin, coloring the story so it looks good for us and bad for the other guy. Not Jesus. We are to instead imitate Jesus, who spoke no deceit.
“When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten.” When we are confronted with the teachings of Jesus about turning the other cheek, not taking revenge, not defending ourselves, the natural response is to begin looking for loopholes. “That stuff is fine for church talk, but the real world doesn’t work that way!”
But the so-called real world is fundamentally unreal. It’s fake news; it’s the demonic lie from the beginning, the lie that turns us away from God and toward self-idolatry, which always ends in self-destruction. The true “real world” is the kingdom of God. We are called to begin living like it now, by imitating Jesus. We don’t take revenge because we entrust ourselves to the Judge. Our courts and legal systems are filled with corruption from top to bottom, and this is nothing new. No matter; we imitate Jesus, who “continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly,” which is to say, He handed His case over to the Father and waited for His verdict.
The verdict for us is entirely grounded in the death of Jesus: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree.” Affixed to the cross, the verdict was “guilty,” and the punishment was paid in full.
But Christ does not leave us there. Baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection, the disciple of Jesus is put on the way to a new and different life, “that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.” That’s what Tyler committed himself to this morning; that is the life Bailey and Mercy were baptized into; and that is the pattern for each of us: every day striving to put sin to death, and live in holiness.
The Bible gives us a forensic, legal image of Jesus’ death and our forgiveness: we are charged with crimes but are acquitted by the punishment of Jesus. But Peter gives us also another way of seeing this: our human nature is sick, wounded — yet in Jesus is healing: “By his wounds you have been healed,” Peter says. Here he echoes Isaiah 53, which we read every Good Friday:
He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
We have turned, every one, to his own way;
And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. [Is 53:5f]
Jesus suffered for you. This is the center of all Christian doctrine. You contribute nothing to your salvation. The saints contribute nothing to your salvation. Jesus bore all your iniquity. In Jesus, and only in Jesus, you are forgiven. “By his wounds you have been healed.”
The last image used by Peter today is doubtless the reason this passage was chosen in antiquity to go with the Good Shepherd gospel: “For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.”
How have you gone astray? Have you committed adultery or fornication? Are you greedy? Angry? Selfish? We should make every effort to become freed from these passions. “That should all now be dead, slain through Christ and forgiven to you through faith in His sacrifice; it should cease in you from now on” [LW 77:168].
Be of good cheer, for you have a true Shepherd and Bishop in Jesus. He has preserved His Word and Sacraments among us, despite so many earthly reasons it should fail. Jesus is our Shepherd. He will provide for us, He will be with us in death’s dark valley, and bring us home on His strong shoulders.
Alleluia! Christ is risen!