Christmas Day was ended. The gifts had been distributed. The plenteous repast was at least partially digested. Gift wrappings were trashed and the kitchen restored to order. The happy day was closed, and we were at peace. As my wife and I entered our bedroom for the night, there on the corner of the dresser, was a standard 3×5 card with the words: Mom and Dad, On this Christmas night, 1974, I give you 2 Corinthians 4:7-10. I love you much, Jody. Forty-plus years later I have no recollection of the other gifts so graciously given that day, or even the meal, although I can fairly well presume what it was – by what Jody’s dear mother did for decades on Christmas Day that included, among much else, moist roast turkey, a special kind of cranberry relish, and a splendid pumpkin ice cream pie topped with a thin layer of pecans.
Jody’s siblings were launched on their own. She was the youngest, well along in college, but home for the holidays. During earlier years she had, from time to time, given Scripture verses as gifts, primarily to her mother who worked at managing depression. As I recall there was never a time when Jody’s verse gifts did not benefit the receiver, sometimes quite dramatically. On one occasion she taped a card to the shower door in our private bathroom, which card exploded her mother out of deep depression that day. The card had nothing more on it than the words: This is the day the Lord has made, we will rejoice and be glad in it. Psalm (118:24) It wasn’t signed, but it was in Jody’s distinctive hand writing. Most parents know their children’s penmanship. I have repeated the verse thousands of times since that day to thousands of persons.
What of the 2 Corinthians 4:7-11 passage? It tells us where the gift of God is residing. The context expands the meaning of Jody’s verse to us. The Apostle Paul made clear that there is an all-surpassing power given to Christians from God. He wrote: We are hard pressed . . . , but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. There follows the mystery of these paradoxes: 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 apostle projected the principle that life and death are present always, but God does not permit the conflict to go the wrong way. Life shall prevail, but with suffering identifying us with the work of Christ. Life resolution wins and is revealed in the ultimate victory of those who have faith, faith sometimes found through suffering. When genuine, faith prevails through suffering.
The point is made. The gift of Christ is current in us, not delayed. There is victory over death taking place moment by moment, even in death’s reality. If we will, we bear suffering because the result is relief and health, as found in the hurt and healing of the surgeon’s scalpel. This is not the knife of a murderer. It seems so contrary to hoped-for experience that it is difficult to grasp – that both nature and super nature can exist and function together in us. In nature we have some suffering, and all dying. In Christ there is life principle that prevails and is sustained by his life within us, we who are living jars of clay to be filled with life’s immortality from God. It seems to me that there are at least two ways to live the Christian life. Both must fit in to adequate application of Christ’s redemptive provision. One follows with life on earth as best it can be put together by human activity. The other is life as God puts it together to be lived in the aura of the forever, so to rely on more than man can attribute to it. We choose the Christ life. The forever life is our future. Even death will die. Life prevails. Awesome! *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020