2 Timothy 4:9-22
5th Sunday During Lent – April 2, 2017 (am)

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Lord God, our Rock and Redeemer, let the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight. Through Christ Jesus, our risen Lord. Amen.

One of the remarkable things about the concluding verses of 2 Tim,[1] and of the letter as a whole, is how clear a window we get onto Paul’s circumstances on the eve of his death.[2] It is rare in Paul’s letters to find such specific, concrete description of his situation as he writes. Most of the time, we can only infer very general details about the when and where of Paul’s writing. Second Timothy allows us to set the scene with much more specificity.

So, for example, several times in the letter we are told that Paul is in prison.[3] He is locked up by the Roman Empire as a political criminal because he had, among other things, committed the high treason of proclaiming throughout the world that Jesus is Lord. Everyone knew that Caesar is Lord. There can’t be two “Lords”! Well that was precisely Paul’s point as he proclaimed the good news. And he wound up in a Roman prison cell.[4]

In our passage this morning, we are clued off to the fact that the imprisoned Paul is awaiting a second legal hearing in Rome. Paul refers in v. 16 to his “first defense”; the clear implication is that he has a second defense, a second court date, on the horizon.[5] It’s a bit debated, but I think Paul’s “first defense” was an initial hearing before a Roman judge to determine whether the charges against him were clear and compelling enough to execute him right away, or whether the matter was sufficiently complex to require a more careful weighing of the evidence at a formal trial.[6] As Paul says in vv. 16–17, everyone who might have supported him at this first hearing abandoned him, but the Lord stood by him and “rescued [him] from the lion’s mouth.” In other words, the first legal hearing ended favorably for Paul; he was rescued from immediate execution.[7] Now he awaits his second, more formal trial.

But Paul doesn’t seem to have much confidence that he’ll make it through his second defense alive. As he looks to the immediate future, he speaks in v. 18 of being brought “safely into [Christ’s] heavenly kingdom”[8]—that is, into the kingdom that is to come.[9] Paul knows that martyrdom is on the horizon as a result of his second defense. So he urges Timothy to make haste to come visit him in v. 9. Earlier in this chapter, in v. 6, he says that he is “already being poured out as a drink offering.” His time of “departure [i.e., death] has come.” He has fought the good fight and finished the race. Paul knows that the end, for him, is near.

Paul’s death is near, and he is more or less alone as he waits for it. Nearly all of his companions have left for various reasons. Titus and Crescens, mentioned in v. 10, left Paul, apparently because the Lord called them to other regions.[10] According to v. 12, Paul sent Tychicus on an important task to Ephesus, probably to carry this letter to Timothy.[11] Titus, Crescens, Tychicus—these were good friends whose departure was surely no easy pill to swallow for Paul with only an empty prison cell to turn to. For those whose earnest aspiration is to see Christ named where he is not named, life will be full of many bittersweet goodbyes as God’s call will take us and our friends and family along different paths. Paul writes this letter from prison, having just experienced some particularly bittersweet goodbyes.

And Paul has also experienced a much more painful separation. From other NT books,[12] we know that Demas in v. 10 was a close partner with Paul in gospel labors. But it seems that idols laid hold of Demas’s heart, stealing his affections away from Christ. And having grown cold to Christ, Demas grew cold toward his brother in Christ, Paul, and he left Paul in a lurch.[13] This isn’t simply two friends experiencing a sorrowful separation because of different callings; this is a friendship ending, a desertion by a close companion in a moment of great need.

In his first defense, Paul was abandoned by all who might have supported him. Now he has been abandoned by his one-time close friend Demas. And other dear partners in the work of the Lord have also left him. It is true that Paul expected Mark to come to his aid, as v. 11 suggests. And the beloved Timothy himself would, Lord willing, soon visit, as Paul urges him to do. And it’s true that Paul wasn’t completely alone. According to v. 11, Luke still stood faithfully by him.[14] But the “alone” in that verse is striking: “Luke alone is with me.” Everyone else is gone. Please hurry, Timothy. The imprisoned Paul, at the end of his life, battles great loneliness.

And to make matters worse, it’s getting colder outside. In v. 9, Paul tells Timothy to come quickly.[15] In v. 21, he again urges, “Do your best to come,” and adds, “before winter.” Winter is coming. And there’s a very practical reason why Timothy must get there before winter.[16] Through a set of circumstances unknown to us,[17] Paul had left his cloak in Troas. For “cloak,” read “winter coat.”[18] Paul wants the first-century Greco-Roman equivalent to a parka, because winter is coming and Roman prisons weren’t known for their great central heating.[19]

On top of all the other troubles Paul faces, he is also deeply anxious for his son in the Lord, Timothy. His deep, heart-wrenching anxiety for Timothy jumps off every page.[20] Paul is concerned that Timothy might become ashamed of Christ. Paul is worried that Timothy might be led astray by youthful passions. Paul is anxious because Timothy could be thwarted by opponents such as Alexander, whom Paul warns Timothy of in our passage in vv. 14–15.[21] The end of 2 Tim enables us to paint a uniquely vivid picture of the circumstances and state of soul that Paul is in as he writes this letter. The scene, with all of Paul’s difficulty and heartache, is easy for us to picture in our mind’s eye.[22] This is a deeply human experience and hardship; it’s easy for us to imagine and easy, I think, for most to identify with at some level.[23]

But Paul’s behavior in his great hardship may be harder to identify with. In this respect, Paul is quite strange. Here he is in no small amount of turmoil of soul and circumstance, with heavy burdens pressing down upon him, with tons of reasons for anxiety and frustration and despair. And what is he spending his time doing? He’s writing a letter to encourage Timothy. He’s thinking of and passing on good wishes to Prisca and Aquila and the household of Onesiphorus in v. 19. He’s noticing others and doing what he can for their good. And more remarkably, Paul is also extending mercy to those who have wronged him. We see it in v. 16. At his first legal hearing, everyone who might have supported him in fact deserted him. But what does Paul say? “May it not be charged against them!” May they find mercy before the Lord! May their failures and wrongs be forgiven them![24] It would be understandable if Paul held a grudge toward those who wronged him. But he doesn’t. We would sympathize if Paul wallowed in self-pity and cut himself off from others. But he doesn’t. While he acknowledges his grief and concern, he is not so blinded by it that he cannot look to the needs and the good of others. In his very poignant experience of disappointment and abandonment and fear and frustration and physical cold and emotional concern for the future, he still loves others and forgives.

And I say this makes Paul strange, because it’s a far cry from what I would do in Paul’s position. (I define strange or abnormal as anything different from me, since I am the definition of normal.) Paul does the opposite of what I tend to do with hardship and anxiety. What do I tend to do in those circumstances? I wallow in self-pity. I complain. I fix my eyes squarely on my problems. The good of others is the last thing that comes to mind when I encounter some great difficulty. In fact, when I experience hardship and frustration, abandonment and anxiety, I almost instinctively cut myself off from everyone else. Others only tend to intensify my sense of despair. Everything’s going well for them. Their joys are an offense to me, spotlighting my lack of joy. Or the troubles of others are not really as bad as mine, and I get bitter that no one else realizes that. I say, “They don’t know how hard it is for me.” No one really has a clue about the impossibility I’m in. In hardship and frustration, I’m more inclined to complain about how little others care about me than I am to care about others.

And I am certainly not ready to extend forgiveness and mercy to those whom I think have played a part in my hardship. It’s much easier to hold grudges, to harbor resentment and bitterness. Or in self-righteousness to be only conditionally merciful and forgiving: I’ll forgive you, alright, just as soon as I know that you know how awful you’ve been, only when I am satisfied that you have suffered enough for the suffering you have inflicted on me.

Paul seems strange to me because he doesn’t respond to his hardships in the way normal human beings do, or at least in the way sinful, self-preoccupied people do.[25] So what is it that makes Paul so strange? Well, let’s consider the most theologically profound verses of our passage, vv. 17–18. Everyone deserted Paul at his first defense, but, Paul says in v. 17, “the Lord stood by me and strengthened me,” and Paul boldly proclaimed the gospel to the Roman court.[26] The Lord stood by Paul. What’s more, this same Lord, Paul says in v. 18, “will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom.” As profound and rich as these verses are, I have a very easy, elementary question about them. The “Lord” whom Paul speaks of is clearly Jesus.[27] This is the same Jesus who a few decades earlier was condemned to death, who was executed as a Roman political criminal, who bled and suffocated to death on a cross and whose mutilated corpse was buried in a tomb outside of Jerusalem. How is it possible for that Jesus to “stand by” Paul several decades later in Rome and to deliver Paul in the future? I said it’s a very easy question. Don’t overthink it. The reason why a crucified and dead Jesus can be with Paul and can be counted on to deliver Paul in the future is because this Jesus is no longer dead. He arose from the grave. He was resurrected from the dead to new, indestructible life. He is still alive and active today, and will be forever and ever.

Christ must be resurrected and alive in order for Paul to have the experience he had in v. 17 and the hope he has in v. 18. Christ’s resurrection is the basic but crucial assumption, the crucial fact, that stands behind Paul’s words here at the end of 2 Tim. It’s the crucial reality that makes Paul so different. Christ’s resurrection enables Paul to persevere through hardship, and even, in hardship, to care for others and extend mercy to those who have hurt him. Christ is risen! And that makes all the difference in the world on Paul’s actual experience of suffering.

It can also make all the difference in the world on our experience of suffering.[28] If Paul’s letter indicates that the resurrection of Christ changes him, then the promise is that it will do so for us as well. But how? We’ll spend the rest of our time trying to answer that question. Specifically, I want to suggest three ways in which Christ’s resurrection changes and impacts us, three ways in which Christ’s resurrection made Paul new and can also make us new.

First, Christ’s resurrection objectively transforms us. Or better, Christ’s resurrection unleashes an objective power that does something to us, makes us new people. The simplest way to get at this is to recall how the story of Jesus goes. Jesus was crucified, died, was buried, on the third day he rose again. Then what did he do? He poured out his Spirit on us. It’s the first royal act that the risen Jesus performs when he ascends to his cosmic throne: he gives his own Spirit to the church at Pentecost.[29] The resurrection of Jesus opens the floodgates of heaven, as it were, so that the Spirit of the resurrected Christ might be showered on us, his bride. And the Spirit of the resurrected Christ changes and transforms us; he makes us new.

To say it more precisely, the Spirit of Christ makes us more like Christ. The Spirit of Christ breaks into a life and begins to shape that life into Christ’s image. In this light, consider again Paul’s experience at the end of 2 Tim. He was abandoned by his friends. Who else was deserted by his friends in his hour of greatest need? It was, of course, Jesus, who saw, one after another, his closest companions abandon him, betray him, deny him. Paul is being molded into the image of Christ. Paul is tried before the Roman authorities as a political criminal; so was Christ, who was tried before the Roman governor Pilate. Paul finds himself cloak-less, but he is only doing so after his Lord was stripped of his garments and strung up naked on the cross. And if Paul can pray for mercy for those who have sinned against him, “May it not be charged against them!,” it is because he is being conformed into the image of One who prayed for his persecutors, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they are doing.” Paul’s life, Paul’s mercy, Paul’s love is being made to reflect Christ,[30] by the power of Christ’s own Spirit given to Paul and to the church because of and through Christ’s resurrection.

So the first way in which Christ’s resurrection impacts our lives is that it unleashes the Spirit who transforms us into Christ’s image. By the power of the Spirit, we become like Christ, persevering and even loving others through suffering.[31] A second way in which the resurrection impacts our lives is this: it gives us something to set our hope on. Christ’s resurrection reveals to us our true hope so that we may bank on it while sojourning through this vale of tears, so that by hope we might persevere through suffering. It is hope in our true destiny, revealed in Christ’s resurrection, that changes us; hope strengthens our hearts to persevere and love.[32] Let’s spend some time unpacking this point.

We’ve already noted that the Spirit of Christ is conforming our lives into Christ’s image. Here is one last crucial way in which we will become like Christ: Jesus suffered the supremest hardship and sorrow and pain—the sufferings and death of the cross—but he was delivered on the far side of his suffering. But how was he delivered? By being raised from the dead. Christ was resurrected. If Paul is in Jesus by faith, then Paul can be sure that his ultimate fate will be what Jesus experienced: he, too, will be raised from the dead on the far side of suffering. Suffering and death was not the end of Christ’s story, neither will it be the end of the story for Paul or anyone else who is in Christ and whom the Spirit is making like Christ. Christ’s resurrection reveals our truest destiny, which is nothing less than the resurrection of our bodies. It is in this destiny, this deliverance, this ultimate rescue that we can now set our hope.

What does Paul say in our passage? Paul suffers now, but he is confident, v. 18 says, that in the future he will be rescued from all his sufferings into Christ’s heavenly kingdom. He will be rescued from his sufferings in the same way Jesus was rescued from suffering—by being raised from the dead. Resurrection is the rescue that Paul eagerly anticipates at the end of 2 Tim. The language of being rescued into a “heavenly kingdom” in v. 18 might sound to us like some disembodied existence in an ethereal realm called “heaven.”[33] But make no mistake about it: the true hope of the Christian is not escape from earth into heaven; the true hope of the Christian is that heaven would invade this earth and make all of it new[34]—rocks and trees and skies and seas, cultures and cities and gardens and food, air and light and sound and our bodies. When Paul sets his hope on deliverance into Christ’s heavenly kingdom, he is not hoping to escape this created world and his created body. He is hoping in resurrection.

And Paul has the audacity to hope in his resurrection, because Christ’s resurrection guarantees that Paul and every Christian will be raised to new life as Christ was. Christ’s resurrection is the paradigm for our hope. In fact, one of the main aims of Paul in writing this letter was to help Timothy, and us, set our hope on Christ’s resurrection. In the middle of the letter, in perhaps the most important paragraph of the letter, 2:8–13, what does Paul exhort Timothy to do? Chapter 2, verse 8: “Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead.” Timothy, Timothy, Church of God, remember one thing: the resurrection of Jesus who gave his life for your life. Let the good news form and sustain your hope, because if the suffering Christ was raised from the dead, then so too will all who love and follow him be raised from the dead after their suffering. The promise is clear just a few verses later, in v. 11: “If we have died with him, we will also live with him.”[35] We will be raised to new life as Christ was. And the promise is not only at the center of the letter, but also at the beginning and end. What are the opening words in 2 Tim 1:1? “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God according to the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus.” The first sentence of the letter shows us why Paul writes to Timothy: so that he and we might hope in the promise of resurrection life. And Paul concludes the letter by setting the same hope before us: we will be delivered into Christ’s heavenly kingdom, into the new heavens and the new earth, in fully resurrected bodies to join with our risen Lord Jesus.  Then, in the end, we will find that all will be made right. Every hurt will be healed, every fear will be forgotten, all disease and decay will be done away with, abandonment will give way to loyalty and fellowship, all hunger will give way to feasting. We will be welcomed to dine at our King’s table, and, best of all, our King will be present to us and for us, sitting down at table with us to feast on his unending goodness. Christ’s resurrection is God’s promise to us that in the end we will reign with Christ in life; his resurrection is the guarantee of our hope.

And this hope, when it grips our hearts, changes us. Christ’s resurrection assures us that our story will end not in death but in resurrection life, and such assurance strengthens and motivates us to persevere and even love through hardship. By laying hold of our true hope of resurrection, we are empowered to endure suffering and freed to love.

Laying hold of our true hope is what strengthens us to patiently endure suffering now, confident that any suffering, any loss, any anguish and pain of soul and body now will be restored a thousandfold in the age to come with resurrection life.

Laying hold of resurrection hope is what frees us to love others. A great obstacle to love is anxiety over our own good and life: if we’re worried about our needs, then of course we will have a hard time noticing the needs of others around us. But if Christ is risen, then we can be sure that in the end resurrection life and joy will be ours. Our ultimate good and life is secure. We will experience loss and isolation and abandonment and the frustration of our plans and a world of anguish and pain, but the promise still holds. I mean, what’s the worst that can happen to us? We can die. That’s it! We might think to ourselves, “That’s a huge problem.” And it is ... if our God does not raise the dead. If our hope is in this life only, then we are most of all to be pitied. But our hope is not in this life only; this life only is not even the fullness of what true life is. Our hope is in the resurrection life to come, in the God who can and will raise us to that new life. When our anxious hearts find rest in God’s sure promise of resurrection life, then we are freed to look beyond the threat of suffering now to the needs of others around us. We are freed to love others, even in the midst of hardship, by laying hold of our sure hope.

By laying hold of our resurrection hope in Christ, we are even freed to forgive those who sin against us. I believe it is, in part, hope in the resurrection that enables Paul to extend mercy to those who abandoned him at his first trial. Paul knows that at the resurrection, God will establish perfect justice. He will right every wrong; he will judge wrong-doers perfectly; he will vindicate those who have been wronged.[36] In hope, Paul lays aside his urges for vindication now and lets go of bitterness and the maddening urge to see those who have hurt him get their comeuppance. It doesn’t cost us anything to let mercy dissolve our grievances; or whatever we think it costs us now will be more than repaid in the end. Paul’s hope in the resurrection and the righting of all wrongs at the end of days frees him to be merciful in his present affliction.[37]

When we lay hold of resurrection hope in Christ, it changes us, strengthens us, impels us to love, frees us to forgive. That’s what happens when we set our eyes on our truest hope.

But a problem arises. It is often hard to set our eyes on our truest hope. Our truest hope often seems vague and dim and distant to us, and our pain now seems enormous. In 2 Cor 4, Paul says, “Momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.” I want to say to Paul, “Paul, are you blind? Light affliction? Is abandonment by your friends ‘light’? Is the certainty of martyrdom ‘light’? Is imprisonment in a cold cell without sufficient clothing ‘light’?” Is Paul delusional? Does he have nothing to offer but frothy ideas and pious abstractions that, at the end of the day, have no correspondence to the real world? Paul’s afflictions were anything but light. And my afflictions and your afflictions do not feel light. We can talk about the greatness of our future hope till we’re blue in the face; but it does not change how great and huge and weighty our present sorrows seem to us.

Part of the problem here is a matter of perspective. It’s like this. I’m driving west to the Rockies on I-76, and I begin to see the vague, shadowy form of mountains on the horizon. While I’m still a hundred miles away in Fort Morgan, CO, the mountains I see look way smaller than the iPhone that is sitting on the dash of my car. The mountains look dim and dull and small; my iPhone looks huge and bright and glorious. That is reality for me in the moment; at least, it’s my perception of reality. Now this should go without saying (perhaps): the mountains are way bigger, way more glorious, way more breathtaking than an iPhone. From my perspective in Fort Morgan, it doesn’t look that way; not even close. But that’s not because the mountains are actually dwarfed by my iPhone. It’s because, at so great a distance from the mountains, I can’t see them clearly, can’t sense their proper shape and size and grandeur, and can’t discern the true insignificance of the iPhone. If I could hold them up side-by-side, there would be no contest. The greatness and weightiness of the phone that I feel now would be forgotten.

That’s how it is with the eternal weight of glory, the resurrection life, that is promised to us. If we could hold it up side-by-side, as it were, with our present sufferings, there would be no contest. We would say, with Paul, that our sufferings, intense as they are in the fervor of the present, are in the whole scheme of things momentary and light. Present despair, present physical pain, present loneliness and abandonment, present anxieties, even death—it’s all light in comparison to entering resurrection life in God’s heavenly kingdom as his resurrected sons and daughters. If we could see them side-by-side, it would be plain as day to us. But we can’t. We can’t pull the future into the present to set next to our present hardships. Scripture gives us some clues to paint a bit of a picture of our future hope, but the picture is still fuzzy, vague, seemingly distant. And it’s awfully hard, in any case, to call it all to mind in the moment of intense trial. We can’t pull the future into the present. So what does God do? He sends a little part of the future, the best part of the future, into the present so that we can taste and see. Our future hope is resurrection: the Father sends the Son, before the final resurrection, to be raised from the dead ahead of time to reveal our true hope. God doesn’t say, “In your hardships, try to comprehend all of your future hope in one shot.” What he says, through the Apostle Paul, is, “Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead.”[38] He is the future broken into the present. He is the guarantee of our future hope. He is the mountain peak sent to us before we reach the eternal Rockies, to help us realize the true nature of reality and to help us fight the good fight of faith till our faith turns into sight. Our glorious future may at times seem dim; it might appear distant and fuzzy and small in comparison with our present hardship. But the tomb is empty. Our future is secure. Our Lord lives, and so shall we. Our Lord lives; indeed, he is present with us and near to us even now.

And this is the third and final way in which Christ’s resurrection makes a practical impact on our sorrow-filled lives today. If Christ has risen to new, everlasting life, then he can be, and is, present with us here and now, in our hardships whatever they may be. God has sent a foretaste of the future, a foretaste of our resurrection hope, into the present, and that resurrection hope is ultimately not a thing but a Person, not an idea but a Companion, not a fix to an impersonal problem but a Friend to stand with us and hold us through the storm.

Recently, we’ve sung together words that Ada Habershon penned over a century ago: Christ will hold me fast. He will hold me fast, for my Savior loves me so. He will hold me fast.[39] She could have simply used the abstraction: “my Savior loves me so.” But she insists upon the very concrete image of being held in Christ’s arms. Why does she use that metaphor? I think she’s tapping into a profound human truth: to be held is to have someone present to us; in fact, to be held is to find healing. There is healing and renewal in the simple presence and embrace of loved ones. There is something mysteriously restorative in being held by one who loves us. Children know it. When one of my kids cracks their head against a wall (I have no idea how they manage to do it every day), where do they run immediately? To their mom and dad for a hug. When a loved one dies, we yearn for and need the embrace of those closest to us. By some deep magic in the universe, the presence and embrace of those who love us is a healing balm.

And the One who loves us most, the One who loves us perfectly, so perfectly he gave his life for our life—this One has risen to new life and is now present with us and even embraces us, wrapping around us the very Spirit of his love.[40] Christ himself promises, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” He promises to be present with us and for us in the communion meal we are about to enjoy together, lifting us up by the power of his Spirit to know his nearness and his embrace. And those who turn to him, who seek his presence, find that his presence and embrace is enough. It doesn’t answer every anguished question we have. It doesn’t cause our sorrows to evaporate. But the embrace of our present Lord Jesus is enough to get us through this day (which is the only day we are right now responsible for).

Paul knew sorrow and hardship. He knew difficulty and despair and anxiety and anguish. He felt greatly abandoned by others, and he was greatly abandoned. But not utterly. “The Lord stood by me.” The risen Lord was there by his side throughout the ordeal, and he was the truest of friends, the closest of brothers, the greatest of all companions, and the strongest of all helpers. The risen Jesus stood by Paul and strengthened him to persevere through his ordeal. And he can and will do so for us. Let us turn to him in hope.

Most merciful God and heavenly Father, who by the death and resurrection of your Son Jesus Christ delivered and saved the world: grant that, by faith in him who suffered on the cross and triumphed over death, we may suffer faithfully triumph in the power of his victory. By your Spirit, transform us into Christ’s image; calm our anxious hearts with our true hope, so that we might be strengthened to perse- vere and love others; and comfort us with your nearness, we pray, through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

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Notes

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