Paul

May I speak in the name of God. Amen.

Picture the scene. The year is around AD 62 or 63, probably. And Paul, famous persecutor of the Jewish sect called Christians is in prison, in Rome. He has been under guard there for at least two years, but his imprisonment now is something more final. Paul’s second letter to Timothy (which we just heard before the Gospel) is the last letter Paul wrote, certainly the last that has come down to us. Paul was converted to the Christian faith 30 years before when, in his own words in his first letter, to the Galatians, he says: “God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me”—and what was it that Paul saw, what was the vision he experienced that would change the world. He tells us in 2 Corinthians: “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 God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.”

Paul had an encounter with the living God, in the person of his Son Jesus Christ, resurrected and glorified after his crucifixion. Paul was saved from the darkness of his own mind by encountering the God who created him, who knew him, and who is nearer to us than our innermost being; in recounting his conversion experience, Paul described how Jesus described his mission as “to open our eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that we may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in Christ.” Paul was a testimony to the saving, sanctifying power of Jesus in his life, and to the fact that, in his words, in Galatians, “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” That is a powerful testimony to the power and grace of God offered to us in our life.

And for the next 30 years Paul devoted his life to spreading that message, serving God and spreading the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ, including three major missionary journeys through Syria, Turkey and Greece, establishing and building up many communities of Christian believers. As a result, Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians that “Five times I received from the Jews 39 lashes. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move… I have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked.”

Why would you do this? Why would anyone? Why would you put up with it? And how would you have the strength to keep going? The answer is, easy, and obvious—Paul had encountered and realised the love of God directly, the full immensity and holiness of the love of God. To paraphrase Paul: “God was pleased to reveal his Son in me… God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in my heart to give me the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.” Why did Paul put up with it all? The answer is simple. He was filled with love for God and knew it was his duty to do absolutely everything and anything possible for him. God had loved him to the point of sending his Son to die for him, so the least Paul could do in return was to devote his life utterly to his service.

Paul writes to Timothy, as death is approaching: “Do not be ashamed, then, of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel, relying on the power of God, who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace. This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Saviour Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. For this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher, and for this reason I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, for I know the one in whom I have put my trust.”

Timothy had grown used to relying on the faithful Apostle, and now that strong support was going to be withdrawn, and he was going to have to stand alone, and even take up some of the tasks dropped by Paul. Therefore Paul tries to brace up Timothy for the tasks ahead.

For God is faithful in turn and will strengthen you for the journey and your tasks. As Paul can attest.

“The time of my departure has come”, Paul says near the end of 2 Timothy.

And yet Paul’s life is not bound up with the things of this world, but rather as he says to Timothy, “the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus”, life that continues unbroken beyond death and into the life to come.

If with Jesus we say, in life and in death, ‘Father! into Your hands I commend my spirit,’ then we may be humbly confident that the old promise will be fulfilled to us:

‘The Lord will keep you ever more.’

Amen.

The Rev’d Michael Aylmer
St Mary Magdalene Enfield, 05/10/25