What does it mean to "sanctify God in the heart"? Perhaps it means holding within ourselves, with all our strength, faith in God's holiness, in His ultimate and absolute goodness. From this faith then flow the desire to glorify God, to thank Him, and to worship Him.

God's goodness is also the source of all our hope, all our trust. An account of our hope, then, is our witness to His goodness, His love, and therefore to Christ, His death, and His resurrection.

This witness was commanded to us by the Lord in His "Great Commission": to go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature, to go and make disciples of all nations. We know how to shield ourselves from this commission, for example, with Jesus' words: "Do not cast pearls before swine" (cf. Matt 7:6), silently implying that everyone we do not want to talk with is swine. The apostle Peter calls us to crawl out of that shelter and give an account to "everyone."

The words "with gentleness and reverence" are remarkable. Reverence is understandable, since we must speak about God's holiness. Foolish jokes and comparisons are plainly out of place here, although our speech should be convincing, "with salt," as the apostle Paul says. And gentleness means that we must not force our listeners to accept our testimony or lecture them from above. We can share our experience with them, the experience of the Church, but we have no right to encroach on their freedom to decide.

The twelve verses from the First Catholic Epistle of the apostle Peter that we read today seem like a very large passage because of the abundance of exceptionally important things the apostle says. The most important, perhaps, are the apostle's words about what our baptism is. The stereotypes of our consciousness force us to relate to baptism, how shall we put it... in different ways. Sometimes for us it is a rite of initiation, or something like a vaccination against illnesses and misfortunes.

That is why it is so important to hear what the apostle Peter says: baptism, according to his words, is not the washing away of bodily uncleanness, that is, it has nothing to do with ritual purity. The apostle states that the main thing in baptism is the pledge to God of a good conscience. The Greek word here means not merely a promise, but a promise made solemnly, a vow. For various reasons, for most of us this event itself, the making of baptismal vows, passes unnoticed. Partly for that reason we do not keep these vows in memory, the "pledge to God of a good conscience." But the apostle Peter says that precisely this baptism, this promise or oath to Christ, saves us through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

No less important is that everything else, apart from a good conscience, remains offstage. Salvation is given by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and by nothing else. To receive it, one must promise God to have a good conscience and fulfill that promise. First, such Christ-centeredness is important in itself, because anything that claims the central place in our life apart from the Son of God Himself is an idol. Second, this view of the apostle contains within itself all the countless variety of forms of Christian calling.

In this connection it is also significant that the apostle speaks about our lot. He speaks of the persecutions that fall to Christians with remarkable calm, as something fully understandable to him. He grounds this in the fact that a good conscience before God draws every Christian onto the Way of the Cross, which the Head of the Church also walked. But, following the Teacher and Lord, the apostle Peter says to us: do not be afraid; this is the way of life.

Unfortunately, we often have problems bearing witness to our hope and our faith. Either we hide like mice without saying a word to anyone, or we aggressively lecture those around us... The apostle Peter says that we should answer everyone who asks us to give an account of our hope with gentleness and reverence. Thus, first, every person has the right not merely to ask but even to demand an account of our hope from us, and we have no right to refuse! Second, we must be ready for this — that is, clearly understand what we believe, how best to express it, and how to explain it. Third, our answer must be given with gentleness — that is, we must not put ourselves in the position of a lecturing know-it-all. Fourth, it must be given with reverence — neither may we diminish the dignity of faith by saying “modestly” that it is, of course, unimportant and nonessential... It matters that everyone who knows that I am a believer judges the Church in one way or another by my words. This is a great responsibility, and we have no right to forget it.