Reading 2 Corinthians is kind of like getting a letter from the Apostle Paul. It's just so personal. Some of the younger folks..., might find that a bit confusing. One college student told her roommate: “Someone sent me an actual letter. I've never gotten one before! How do I download it?”
Reading these two letters back-to-back, 1st and 2nd Corinthians, feels like Paul is our pen pal. As one person explained to his friend, “Having a pen pal is pretty amazing. It's like having a friend, but you don't have to share your snacks!” His young friend replied, ‘Really? So, what's a pen?'
Ah, how the times have changed. The numbering of these two letters is kind of confusing as well. 1 Corinthians is actually Paul's second letter to the church in Corinth and 2 Corinthians is his fourth letter to them. The other two, as well as perhaps others as well, have been lost in time. You get the sense that Paul was constantly writing letters to the churches he planted. Reminds me of someone...
Hobbes: ('Calvin' begins to write as Hobbes walks up....) Hey Calvin. What'cha doing?
Calvin: I'm writing a letter. As a genius, it's important that I write a lot of letters. After all, my
correspondence will be the basic resource material for historians to reconstruct my life.
My writing will provide countless fascinating insights for biographers.
Hobbes: Such as how all your salutations begin with, “Hey Boogerbrain”?
Calvin: What?! It's been three weeks and they still haven't sent me my x-ray glasses!
Hobbes: (walking away) Imagine that! I wonder why....
What?! Clearly, Calvin is not the only one who writes a lot of letters. Even though Paul's intent is not to provide resource materials for future historians, this letter in particular provides more insights to Paul's character and life experiences than any other. It's by far his most personal letter. His opening greeting establishes three things: that he writes in the authority of an apostle sent by Jesus, that he writes with his protege and fellow apostle, Timothy, by his side, and that he intends for this letter to be circulated beyond the confines of the church in Corinth.
“This letter is from Paul, chosen by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, and from our brother Timothy. I am writing to the church in Corinth and to all the saints throughout Greece”
(2 Corinthians 1:1)
So it's okay to read this. It's not an invasion of privacy. This letter was intended for a wider audience. It's also interesting that he mentions Timothy. He refers to him in his closing comments in the letter we finished last week. As Paul put it there: “When Timothy comes, treat him with respect. He is doing the Lord's work, just as I am. When he returns to me, send him with your blessing.”
(1 Corinthians 16:10-11)
It's been about a year since he wrote that letter and much has happened since then. As Paul con-tinued to minister to the church in Ephesus, he'd been informed that a group of men had come to Corinth, presenting themselves as apostles, teaching a false gospel and questioning Paul's integrity and apostlolic authority. Paul then returned to Corinth to try and rectify the situation, but the duress there had continued, so upon his return to Ephesis he wrote them a severe letter, as he puts it, “out of great distress and anguish of heart and with many tears.” (2 Corinthians 2:4)That was his third, and now lost letter. Paul then left Ephesus for Macedonia where he met up with Titus who informed him that his third letter had been effective. This encouraging report from Titus, and the apparent eagerness of the church in Corinth to hear from him again, is what prompted this fourth letter from Paul.
-2-
Paul begins the main body of the letter by talking about the need for comfort. What stands out from his previous letter, and his other epistles as well, is that its not their need for comfort he writes of, but his own. It's so different from the focus of correction and clarification we heard in 1 Corinthians. Here Paul gets very personal. He talks about the need for him and his colleagues to receive comfort.
“The more we suffer for Christ the more God will shower us with his comfort through Christ. We think you should know, my brethren, about the trouble we went through in Asia...!”
(2 Corinthians 1:5,8)
What kind of trouble did Paul, Timothy and Titus experience? Every kind, really. He talks about physical hardship, relational heartache and professional setbacks. He'll later get specific with the nature of the physical hardships they endured when he writes: “We've been beaten, put in prison, faced angry mobs, worked to exhaustion, endured sleepless nights and gone without food.”
(2 Corinthians 6:5)
He talks about the relatonal heartache he's experienced as well when he writes: “We serve God whether people honor us or despise us, whether they slander us or praise us. We are ignored, even though we're well known. Our hearts ache...! And you, dear Corinthians, though there is no lack of love on our part for you, you have repeatedly withheld your love from us. Open your hearts to us!”
(2 Corinthians 6:8-11)
Rarely is Paul so transparent as he is in this letter! The fact that his last visit to them to restore order, clarity and direction did not have the results he'd hoped for reveals that he not only had his share of physical hardship and relational heartache but also significant professional setbacks. The troubles he refers to in this letter's opening chapter were many and multi-faceted. In such seasons, it's easy to feel overwhelmed and discouraged. As Paul here emphatically expresses it: “We were crushed and over-whelmed beyond our ability to endure and we thought we would never live through it!”
(2 Corinthians 1:8)
Ever feel like that? Ever experience a season in life in which the feelings of loss and grief were so pervasive that you felt crushed and overwhelmed? Some of us in the room today have and some of us still do. It's in such seasons, that Paul's personal words of his own struggle really hit home. When-ever we experience loss, or a major change in our lives, or find ourselves dealing with financial duress, or conflict in a relationship, or a season of intense stress, our souls hunger for words of comfort.
It's an interesting and telling fact that 1 Corinthians contains a passage that is the most read text in weddings, what's called the chapter of love, while 2 Corinthians features a passage that is often read at funerals and memorial services. In fact, I've read it at every such funeral service I've ever led!
Those words are these: “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in our troubles and sorrows so we can comfort others with the same comfort we ourselves have received from God.” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4)
How so? Paul writes that he's experienced God the Father using a word that can be translated as mercy or compassion. As a student of Old Testament scripture, God has clearly done that by speaking words of comfort and compassion through the Word. It's probably the way God expresses his care and love for us the most clearly and consistently. That certainly is my experience. I remember a time in which Claudia and I were dating and I was really struggling with the physical and emotional distance that was separating us and I stumbled upon a verse in which God's word declares: “I am convinced that nothing in all of creation can separate us from the love of God that is ours in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 8:39) I sensed God saying, you two may be separated for a time but you and I never will be!
-3-
Paul also writes that comfort has come to him directly from Christ: “God has showered us with comfort through Christ.” (2 Cor 1:5) This brings to mind the comfort that Luther spoke of in his theology of the cross. The cross points to how God doesn't necessarily take away our pain, but enters into it in order to redeem it, to make out of if something good and life-changing. Paul was acutely aware of this because of what Jesus said to him when they met on the Road to Damascus, that as Paul persecuted the church he was persecuting Jesus. Clearly, even now Jesus shares in our pain/ hardship.
It's comforting to know that when we are hurting Jesus Spirit, which we carry within us, is hurting along with us, and to know, that if we'll trust him with it, trust that even then, especially then, God's goodness and loving plan is moving forward. It means our pain is putty in his hands!
[DVD clip from The Chosen; ]
I think of the book, Great Souls, by David Aikman who identified six individuals from the 20th century who stood out for their spiritual and moral character and contributions. He settled on Mother Theresa, who was rejected and mocked in her youth and who worked at the extreme edge of human suffering; Alexander Sozhenitsyn, chronicler of the cruel Gulag system; Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor; Nelson Mandela, beaten and imprisoned for 27 years in Apartheid South Africa; and Pope John Paul II, who grew up impoverished and persecuted under Nazi and then Communist regimes.
I think of Joni Eareckson, who was crippled in an accident as a teenager, and later referred to it as the best day of her life as God used it again and again to produce amazing and unique opportunities due to her disability to help, encourage and empower thousands of others going thru a similar ordeal.
Or of Reynods Price, who after suffering spinal cord cancer in the 80's saw God's hand not so much in the illness but in the aftermath. “That catastrophe upended my life, to be sure, but if I were called on to value honestly my present life beside my past, I'd have to say that despite an enjoyable fifty year start, these years since that disaster have gone better still. They brought more in and sent more out – more love and care, more knowledge and patience, more work in less time! God is good!”
(from Phillip Yancy's Reaching for the Invisible God)
As Phillip Yancey said of Price: “Price credits it as the now appalling, now astonishing grace of God. A relationship with God does not promise supernatural deliverance from hardship, but rather a supernatural use of it!” (from Phillip Yancy's Reaching for the Invisible God)
These faithful people's witness, along with Paul and Timothy and so many others, points as well to one way God redeems our pain and hardships – so that by helping others undergoing through similar hardships, we further the work of Christ in the lives of those around us while discovering a renewed and powerful sense of purpose for our lives from that point forward.
As Paul so eloquently put it: “God comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others with the same comfort we ourselves have received from God.” (2 Corinthians 1:4)
I think of Vicki, ministering out of her grief to others suffering a loss, or Sheri, who partners in inner healing ministry as a result of the healing she herself received, or Chris and Jody ministering to fellow those in recovery, or Ken and Sarah who witness to others based on Christ's comfort to them.
I like how it's worded in the Message translation: “It was so bad we didn't think we were going to make it, but as it turned out, it was the best thing that could have happened. Instead of trusting in our own strength or wits to get out of it, we were forced to trust God totally – not a bad idea, if you catch my meaning, since He's the God who raises the dead! He rescued us then and many times since. You and your prayers were part of that rescue operation. Your prayers play a crucial part!”
(2 Corinthians 1:8-11; MSG)
-4-
By praying for one another, particularly for those going through a hard time, then, we get to partner with the God who raises the dead! Prayers are powerful asset for those in need of comfort. And at one point or another, we are all in need of the comfort God brings. Some of you could use that now!