THE ECHOES OF ETERNITY

“THE ECHOES OF ETERNITY”

II TIMOTHY 4:1-18

4:1 In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I solemnly urge you:

2 proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, and encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching.

3 For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires,

4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths.

5 As for you, always be sober, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, carry out your ministry fully.

6 As for me, I am already being poured out as a libation, and the time of my departure has come.

7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

8 From now on there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have longed for his appearing.

9 Do your best to come to me soon,

10 for Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica; Crescens has gone to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia.

11 Only Luke is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful in my ministry.

12 I have sent Tychicus to Ephesus.

13 When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, also the books, and above all the parchments.

14 Alexander the coppersmith did me great harm; the Lord will pay him back for his deeds.

15 You also must beware of him, for he strongly opposed our message.

16 At my first defense no one came to my support, but all deserted me. May it not be counted against them!

17 But the Lord stood by me and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion's mouth.

18 The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and save me for his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

Many years ago, when I was a student at Boston University a professor gave us an assignment that really made you think. Since this was a journalism class the assignment was to write your own obituary. Now that wasn’t as easy as it sounds. Not only did the assignment help you sharpen your journalism skills, but it also made you really think about your life. What did I accomplish here on earth? What will people remember about me after I’m gone?

When death is near it makes you think about those kinds of questions. That’s why Paul wrote his letter to Timothy. When you look at this letter closely you see that this was a letter from a man who knew that the end was near. Paul was in prison at the time. He knew that he wasn’t going to get a fair trial from the Romans. So, he wrote this letter and in it he does two things. He looks back at what he did with his life and he encourages Timothy to continue on with his work.

Paul’s tremendous faith also made it possible for him to write these powerful words.

“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.” (RSV)

Paul was looking forward to leaving this world. He was looking forward to being free of all his earthly suffering and struggles. He was ready to receive the crown of victory from the righteous Judge who was waiting for him in heaven.

Now traditional Christian theology is very clear about what happens to you after you die.

If you’ve been faithful you’re going to go to heaven. If you haven’t been faithful then you’re going to go to that other place. You’re going to go to that place of endless weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.

No one wants to go there of course. No one wants to be like the elderly man who went to the hospital for an operation. Now this elderly man wasn’t a saint by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, he was quite ornery and obstinate which didn’t make him a popular patient with the nurses who had to take care of him. Well, after the surgery was finished they brought the man back to his room. When he woke up though he discovered that the curtains were closed and the room was completely dark. “Nurse, nurse” the man hollered. “Why is it so dark in here? Get in here right now.” When the nurse came in to the room she did her best to calm the elderly man down. “Now, now,” she said. “Don’t get yourself all worked up.” “Why did you close the curtains?” the elderly man snapped. “Because,” the nurse said, “there’s a terrible fire going on in the building across the street right now. I didn’t want you to wake up and think that the operation was a failure.”

Heaven and hell. That’s what it comes down to after everything is said and done. Now, there is a school of thought that believes in universal salvation. Universal salvation believes that everyone is going to go to heaven. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you do here on earth. Because God’s love is from everlasting to everlasting we’re all going to go to heaven. So, you don’t have to worry about a thing. You don’t have to worry because God is always going to forgive you even if you don’t feel like you need to be forgiven. So eat drink and be merry.

I don’t know about you, but I find universal salvation very discouraging. It’s not that I want to see people punished. It’s discouraging because it means that what you do here on earth really doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if you’re the biggest saint or the biggest

sinner around because everyone is going to be welcome at that heavenly banquet. So, why bother when it comes to doing your best here on earth?

Paul didn’t share that view of course. That’s obvious when you look at the letter he wrote to Timothy. In this snippet from Paul’s letter he talks about God’s judgment no less than four times. Paul knew that God’s love may be from everlasting to everlasting, but that doesn’t mean you or I or anyone else gets a free pass into heaven. As author Ann Lamot says, “God loves us just the way we are and loves us too much to let us stay that way.”

Many years ago a man wrote a letter to the editor of a small country newspaper. The letter was in response to an editorial on the value of going to church. The letter began with these challenging words, “Print this if you dare.” The author of the letter then went on write, “I have been trying an experiment. I have a field of corn which I plowed on

Sunday. I planted it on Sunday. I did all the cultivating on Sunday. I gathered the harvest on Sunday and hauled it to my barn on Sunday. I find that my harvest this October is just as great as any of my neighbors’ who went to church on Sunday. So where was God all this time?” The editor printed the letter and wrote this reply. “Your mistake,” the editor said, “was in thinking that God always settles his accounts in October.”

Now this isn’t meant to suggest that God enjoys passing judgment on us. God isn’t vengeful or vindictive. In fact, more than anything, God wants to give each and everyone of us that crown of righteousness.

What we do now though really does matter. This isn’t a dress rehearsal. To steal a phrase from the movie “Gladiator”…what we do now echoes in eternity. That’s why Paul was so anxious for Timothy to come and see him. It’s why he warned Timothy about Demas. It’s why Paul takes pride in his accomplishments. It’s why he tells Timothy to bring the parchments with him. By the way, there are those who believe that those parchments contained stories and sayings of Jesus that were eventually used by Mark and Luke to write their gospels. Paul didn’t want those parchments to get damaged or destroyed.

What we do now does matter. That’s why it’s good to do what Paul did in his letter to Timothy. It’s good to stop every once and a while and take an inventory of your life. What am I doing? Where am I going? Am I being faithful in the way I’m using the blessings that God has given to me? Are there any changes in my life that I need to make? I think AA calls it a thorough moral inventory.

You do that so you can live your life in such a way that it puts you in synch with God’s will. You do that so that all the good in you gets a chance to see the light of day. You do that so you can be a blessing to yourself and the people around you.

Many years ago a well-to-do woman went on an African safari. One day while traveling through a remote village the group briefly stopped at a hospital. The hospital was there to care for people who were afflicted with leprosy. The heat that day was unbearable. The flies were buzzing all around them. The squalor and the stench was unbelievable. In spite of all of that the woman noticed a nurse bending down to clean and bandage the pus-filled sores of one of the patients. The woman found it all very repulsive. So, she turned to a friend and said, “Why, I wouldn’t do that for all the money in the world.” At that point the nurse looked up at the woman and quietly replied, “Neither would I.”

What we do now really does matter. So, it’s good to stop every now and then and take a look at your life; what you’ve done and where you’re going. Do that and when everything is said and done you’’ be able to say the same thing the Apostle Paul said in his letter to Timothy. “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.” Amen.

Rev. Dr. Richard A. Hughes

October 24, 2004