1 Peter 3:13-22
May 10, 2026
Have you ever heard of Ignaz Semmelweis? Probably not, that’s not exactly a household name, but he is actually a very important person in history. He was a Hungarian medical doctor in the 1800s who realized that physicians should wash their hands before seeing patients. He discovered that when doctors would examine a sick patient followed by a well patient they would often take the illness of the sick patient and somehow give it to the well patient. When he convinced some doctors to wash their hands between patients, he discovered that the mortality rate dropped dramatically.
So, how was he treated by the medical community in his efforts to do something good? He was mocked and ridiculed. His observations conflicted with the established scientific and medical opinions of the time, so his ideas were rejected. Besides, for doctors to wash their hands between patients would take too long, it was said. Even though Dr. Semmelweis conducted experiments and offered statistics that showed the mortality rate dropping significantly when doctors washed their hands between patients, the medical community would not accept the clear evidence of his findings, as people in those days just did not know about or understand germs. Sadly, Dr. Semmelweis eventually suffered a nervous breakdown and died at the age of 47. Fortunately others took up his cause after his death and eventually his findings earned worldwide acceptance several years later.
Peter, in our second lesson for today, writes a letter to Christians in several different areas who are suffering for their faith. He begins by asking, “Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good?” Well, the answer is lots of people, everywhere. Dr. Semmelweis could attest to that, and I’m sure we all could attest to that, as well. Peter goes on to say, “But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed.” Peter does not want his listeners to retaliate when people try to harm them. What’s interesting with Peter being the one to write these words is when Jesus was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane, Peter was the one who was ready to retaliate. The Bible tells us that Peter grabbed a sword and swung it at the authorities who came to arrest Jesus, thinking he was honoring God by fighting for Jesus. As a result he cut off a man’s ear. Jesus immediately healed the man and told Peter to put the sword away as Jesus allowed himself to be taken away by the authorities quietly without any resistance.
As a result Peter eventually learned that Christians needed to be good citizens no matter how they were treated. And when he wrote this letter he had seen that Christianity was allowed to grow, because Christians were good citizens. But even in times of persecution, Peter wanted believers to trust that God would take care of them. Planning any type of armed resistance would only increase fear, so if you really wanted to live without fear, then let God watch over your life. When we choose to respond to evil with kindness and love, people will notice. It will get peoples’ attention, because most people do not act that way. When we respond to insults and criticism with goodness and grace people are going to notice and most likely they will wonder what is different about us. These are the opportunities we have then to share our faith. So Peter tells us that we must be prepared to tell them why we act the way we do.
In verse 18, Peter reminds us that one reason why we do the things we do is that, “Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.” All of us can be difficult. We can all be abrasive, insensitive, and impossible to deal with at times. But how did Jesus respond to us? With unbelievable love, grace, and mercy.
When I was growing up we had family who lived down the street from us whose dogs were constantly running away or escaping out of their yard. Each time one got away, the family would put up signs in the neighborhood asking people if they found their dog to please return it to them. And usually the dog would be found nearby in a few days and returned to them. One time they offered reward money for anyone who found their dog. You would think that such a dog must have been some kind of prize dog, but he wasn’t, he was just a stray they found several months earlier after it had been hit by a car. The family spent months caring for the dog and nursing it back to health. In fact, the dog probably would have died without their care. But on the day when they felt the dog was finally healed, they opened the back door to their house, as they were planning to take him out for a walk, when all of a sudden he ran out the back door and took off. They looked for months for their dog, but couldn’t find him. They put signs up offering several hundred dollars to anyone who brought their dog back safely. Eventually the dog was found and the family paid the reward money to the person who found him.
The amount of effort and money spent in rescuing that dog reminds me of the effort and cost God spent to rescue us. God obviously did not pay money to find us; instead He gave His Son, Jesus, into this sinful world to be ridiculed, mocked, and subjected to an agonizing death on a cross. And He did this not because we are obedient or deserved it. Like those dogs in my neighborhood growing up, we can easily run away from God’s presence. God promises to provide for us and to give us tender loving care when we live under His Word, but we keep running from Him thinking that life lived by our instincts will be better and more enjoyable. And yet it is dog-stubborn sinners like us who Jesus came to save. So Peter invites us to stand up for Jesus and to serve others in His name, in a world that thinks it has no need for Jesus.
Plus, when we stand up for Jesus through our words and actions, we will also be declaring the hope we have in Jesus. Listen to what else Peter says Jesus has done for us in verses 18-20: “Jesus was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit, through whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison who disobeyed long ago, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built.” These verses may sound a little odd, but they support what we confess in the Apostles’ Creed, - that Jesus descended into hell.
One of the first things Jesus did as part of His resurrection was to go to prison/hell to preach to those spirits/souls who were there. Remember, when we die our bodies remain here on earth but our souls immediately go to heaven or hell. When Jesus died He did not go to hell to suffer the punishment for our sins, since He already experienced hell (that being separation from God) on the cross. His purpose in going to hell was to preach to those who were there, namely Satan and his followers, that they had no power over Him. If they thought they had defeated Jesus by killing Him on Good Friday they were terribly mistaken. Jesus went there to proclaim victory over sin, death, and the devil, as He then rose from the dead on Easter. And Peter emphasizes that Jesus is alive and rules over all as he says at the end of this text, “Jesus has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand – with angels, authorities, and powers in submission to him.”
Peter knew that life as a believer in Jesus would not be easy, and I’m sure we can all give many examples of that from our own lives. When Ignaz Semmelweis was going through his struggles in Europe, there were some terrible struggles taking place in our country at that time. From 1861-1868, the college of William & Mary in Virginia was closed and the students and faculty were sent home, due to a lack of funds and devastation caused by the Civil War. Only one person remained at the school during those years, the college president, and apparently every day he did something that seemed absolutely ridiculous. He walked to the chapel and rang the bell. But there was no one there to hear it. So why did he ring it? It was an act of hope that the silence of the campus was not the final word.
We all face challenges every day, but Peter reminds us that we need to be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks us to give a reason for our hope, so all may know Jesus as we do, and will place their hope in Him.
