Register Summary

Pope John Paul II met with 13,000 pilgrims in St. Peter's Square for his general audience on Sept. 22. He continued his series of teachings on the psalms and canticles of the Liturgy of the Hours’ evening prayer with a reflection on 1 Peter 2:21-24, an early Christian canticle.

“The suffering face of Christ is vividly outlined before our eyes,” the Holy Father noted. He pointed out that the canticle echoes the well-known fourth hymn of the book of Isaiah, which describes the Servant of Yahweh, the mysterious man of suffering, whom Christians see as prefiguring Jesus the Messiah since it describes Jesus’ passion so vividly and profoundly. Pope John Paul II pointed out that Christ suffered with patience and without recrimination or complaint. “This was not some act of blind and passive resignation,” he said, “but a courageous act of trust, which became an example to all his disciples who journey on the dark path of trial and persecution.”

“Christ is presented as the savior, in solidarity with us in his human ‘body,’” the Holy Father said. “By being born of the Virgin Mary, he became our brother. That's why he is able to be by our side, share our pain and bear our sickness, ‘our sins.’ But he is also and always the Son of God and this makes his solidarity with us radically transforming, liberating, expiating and saving.

“So, this is how our impoverished humanity is snatched from the twisted and perverse ways of evil and is brought back toward ‘justice,’ which is to say, God's beautiful plan,” John Paul concluded. “The last line in the hymn is particularly moving. It says, ‘By his wounds, you have been healed’ (verse 25). Here we see the great that Christ paid for our healing!”

Listening today to this passage in the form of a hymn that appears in Chapter 2 of the first letter of St. Peter, the suffering face of Christ is vividly outlined before our eyes. This is what those who read this letter in the early times of Christianity experienced, and this is what people have experienced throughout the centuries as the Word of God was proclaimed in the liturgy and in personal meditation.

Though its setting is within the body of the letter, this song has liturgical overtones and seems to reflect the atmosphere of prayer of the early Church (see Colossians 1:15-20; Philippians 2:6-11; 1 Timothy 3:16). It is also characterized by an imaginary dialogue between the author and his readers, throughout which the personal pronouns “we” and “you” alternate: “Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his footsteps…. He himself bore our sins in his body … so that, free from sin, we might live for righteousness. By his wounds, you have been healed” (1 Peter 2:21, 24-25).

But the pronoun that is most emphasized throughout the original Greek text is the pronoun hos (in English “he”), ringing insistently at the beginning of each main verse (see verses 22, 23 and 24). “He” is the suffering Christ: He who has not committed sin; He who, when insulted, did not react by crying for vengeance; He who bore the weight of the sins of mankind on the cross in order to wipe them away.

The Suffering Servant

Just like the faithful who recite this hymn, particularly during the evening prayer of the Liturgy of the Hours in the Lenten season, Peter's thoughts turned to the Servant of Yahweh who is described in the Book of the Prophet Isaiah. He is a mysterious figure that Christianity has interpreted in a messianic and Christological light because he foretells the details, as well as the meaning, of Christ's Passion: “Yet it was our infirmities that he bore, our sufferings that he endured…. He was pierced for our offenses, crushed for our sins…. By his stripes we were healed…. Though he was harshly treated, he submitted and opened not his mouth” (Isaiah 53:4, 5, 7). The description of sinful humanity, depicted in the image of a flock that has gone astray, in a verse that is not included in the liturgy for evening prayer (see Peter 2:25), also originated in this ancient prophetic song: “We had all gone astray like sheep, each following his own way” (Isaiah 53:6).

Christ's Absolute Trust

Thus, two figures cross in Peter's hymn. First and foremost, there is He, Christ, who sets out on the arduous road of the Passion, without opposition to its injustice and its violence and without recrimination or complaint; rather, he entrusts himself and his painful undertaking “to the one who judges justly” (1 Peter 2:23). It is a pure and absolute act of trust that will be sealed on the cross with the famous last words, cried out in a loud voice as an act of extreme abandonment to the work of the Father: “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit!” (Luke 23:46; see Psalm 31:6).

This was not, therefore, some act of blind and passive resignation, but a courageous act of trust, which became an example to all his disciples who journey on the dark path of trial and persecution.

Christ is presented as the savior, in solidarity with us in his human “body.” By being born of the Virgin Mary, he became our brother. That's why he is able to be by our side, share our pain and bear our sickness, “our sins” (1 Peter 2:24). But he is also and always the Son of God and this makes his solidarity with us radically transforming, liberating, expiating and saving (see verse 24).

God's Perfect Plan

So, this is how our impoverished humanity is snatched from the twisted and perverse ways of evil and is brought back toward “justice,” which is to say, God's beautiful plan. The last line in the hymn is particularly moving. It says, “By his wounds, you have been healed” (verse 25). Here we see what a great price Christ paid for our healing!

Let us conclude by listening to the Fathers of the Church — to our Christian tradition that has meditated on and prayed with St. Peter's hymn.

By weaving together one form of this hymn with other biblical allusions, St. Irenaeus of Lyon portrays the figure of Christ the savior in the following way in a passage from his treatise Against the Heresies: “There is only one Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who through his passion has reconciled us with God and has risen from the dead, who is at the right hand of the Father and is perfect in all things: He was buffeted but did not return the blows, .when he suffered, he did not threaten,' and when he suffered cruel violence, he asked the Father to forgive those who had crucified him. He has truly saved us — he who is the Word of God and the only begotten of the Father, Christ Jesus our Lord” (Contro le eresie, III, 16, 9, Milan, 1997, p. 270).

(Register translation)