Sunday Sermon: The Light of Life and Immortality
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Text: 2 Timothy 1:10
Post-Easter Series: “The Dawn of a New Day”
Maybe it’s just me, but it seems as if we’ve had more than our share of storms this spring season. And even if you’ve managed to escape the damage generated by the high winds and fierce lightning, more than likely you’ve had to deal a time or two with the loss of power at your home or business, which always manages to come at the worst possible moments. It usually happens at night, does it not, when the sun has gone down and the loss of power has us shrouded in darkness. When that happens at your place, you know the drill. Find the candles. Find the flashlights. Look for matches or batteries to create some sense of light until the power can be restored.
When we think about them, those moments become a parable of our modern-day existence where we are reminded of how vulnerable and exposed we are when the power is taken away. Storms always come our way, and not just in the weather-related sense of the word, but they also come in the form of emotional storms and vocational storms and relational storms and financial storms, and we lose power in the face of each one of them, a loss of power which plunges us into a level of deep darkness that nothing we can put our hands on seems to dispel. Oh, that we might get our hands on some kind of mystic generator that could kick on the power when those existential storms came our way!
Well, what if I were to assure you that while there is no mystic generator we can turn to in the pitch-dark times of life, there is most definitely a spiritual one. There is a source of power that never fails in the moments of our deepest distress, one that according to the Apostle Paul, has brought “life and immortality to light through the gospel” so that in those very times we might see clearly that God is in control and how even in those most challenging moments God’s purpose and grace are very much in play.
Those were Paul’s words to his protégé in the faith, Timothy, in his second letter. In First Timothy, Paul has addressed what we might call “nuts and bolts” questions on how to manage life in a community of faith, things like the qualifications of a pastor and the qualifications of lay leaders. But in Second Timothy, Paul speaks more specifically to the challenges that must have come Timothy’s way in his seeing after that task and which were most likely sapping Timothy of his strength and robbing him of his joy.
On this Mother’s Day, I think it’s interesting to note how Paul acknowledges how Timothy’s faith journey was nurtured by his mother Eunice and by his grandmother Lois, both influential women in his life. But even more importantly, Paul reminds Timothy that ultimately his salvation and calling rests in the providence of God, a God who purposed all of it “before the beginning of time,” which was Paul’s way of reminding Timothy that his salvation and his calling weren’t afterthoughts to God. They were instead a part of God’s purpose for Timothy, and as they emanated from the heart of a Sovereign God, they weren’t vulnerable to the whims of fate or the vagaries and disruptions of everyday life. But evidently, Timothy was having trouble seeing all of that, which is why Paul made such a strong appeal to the significance of the Resurrection of Jesus and how through it God displayed a source of power that has “destroyed death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.”
Note how in this verse I read for you this morning, verse 10, Paul employs three expressions that all speak to illuminating power of the gospel. “It has now been revealed. It has been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus. His appearing has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. What Paul is reminding Timothy is that even when life saps our souls of strength and resolve, as we turn our eyes away from the challenges to the life that the Risen Jesus awakens, our anxieties are lessened and our fears are resolved in the promise of God’s resurrection power, which has been unleashed into this world and into our lives through our commitment to Jesus as our Savior and Lord. More importantly, we even begin to see and celebrate how those very challenges that have come our way are all a part of God’s plan to form us and shape us for how His power might more easily flow through us into this world so that we become agents of God’s redemptive purposes and evidence as to the difference His Easter power can make in an ordinary life.
Perhaps you’re here this morning and you find yourself in a place similar to the one in which Timothy had landed. Life has taken its toll on you. Disappointments have robbed you of your joy. Setbacks have piled up so that you feel you don’t have the power to rise above them like you once did. Here then is a suggestion: Take your attention away from all those things and redirect it to the abiding presence of the Risen Jesus, who is very much with you even in the midst of all your despair. See how the power of God is able to create for you a new situation in the face of your current one and illumine your darkness with the light of God’s everlasting light in Christ Jesus. Then you will be able not only to rise above your darkness, but you will help others to do so through your witness to the power at work in you, which is what you have been called to do through God’s purpose and His grace in Christ Jesus.
Can you do that this morning? Can you open your eyes and your heart to the illuminating possibilities the Risen Jesus can bring about in you and through you?
I’m reminded of the story of the rich man who was living out his life and therefore called to his bedside his three sons, telling them, “I wish to leave my fortune intact. I’m not going to split it up among you. I want to make sure that one of you employs it as faithfully and responsibly as I’ve done my best to do. So, I will give each of you the same opportunity so that I might see which one of you is the most capable at managing the money. Here, then, is the task I set before you. In my warehouse there are three large storerooms. I’m going to give each of you the same amount of money. Your task is for each of you to fill one of those storerooms with as much as your portion of money will buy.” Then, he sent them out. What would you have bought?
The first son went out and bought sand with all his money, and was able with the sand he had purchased to fill a third of his room. The second son went out and bought some dirt with his money, and was able to fill a half of his room. The third son went out and with only a small portion of his money bought candles and matches, and he filled his room with light.
I think you can see the application. This world in which we live is shrouded in deep darkness and needs something from beyond it to cast out the darkness and replace it with light. God has done precisely that in raising Jesus, God’s Only Begotten Son, from the dead. Jesus, through his life, his death, and his resurrection has destroyed death, has robbed it of its power and brought it to naught, which is what that word really means, and has in its place brought life and immortality to light.
You may not see yourself as qualified to bear witness such good news because of how you may still be struggling with your own darkness. According to what Paul says in this passage from Second Timothy, I’m not sure that anyone is able to experience Easter until he or she has spent at least some time in the dark. After all, even Jesus was in the grave for two days, where in some faith traditions, Jesus “harrowed” hell, casting light into that darkness and rescuing imprisoned spirits who were awaiting his revelation. Such is the message of apocalyptic passages such as 1 Peter 3 and Revelation 4, where in that latter passage we’re told of the creatures around God’s throne who are “covered with eyes in front and behind” that enable them to see the victory of the Lamb in the midst of all the trials and tribulations.
The point is that you may not see yourself as someone qualified to bear witness to the light. But the truth is that, like Timothy, you’re actually in the perfect place. You’re in the perfect place for the light to shine through you so that you become the evidence of a soul that has been transformed and through whom the Risen Jesus is at work to transform this entire world. So, in the midst of this world’s deep, deep darkness, don’t just look for the light. Be the light, and let the light of Christ shine through you, the light of life and immortality. For the gospel’s sake and for the world’s sake, let it shine. Let it shine. Let it shine. Let it shine.