Celia Stone: Jars of clay

During the time of the Apostle Paul, Corinth was a wealthy, booming Roman trading center between the Ioanian and Aegian Seas and was known for its moral decadence. Paul wrote his first letter to the church in Corinth to address divisions within as well as the many ways these early believers were allowing their lives to be influenced by the prevailing culture. In Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, he expressed thanks that these Christians were trying to live godly lives and encouraged them regarding the problems they still were facing.

“For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For 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. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.” 2 Corinthians 4:5-12

Paul was not under any false illusions about easy living for committed followers of Christ. He personally could attest to the sacrifices that had to be made and to the hardships and persecution which had to be endured. Although Paul, bold and focused, might seem like a hero to us, he never failed to redirect any praise back to the Lord. He understood the magnitude of difference between human beings as the carriers of God’s message and the treasure of Jesus, the Message incarnate. We Christians are merely clay pots, fragile and ordinary. The glory of God shines all the more as it stands out against our frailty as imperfect human messengers.

Bible commentator Lois Malcom writes, “Rather, what Paul seems to be getting at is this: As all that distorts and spoils our created goodness dies in Jesus — whether we have created that dysfunction or others have imposed it on us — Jesus’ life is manifest as the flourishing of new creation in our lives. But that flourishing and renewal also entails sharing in the sufferings of Jesus — continually being put to death by all that goes against what this crucified Messiah, the Wisdom of God, embodied. In fact, it is precisely as we share in Jesus’ life and sufferings that the light of God’s glory shines — amid our fragile human existence — in the ‘face’ of this crucified Messiah. This is how death in us becomes life-giving for others.”