Good morning. Did anybody get to see the exhibit down at the Heinz Center called The Vatican Splendors? In case you were not able to see it, today is the last day and then it is going to move on. It was a traveling show across the United States that hit four or five cities where they took items from the Vatican, like paintings, sculptures, and mosaics, and put them together into this display called The Vatican Splendors. Because I was raised Catholic, I think I appreciated it a lot but you didn’t have to be Catholic to appreciate the artwork and history behind that. It was a really good show. As I went through there, I started paying attention to see what exhibits seemed to draw the most attention. Debbie liked the paintings the most. I looked at the sculptures and historical items. You can tell by this sign that the most popular items for the Catholics were these commemorative shot glasses you can get at the end of the tour. There was a lot of good stuff there. This may sound a little bit morbid to some of you, but the things I was really curious about were the relics. When we think of relics, we think of some sort of historical artifact. In a religious setting, a relic has a very specific meaning. They are basically objects left behind of the saints. It could be personal items, which could be bone fragments or strands of hair from their body. Some of these exhibits actually contain these items. They are believed to, in some cases, have this miraculous ability and quality behind them. They are revered in the church. Aside from the theology of that, it did impress me that I was standing about a foot away from what is believed to be the bones of Saint Peter and Saint Paul. I came to this display and it was an ornate-looking vessel made of silver and gold and really decked out. It was just this beautiful thing. I could not believe I was standing a foot away from the bones of someone like Saint Peter or Saint Paul, people that we speak of almost weekly here. Because it was so elaborate and ornate and the container was so beautiful, even though you wanted to look at the treasure inside, your eyes were naturally drawn to the vessel.
In today’s reading out of 2 Corinthians, Paul says don’t focus on the vessel. Don’t focus on the jar of clay. He says focus on the treasure inside. Looking at 2 Corinthians 4:6 Paul writes “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all suppressing power is from God and not from us.” A little background on this passage because we are taking it out of context. Paul is writing to the church in Corinth. It is one of the newer churches; a first-century church. We talked about several months ago that the Corinthian church had a lot of issues going on. It was also a church that, because it was new, was very persecuted. It was hard being a Christian in the first century. People left their homes, jobs, relationships, and other religions to become part of what was known at that time as a cult of Judaism. Christianity was brand new. It was considered an off-shoot of Judaism. So the people were under a lot of persecution. They were losing their lives. What I appreciated a lot about the artwork down at the Heinz Center was that it really did a good job depicting the suffering that the first-century Christians went through. They really went through a lot. They were placed in arenas. They were fed to dogs. They were executed. They were lit on fire. It is just unbelievable. It is almost embarrassing to try and compare our suffering to their suffering. Even yet, the people were just ordinary people like you and me. They had jobs and families. They were mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers and teenagers. They were just common, ordinary people. That is why Paul uses this term clay pots. It is people who are common. One of the most common items around the marketplace or the homes were these clay pots. These jars of clay. They were used everywhere. There were very unimpressive and cheap. They were the common thing around in that day. In fact, if you were to go on an archaeological dig, you pretty much can guarantee that you are going to find a pot shard, which is just a chunk of pot. Those are very common. They are very inexpensive, and they are easily chipped and broken. Paul uses this idea of jars of clay to symbolize the persecuted Christians.
At the same time, he uses the term treasure to speak of what is inside of that jar of clay; the splendor that is inside of the jar of clay. What is that treasure? We just have to look at the prior verse to see what that treasure is. He describes the treasure as “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” Paul is using a lot of poetic words here to basically say the knowledge of God that you have because of your relationship with Christ. We know God by the accepting Christ. There is a scripture John 1:18 that says “No one has ever seen God, but God (speaking of Jesus) the one and only who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.” The reason we know God is because we know Jesus. The more we know Jesus, we know God because we believed in the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That is what he is saying here. You have received the knowledge of God in the face of Christ. The thing that is really cool about this scripture is that Paul ties this light all the way back to the beginning of time. All the way back to Genesis. He basically says the same God that said “Let light shine in the darkness” is the same God that lights up your heart with the knowledge of Christ. To me that is amazing. Just as God hovered over the darkness and said “Let there be light” in some sense what he is doing over the unbeliever is hovering over their heart. He is hovering over their soul, their spirit, and when the time is right he says “Let there be light” and that light of Christ begins to unfold within the believer. That is the treasure that every believer has within their heart. Paul is basically saying don’t take this treasure and keep it hidden in a clay jar. Let it out. Use it. Dig down deep into that well and draw power from it that is going to give you the ability to withstand all the severe life trials and all the circumstances that you are hit with in life. Not only do that. When you draw upon that power, what happens is people around you are watching. They actually begin to see the power of God and they know that that power is not from you because they know you. They know the power is from God and it may actually convert them to God. That is the imagery that he is trying to create here. He goes on to say we who have this knowledge respond differently to our circumstances. He goes on to say “We are hard pressed on every side but not crushed. We are perplexed, but we are not in despair. We are persecuted, but we are not abandoned. We are struck down, but we are not destroyed.” He is creating an imagery of an arena or gladiator setting where you have all these things coming at you and you are responding not the way the world would respond. You are responding the way the Christians respond. Many of the Christians were responding like this. They were feeling hard pressed on every side but at the same time they drew down in that deep well of faith and said no matter what happens, I am not crushed at all. They are feeling perplexed about the situation, but at the same time not despairing knowing that they have hope. They are drawing on the deep well of hope within them. They are feeling persecuted. They are feeling slandered. They are feeling spit upon. At the same time, they know they are not alone. They are not feeling abandoned. They are feeling struck down and thrown to the ground, but at the same time they know they are not destroyed by their circumstances. That is the picture that Paul is trying to create in this scripture.
He goes on to say “We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.” In other words, we identify with the sufferings of Christ. You have to identify with the sufferings of Christ so that you can identify with the life of Christ that is revealed throughout your circumstances. That is the setting here. That is what Paul is trying to communicate to the Corinthians who were really struggling with what was going on in their lives at that time. Today is January 9. My question today is how is it going with everybody? How many people are just having a phenomenal start to the new year? Good. A few of you. How many are having a lousy start to the new year? Be honest. A few of you. How many are having a mediocre start? Most of us. I would say mine is kind of mediocre. January 1st I did the Polar Bear Plunge. Third year in a row. I was nervous about this year. The water was high, dark, and murky, and my first thought was I was going to die. It was a bonding experience with my son so I had to do it. The good news is we got to do a baptism that day too. I won’t mention the name, but he is here. January 1st started off good but January 2nd went downhill. Last week I felt a little bit distracted because I was sitting there at the end of the service and I received a voicemail on my phone from my sister-in-law in St. Louis. Some of you know I was married to my first wife for 20 years who passed away in 2001. Beth is my sister-in-law from that marriage. She sent me a voicemail and she very seldom calls me at all, so I knew something was bad. Sure enough it turned out that my father-in-law from my first marriage died suddenly last Sunday morning. That is how my January 2nd started off. On January 3rd I started figuring out how I was going to contact my daughter Natalie who is in boot camp in San Antonio to let her know that her grandfather died. I had to go to the Red Cross and figure out how to do that. Now I don’t tell you that to draw attention to myself. I tell you that to remind you, like I said last week, man makes his plans but it is God who directs the steps. We fill out our calendars at the beginning of the year. We make our resolutions. I didn’t put that last Sunday, January 2nd, I was going to get a call from my sister-in-law. I didn’t put down that last Friday I was going to be attending a funeral in St. Louis. That wasn’t in my plans this year. So I had to adjust my plans. We all have to do that.
As we go into the year, it is a good time to remind ourselves of the treasure we have within ourselves. It is so easy to start the year off and immediately start thinking about ourselves and all the problems we are having and beginning to focus on the jars of clay instead of the splendor that is inside the clay. It is a good time to remind ourselves that we have. I use we loosely because I don’t know who the we are because I don’t know your relationship with God. I could say we have, but only you and God know if you are part of the we. Only you and God know if you have accepted Christ as Lord. If you have accepted Christ as Lord, then you have that knowledge of God within you. It might not be fully developed but you have that treasure within you. The treasure that cannot be taken away. The treasure of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. You have that knowledge within you whether you believe it. You have it and you just have to develop it. We have this also in jars of clay. We are fragile humans. We look around and some are more physically fit than others. Some are more intelligence than others. But really if you break it down, we are all about the same level. We are all jars of clay. Everybody has their issues. Everybody has their weaknesses. Everybody has the places that they are most fragile in their life, the vulnerable spots. We are all jars of clay. That is the first thing you have to admit. But we have these jars of clay, and we have this treasure in the jars of clay. Once again, it is not to hold on to. It is to draw deep into that well to bring up that well of living water, to be able to drink from that water, to feel the power of God, and to know that you have the power of God so when you hit those circumstances, which you will hit, some of you will hit them today, tomorrow, a week from now or by the end of the year, you have to decide how you are going to respond. Are you going to respond in fear or are you going to respond in faith? If you respond in faith what happens is you begin to reveal Christ to others. You begin to reveal the power of God to others and it attracts people into the faith.
When you are feeling hard pressed; when you feel like the walls are closing in on you; when you get the calls throughout the week that the transmission in the car is gone and it is going to cost you $3,000 to repair; you get the call from the doctor and he says the cancer is malignant; you get the call from the spouse that says I am leaving you; you get the pink slip from the job that says you are out of a job. Walls are pressing in. What are you going to do? You are feeling hard pressed but that is the time that you have to draw deep into that well and say I am hard pressed but something in the scripture tells me I am not crushed. I am going to get through this thing. Maybe you are feeling perplexed or confused. Maybe you are having what I would call a what’s-up-with-that-God-type moment. Does anybody have those? God I have been serving all lifelong. I have been reading the Bible, going to church, doing all these things and you throw this at me. I had one of those when I lost my wife in 2001. Going off to seminary and my wife dies. We could compare stories. I am not bragging about it. I am just saying that is a what’s-up-with-that-God moment. I don’t get it but what I chose to do is draw deep in the well of the little strength that I could find and said I have the power within me to get past this. I am perplexed, but I am not despairing. I am perplexed, but the situation is not hopeless. Because I have that hope that is the anchor of my soul and that is what holds you in. That is why you have to know the scripture. If you don’t know the scripture, you won’t know this stuff. That is why you have to meditate on the scripture. The scripture has to become part of you. You say I am perplexed but I am not despairing. Some of you are feeling persecuted maybe because you are trying to live like Christians in the world. I hope you are trying it. Otherwise what are you doing in this game? I am serious. Go out in the world and act like a Christian and see if you don’t get persecuted. Try to maybe start a Bible study at your job and see if you aren’t mocked. Try to go to school and talk to the kids about your faith and see if you are not persecuted. Try to act like a Christian. Go to your family and say I don’t act like this anymore. I don’t do this behavior and see if you are not persecuted. See if you don’t feel abandoned. You are going to feel abandoned but you are not because you are drawing that rich well that is in God and you know that even Christ felt abandoned, but you know he wasn’t abandoned. You know that. You can look back to that. You are persecuted but you are not abandoned. You are feeling knocked down. Anybody feel knocked down? Just like you got hit in the side of the head with a hammer and you fell to the ground. You are down for the count. At the same time, you are not destroyed. What did Jesus say about Satan? Satan has come to lie, kill, and destroy. But what did Jesus come to give? Life. Life eternal. You can draw on that hope. You can draw deep on that well of faith, that splendor, that treasure within this jar of clay, and you begin to lift yourself up and get through another day. Because you know the outcome of everything. You know that you are going to win this. It is going to work out. If you stay faithful with Christ, he will stay faithful with you.
As you do that, what happens is people are looking around you. They begin to see. I know this guy and he is not very strong normally. He is immature or weak. Normally he is a pretty fragile person, but yet he just got this news and he is able to stand firm and be faithful. It gets the person to start thinking maybe there is a God. I don’t have that they are thinking. I don’t even know about God but this person has something that I don’t have and I want that. You have the power, the treasure to draw on to get you through the circumstances and when you get through the circumstances and you are not startled by the circumstances, you become a witness to the world around you. There is another scripture in Philippians where Paul speaks of this very same thing only this time he is addressing the Philippian church who were suffering extreme persecution. He writes “Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in one Spirit (he is talking to the church), contending as one man for the faith of the gospel without being frightened in any way by those who oppose you. This is a sign to them that they will be destroyed, but that you will be saved – and that by God.” One of my professors said that this idea of frightened, if you look at the original language, has the idea of being startled as if you were walking up on an unsuspecting animal like a horse without them know it and all of a sudden they become startled. He is saying don’t be startled by the things that get thrown in your lap. In fact expect it. Something is going to happen. Every single day you have the possibility of some sort of thing that comes your way that you are not going to really enjoy, so why are you started by it. Don’t be startled by it. Begin to draw on that faith and begin to be a witness to Christ. When you are not startled, just as he says “This is a sign to them that they will be destroyed.” He is talking about the people that are really opposing the early Christians. It is not really just people; it is circumstances. It might involve people but a lot of time it is just circumstances. The people that are looking on, the people that choose not to believe, it is a sign of their destruction. It is a sign that they have nothing. They have no hope. You have something and they are saying I don’t have anything. It is a sign that they are on their way out and they don’t even know where they are going. But for the believers, they will be saved and that by God. When you stand firm and become a witness not only to the unbelieving people; you become a witness to your friends. The saddest thing is to see a Christian who has lost hope. It really is. Those two words shouldn’t go together. A hopeless Christian. Those two words should never, ever go together. We have that hope. That hope is the anchor of our soul that cannot ever be taken away.
In closing, you are not the sum of your clay jar. It is not the pot and the circumstances around the earthly jar that is important. It is what is in it. It is the treasure that is within it. As you hit the circumstances of life today, tomorrow, or next week, you have a choice of how you are going to respond. You can say I am feeling hard pressed. You can say I am feeling persecuted. You can say I am feeling perplexed and I am even feeling struck down. But when you say that, here is what I would say: “We are pressed on every side but not crushed.” You are not going to be crushed. I can guarantee it. You won’t be crushed if you put your faith in God. We may be perplexed but not in despair. You are not going to be hopeless. It is a choice to be hopeless. You are not hopeless. You are making the choice to feel hopeless but God says there is hope. We are persecuted but not abandoned. You may feel abandoned. You may feel like you are the only one in the world going through this but you are not and God is there right alongside with you. You may be struck down but not destroyed. Even if your body is destroyed. Even if you die, you cannot be destroyed because you have the hope of eternal life. Once again, you carry around in your body the death of Christ so you can at least relate a little bit to the suffering of Christ so that you have the ability to reveal Christ to others in your body and that they might be saved. Let us pray.
