Peter opens with two words that pull against each other: 1"elect exiles." Elect means chosen. Exile means scattered, far from anything that feels like home, and it carries the memory of Babylon, the name Peter uses for Rome when he closes the letter (5:13). He writes to believers scattered across what is now Turkey and hands them Israel's own vocabulary, and he names Father, Spirit, and Son in one sentence before asking a single thing of them. First he tells these slandered people whose they are.
Then the praise begins, and it starts with what God has done. 3"He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." Peter is the disciple who denied Jesus three times, and the hope he describes reached a man who had good reason to think he had forfeited his place. This hope is alive because the one who died is alive, and it holds however steady anyone feels on a given morning.
The inheritance is 4"imperishable, undefiled, and unfading." Earthly property decays, gets stained, and fades. Then comes a detail that is easy to miss. The inheritance is kept for you, and in the next verse you are kept for it: 5"who by God's power are being guarded through faith." The Greek verb is *phroureo*, a garrison word for holding a city, and it is in the present tense. Something is being kept safe for you, and someone is keeping you safe for it, right now.
Peter names the cost. 6"You have been grieved by various trials." He says grieved. The joy belongs to the glory that is near, and the grief belongs to the present, so the present is allowed to hurt. The fire has a job to do, and the pain is given a purpose: 7"more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire." Even gold perishes. Faith is what comes through the fire, and it will be found to result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus is revealed.
8"Though you have not seen him, you love him." Peter had seen him risen and shared a meal with him, and he writes to people who never did. Jesus had spoken of them already: "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed" (John 20:29).
The prophets studied their own words about this salvation and learned 12"they were serving not themselves but you." Even angels 12"long to look" in, and the Greek verb, *parakypto*, means to stoop and peer, the word John uses of the disciple bending at the empty tomb (John 20:5).
If today feels like a little while of grief, the inheritance has not changed, and the guard has not left his post. Ask yourself what would change in your day if you believed that the hope you carry is alive, and that the one who gave it is keeping you for it.
Prayer
Father, blessed be your name. According to your great mercy you have caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of your Son. When the trials are various and the little while feels long, guard us by your power through faith. Keep our eyes on the inheritance that cannot perish, and teach us to love the Jesus we have not seen. In his name, amen.