In this passage we will hear Peter’s instructions regarding the Christian attitude toward authority – and it is extremely instructive to us. Writing from Rome, and living under the tyranny of a maniac who would later literally crucify him, he tells us to submit.
We live in a society that values individualism and independence. We live in an age that is perhaps the most individualistic ever. For God’s children, independence is not the ideal toward which we strive. When Christians grow properly, they don’t grow alone.
God has prepared an inheritance for us and we are waiting for that day when we will fully come into it. Prophets in ancient times spoke of the salvation that we experience in Jesus Christ. We are living each day filled with hope, looking for the fulfillment of all that God has had planned since the very beginning. Belonging to Jesus for eternity is supposed to transform how we live right now.
Jean-Paul Sartre gives his own vision of hell in a play called No Exit. The “moral” of the play is the hopelessly amoral conclusion: “You are – your life, and nothing else.” There is no forgiveness and no redemption. No greater good, no higher purpose. You live, you laugh, you suffer and you die. And that’s it.
Central Reflections 