Testing of Paul

The Pope recently exhumed the crypt of the Apostle Paul, long buried beneath the Vatican, and allowed the human remains inside to be tested.

The tests came back postive -- at least as far as age goes. Testing affirms that those bones in that crypt date to the time of Paul. They date to the era when Roman, Greek and Jew alike heaped insult, persecution and hardship on the likes of Paul. To the time when Paul, the brilliant Jewish rabbi turned evangelist for Christ extraordinaire, would ultimately lose his head for the sake of God's grace in Christ.

I’m sure glad I’m not Paul. Aren’t you?

If I were Paul -- for sure by now – I’d have been whipped with 39 lashes; beaten with rods three times; stoned once; shipwrecked three times; cast adrift on a salty sea for 36 hours. And, so often, I'd be hungry, tired and weak. I'd have no wife, no children, and my only home would be the cross I carried. I’m glad I’m not Paul, because if I were, I’d be suffering more, and one day they'd cut my head off.

Yet, as a Christian who believes in the power of God, I feel very lame at how glad I am that I am not suffering like Paul -- or the thousands of witnesses to the faith in the earliest generations. Or the thousands even now in so many places -- on the front lines against the evils of the world.

I mean I'm a Christian -- but I ate burgers and hot dogs on the Fourth of July, lit off fireworks with my kids, and was happy to be free and alive in a rich and democratic land.

It always gets me to thinking, when I hear 2 Corinthians, "Am I really engaged with Christ as Paul was? Or the other disciples and apostles and martyrs? Am I really engaged?" It's an important question. It's a necessary one -- for those seeking to be followers of Christ. After all, if real disciples practice costly discipleship -- what am I doing? Am I giving praise to God in all things? Am I aware that God's grace is sufficient for me? Am I content -- which is to say fulfilled -- by knowing that my life exists for the sake of Christ?

What about you?

Paul certainly suffered a lot -- for the faith. He also was privy to visions and revelations that typical joes don't often have. He didn't have a family or the comforts of earthly home and hearth -- but, he did have the gift of an unbelievable mental genius, an unbelievable work ethic, and an unbelievable genius for surviving some dicy situations. Yes, he was mightily afflicted, and mightily gifted by God. And twenty centuries later -- we're still interested enough in him to check out his bones, and read his mail.

But you and I -- are different. We are almost certainly less mightily gifted and less mightily afflicted. We are almost certainly not going to achieve even a teensy fraction of his stature historically and theologically in Church History.

But...we have our circumstances. We have our blessings, and our thorns in the side. We may not have the Roman empire after us, but we all have somebody or something after us -- don't we? Some form of sin, fear and death are piercing us so that we may not boast of our greatness. We may not be Paul, but we have our circumstances. We have our blessings. We have our thorns. And we are all just a phone call away from circumstances far better or far worse than we are prepared to take.

No, we are not Paul, and we don't need to be Paul. For it is not Paul we serve, and it was not Paul whom Paul served. We do not proclaim ourselves, and as Paul well knew, it is not ourselves which ultimately matter.

No, whomever we are, and wherever we are, whatever our blessings or cursings may be, Jesus Christ is seeking us -- in His Grace -- for healing, for courage and for joy.

Jesus Christ is calling us as we are, and equipping as we are, to become not more like Paul, but more like Christ by the power of Christ which he sends to us in prayer, sacrament, Word and worship.

I am sure that Paul did not want the kind of iconic heroe worship that even his bones are important to people. But I do believe he did want all that he had and had to endure to serve a sacred purpose -- and that's why he offered all of his circumstances and life to Christ's power.

May the same be said of us. Whatever our personal circumstances -- we may offer them to Christ -- and witnesses we will be. Christ will work through our weaknesses of faith, of courage, and of thankfulness -- and work wonders through even the smallness of our lives.