A living hope that does not depend on the morning

1 Peter 1:3. Peter begins not with instructions but with worship. He praises the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

Notice the order. Mercy comes first. New birth is something done to us, not something we achieve. And the hope is called living, which is a strange word for a hope. Most hopes are fragile. They rise and fall with the news, the bank balance, the scan results. This hope is alive because the person it rests on is alive. The tomb was empty, and Peter had looked inside it.

That matters on an ordinary Friday in late August. The week may have gone badly. Plans may have slipped. Peter is writing to people scattered across what is now Turkey, many of them pushed to the edges of their towns for following Jesus. He tells them their hope is not a mood. It is a fact about the risen Christ, and it will still be true tomorrow whether or not the morning feels hopeful.