First Thoughts: 2 Corinthians 4:16-5:10

Please Note: None of what follows is careful exegesis.  These are simply my first reactions to the preaching text.  Often, I find it helpful to put my responses on paper.  It gets the juices flowing and opens up avenues of later exploration as I dig deeper into sermon preparation 
throughout the week.

The first thing that I encountered when I sat down to read this text for the first time was how easy it is to lose heart in the midst of grief.  Our congregation is coming off back to back deaths of two well loved members.  Funerals on successive days left me, and many other people in the church, drained and hurting.  After spending time with those on hospice it is easy to recount the ways that people at the end of life waste away step by step.

Of course, it is not only people at the end of life who are wasting away.  Often it is those who are struggling with invisible battles in life.  It can be job losses, a loved one with an unexpected diagnosis, or an unseen mental health issue.  As I work on this sermon I am pondering how people in those situations might respond to Paul’s statement about affliction preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure.  More than anything, I do not want to be heard as telling people to ignore current suffering or that God is giving them suffering so as to teach them a lesson.  That kind of theology has caused more emotional damage than I care to relate.

At the same time, I find a great deal of comfort in Paul’s words.  There is a great deal of realism in the idea that our bodies are mere tents.  Things break down.  Our bodies wear out.  Everything that we experience in this life is somewhat less than what God has intended for us once we step into eternity.  For me the comfort is the fact that I am not alone in my brokenness.  Other people have been through this too, and they have made it through.

Not only did other human beings make it through, Jesus did too.  His resurrection has given us confidence to carry on in the midst of a world that does not make sense.  It is a whole lot easier to keep on walking through the fog of life when the person whose holding my hand has been down this road before.