2 Timothy. 4. 4-8
6 For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. 7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 8 Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version
Hear I am, on All-Saints day, 2022, and I am reading the Great Saint Paul, speaking to his protege Timothy, encouraging Him to keep at it, to not give up. Timothy has had a hard road it seems at his pastoral post. He has met with resistance from those who would seek to have his position, from others who wish to promulgate their own doctrine, and so are false teachers. It seems he has also some physical problems probably with his stomach. He is also young, and that has its complications. All of this adds up to a time where he is struggling with keeping at the task God had given him.
While I was reading Saint Paul in the background there is Bono singing “and you give, and you give, and you give your life away; and you give, and you give, and you give your life away…” Now I know that U2 had a different idea of what those lyrics meant, but I was struck with how encouraging those words were to me this morning. They spoke of the heart of the saints that had gone before me, who had given to me with their prayer, with their time, from their love. In my praying this morning. I give thanks for my brothers and sisters who are now in the Lord’s presence, who are, as the author of Hebrews says, members of that “cloud of witnesses” cheering us on as we go through our days on this Earth. More than these saints, it also spoke of my Lord, Jesus, who also has given His life away, for me. Life is something we should never grasp as our sole possession, a thing to be clung to, except as a gift to be given away.
I think Paul had the same thought when he was trying to encourage this young pastor whom he loved so much. Paul knows he is at the end of his time on Earth, and he wants to pass on to Timothy words that will build him up in the time to come. So he says I am being poured out as a drink offering, or libation. In that time, in Roman culture at the end of the meal you would pour out some wine unto the ground as thanksgiving to the Gods for the meal and for the friendship of those who had eaten with you. In the Jewish culture would take wine and oil and pour it out on the alter after an offering. Only at the end of the offering would this be offered up to God. So Paul sees himself as a libation, an offering at the end of his life, now being poured out for others in his service of Christ.
Here is a clue to how Paul understood the Christian life. So often when we are younger, we see life as a filling up. We must get a job. We want to secure for ourselves a place in society. We want to find a spouse, and a place to live. There is nothing wrong with any of these, but we tend to define our lives by these things and relationships. We see ourselves in terms of what we have. As a young man Paul had great ambition. He was extremely bright, and he showed it, and used his intellect to secure a place of authority within the Pharisees in Jerusalem. He worked hard to build a reputation amongst the spiritual authorities as one who was zealous for the law. He was born into both the Jewish world, but also was a Roman citizen. He was a man who had accomplished all he had set out to do, and had received all he had wanted from this life. Then he met Christ, whom he would fashion his life after. Paul says in Philippians 3, “I suffered the loss of all things, and reckon them to be as rubbish,…that I may know Him and the power of his resurrection, and may share in his suffering, becoming like him in his death” (Philippians 3.8,10).
Paul is speaking of his life and its purpose, and he wants to remind Timothy something of this. Life is not about what we get, but what we have given away in love to others. To be “poured out as a libation” is to find the good life, by letting your life be used by God, and watching it be emptied out in the service of others. Life is not about getting, but about giving. This is contrary to the great lie of our culture, where we measure our life’s worth by what we have. The only things we take with us into eternity is what we give in love to others. The late Karl George is quoted as saying “the only things we take into heaven are those we gave away on Earth.”
Paul goes on further to say that “the time of my departure is near.” The word departure here has the connotation of a ship being released from its pier, or from its mooring. Paul is speaking of his dying, and he sees it as a going forth, Right now he is tied to this world, but soon he will be loosed from it, and will go forth into the presence of Christ.
A few minutes ago I was called by a friend. He occasionally calls as I once was His pastor, and his wife is going through an especially hard time medically. He is with her every step of the way, and emotionally he suffers as he watches her go through intense chemo sessions. In our conversation I was reminded, and encouraged him, that everything we go through in this life is a preparation for that time we will be loosed and enter into the presence of God. Everything! So God is with us, and we pray for his life and healing, but most of all we want Him. And that is what we get.
Should not this encourage us? We all have our set of circumstances. Suffering is hard, but God can turn it into a grace whereby we glorify him, and know him more, in the power of His resurrection, and in the sharing of his sufferings, that we may become like Him in his death.
My Mom’s birthday is but a few days from now. When I come to All-Saints day, I think of her. When I heard that U2 chorus, I thought of her. A year ago last January she left us and went to the Lord. I miss her deeply, but when I think of her, I remember the hours in prayer she spent speaking to God for me, and I am encouraged. Like Christ, and like Paul, her life was poured out to Him, for the ones she loved in this life. Where is she now? In the presence of God, watching us, and praying still for those she loves. Unhindered now in her prayers, she sees the will of God more clearly than ever before, and she is still interceding for her sons, for her daughter, for her husband, and for all whom she loves. Like all the Saints who are with Christ now, she has finished her race and has received her crown.
This All-Saints day, or whatever day you hear this, give God praise for those individuals He used to bring grace into your life. Commit yourself to a new way of living, where giving, not getting, is the rule of life. Have no fear of that day which is approaching for us all. It is but a unloosing from this existence to a new life, a life where living is elevated. There will be the end of all suffering on that day, and until then, may he use our suffering and tests as a way of getting us ready until that day.
Amen. Let us pray.
Prayer