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❖ Audio
This Treasure, in Jars of Clay
2 Corinthians 4:7-15
Guest Speaker: Yuko Honjo (Pastor, The UCCJ Osaka church)
7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 10 We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 11 For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. 12 So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you. 13 It is written: “I believed; therefore I have spoken.” Since we have that same spirit of faith, we also believe and therefore speak, 14 because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you to himself. 15 All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.
We have just read in v. 7, “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.”
There is a treasure in church. It is the all-surpassing power of God. However, each church and each of us who is given this power is just a jar of clay. A jar of clay, namely a pottery.I t may be firm and strong if it’s left as it stands. But it can get a crack easily once being hit by something, or it will shatter into small pieces if it’s fallen. Even if we have faith in Jesus, we are like such a jar of clay.
Moreover, we are not like the jars displayed and protected inside a showcase. Verses 8-9 say, “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.” There are times when we feel we are stuck in a dead end. I’m sure there were many times in which we felt that way during this pandemic. Even without the pandemic, we all sometimes have to face an event that we don’t know what to do with.
However, the word of God does not end there. It repeatedly reminds us that there is a story to be continued. It tells us that we will not be crushed, neither end in despair nor abandoned, and never be destroyed. Surely we are just jars of clay, get hurt by others and feel pains easily, and even sometimes struck down. And yet, the treasure we have inside, the treasure of God’s all-surpassing power, can make us stand in the place where we will never be crushed or despaired or abandoned or destroyed.
This was something Paul said. He said in v. 17, a few verses after our text today, “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.” The troubles that Paul had in his life were not at all light. He actually lists up all the troubles he had in the other passage. It is said, “…I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches.” (II Corinthians 11:26-28)
These are just a series of troubles one after another that we can hardly imagine. But Paul himself says that all these troubles are “light,” because of the power dwelling inside of him. Verse 10 says, “we always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.” The treasure of church that dwelled in Paul was the death of Jesus. We may wonder how on earth Jesus’ death could be a treasure at a glance. From one point of view, Jesus’ death was just an event in which a person was betrayed and abandoned by his loved ones, and left alone to be killed. It looks more like a curse than a treasure.
However, Jesus’ death was not the death that He was forced to or only accepted unwillingly as a result of God’s powerlessness. Instead, it revealed the way God uses His power. In the event of Jesus’ death, God himself in our mortal and fragile physical body shared with us every curse, all pains of rejection, and all angers and moans for injustice that we experience on earth. He taught us through Jesus’ death that He is just with us and actually holding us in His arms crying out, “You are not alone! I am with you!” in the midst of those painful experiences of ours. Moreover, this event of Jesus’ death did not just end in His death. He defeated the power of death and rose again in the morning of the third day. Therefore, He did not just come to share all forms of curse we carry with ourselves, but also rose again and brought us the light and the way out of them. What dwelled in Paul was this power of God, who has done all of these.
Paul himself admits that our pains and sufferings won’t go away instantly even if we believe in Jesus. He says that we always need to “carry around in our body the death of Jesus.” However, it’s not a mere death, but it is the death of Jesus, which is inseparable and unified with His life of resurrection. When we have to bear troubles, we surely suffer and grieve. But we have to remember that their decisive stings are already removed, because Jesus carried them all as His own. All our troubles are not meaningless or for nothing through Jesus, because they all are meant for us to become one with Jesus and His death, and for us to have His new life of resurrection revealed in us.
Paul said, “…our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.” “Achieve” can also mean “produce.” It has the meaning of create or give birth to something. That means, our trouble is the producer who works to create and give birth to something new in Jesus. What is this producer producing then? It is, “an eternal glory that far outweighs all our light and momentary troubles.” Although the trouble I have now seems to be trying to box me in it, it is not working only to give me pains. Rather, it is working for me to produce and even outflow the eternal glory that outweighs my present trouble.
There are troubles in this world and in our everyday life that we feel our life will be perfect only if they were not there. Or perhaps you may have a trouble that makes you feel pushed and confined from all corners of your life. It might be your job, your responsibility to care for your old parents, your duty to rear your children, or your own diseases or aging. You may have the past that you think you cannot take back any more, which makes you feel that your future will be forever closed. When we keep trying to face them but cannot find any ways out, we may feel empty and at a loss, and don’t even know what we are doing.
However, we don’t need to try getting away from there. Because we will never end there, where we get cracks, confined and abused. Because it is the irreplaceable place where the Lord is working with us. The Lord is the one who conquered our greatest limits, sin and death, and rose again. It is the place where that Lord holds our hands and walk with us to produce the eternal glory that outweighs any troubles.
The scripture today tells us even more. Verse 12 says, “So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.” When we share Jesus’ suffering and death in our daily lives, Jesus’ life outflows from us to work in someone else. Our life as believers is not only for the sake of ourselves, but more for others. We live to produce Jesus’ life in people around us.
Therefore, we can say the power of God working in us leads us to the way of living that may look strange from others. People desire to have various powers in this world, such as the power to become happy, the power to escape from troubles, the power to make one’s wish come true, and so on. However, those of us who received the power of God take on any troubles and seek after Jesus’ work of life to be revealed, because we know we share in Jesus’ suffering and death in those troubles. When Paul said, “life is at work in you,” this “you” was actually his enemies. But he did not cut his relationship with his enemies. The fact that this letter of his exists is the very proof for it. He wrote such a long letter to them, because he chose to keep his relationship with them, instead of cutting it off. While he experienced himself the grief, pain and death of Jesus when his sincere love for them seemed to have never reached them, only to end in vain and even to be given back with hostility against him, he never lost sight of the vision to come true. It was the vision of Jesus’ life to be revealed to them through the work of my body. Believing and hoping that the vision come true, he kept bearing his burden to love people.
Verse 14 says, “We know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you to himself.” What he could not help but keep his eyes on was the vision of the end time. Paul believed that these people will rise again with Jesus and he will stand together with them before the Lord. Paul was once a person who was the most hostile to Jesus among his peers. So he knew very well the immeasurable power of God through his own experience of being caught and transformed by it. That’s why he never gave up his efforts to love those who came hostile to him.
Verse 15 says, “All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.” Paul was seeing the far more reaching vision before him. Instead of focusing on the current trouble or people’s hostility against him, he believed in the vision that Jesus’ life be revealed even through those troubles from one person to another and that he would stand together with many people to give thanks and bring back the glory to God. Sustained by this vision, he was able to keep bearing his burden to love people.
The power of God, which was at work in Paul, is now working in us, too. We don’t have to give up on ourselves. We don’t need to give up on others as well. Even if the person is our enemy, we can keep our burden to love them. “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.” The all-surpassing power of God is our treasure, and it dwells in you, too.
(Prayer)Dear God, we sometimes feel exhausted in our efforts to love others in our every day life. We sometimes nearly lose our trust in you in our pains and sorrows. We feel like giving up on our work of love. God, help us. Help us see the vision of the end time through your power. Please reveal Jesus’ work of life through our body. Help those who have not yet got baptized to be united with the Master of life and share in the work of His new life. May Your Good News reach to those who are fighting for the work of love in the midst of emptiness of this world. Use each one of us in church through this week again for that purpose. We pray this in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
Summary
Though we believe in Jesus, we are fragile jars of clay that can be hurt in a struggle. And yet, the extraordinarily great treasure that is God’s power remains in jars of clay. Our treasure helps us to stand, get unstuck, resist despair, saves us from destruction, and never gives up on us. The struggles that we experience with Jesus become one with Jesus’s own suffering and death. Our struggles are not in vain, but rest in the light of Jesus’ resurrection, awaiting future glory.