Jars of Clay and Cracked Pots - 2 Corinthians 4:5-12

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Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The text is the Epistle, 2 Cor. 4: 5-12.

What’s the most important thing that you possess? How do you protect it?

We protect things that are valuable to us. The United States Constitution and Declaration of Independence are housed in special cases filled with inert gas and illuminated with special lights to preserve the documents. The President of the United States and foreign dignitaries are protected by highest levels of technological and physical, armed security. The average Joe Citizen will never get to touch the Stanley Cup, or the College football championship trophy. We visited some friends yesterday for their son’s graduation and they live in a gated community with armed security guards. We keep great-grandma’s wedding ring in the safe, we keep the title to the ranch in a safety deposit box at the bank, we keep dad’s old shotgun in a locked case, we lock our doors and cars.  We strap on our Colts and Smith and Wessons before we head out the door. Why? To protect these things that are important to us personally, nationally, and as a society.

What’s the most important thing that you possess? How do you protect it?

With that in mind, it is remarkable to me that the single, most important thing that the world has ever seen, known, or received stands without any protection at all. You can see it anytime you want, you can hear of it, receive it, literally take it into yourself. It’s quite literally, at this moment, at your fingertips, dancing in your ears, rolling around your brain. This remarkable gift, of greater worth than gold, is Jesus.

Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, begotton of the Father from eternity, true God who takes on true flesh to live and die for us – this is the greatest gift the world will ever know. That in the fulness of time, God sent His Son to die for us, that while we were still sinners Christ came to die for us. That Jesus Christ, the innocent son of God, takes our sins into Himself, making our sins His own, taking our place under the cross, going to the cross to die the sinner’s death, literally suffering hell on earth at the abandonment of His Father, dying for your sins and for my sins. The result? Perfect payment for imperfect people whom the Father declares holy in His Son’s innocent suffering and death that we might be His own.

This “knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus” is the greatest treasure we will ever know.   Remember, we talked about this two weeks ago – it’s not just “head knowledge,” but the entirety of knowing, (+) believing, trusting and relying on the mercy of God in Christ.

Paul says “we have this treasure (the good news of Jesus) in jars of clay.”  Clay jars served their purpose for holding water or wine, soups and stews, grains and flours, like our Rubbermaid containers today. Their value was in their purpose: to hold things for the owner until the owner had use of them. Our purpose, then, is to contain – to hold – the Gospel of Jesus until He places us where the Gospel needs to be poured out.

This is a piece of a clay jar from the ancient city of Corinth, dated to about 500 years before Paul. I imagine it was rather pretty in it’s day. It’s about a half-inch thick, so it was rather substantial. Maybe this was like one of the stone jars that Jesus used to change water to wine, holding about 25 gallons. No doubt it was once useful. But now, just a broken piece of ancient history, it sits on my shelf – just a knickknack. It can no longer do what it was meant to do: hold things.

The temptation is for us to think of ourselves in this way, especially when we get broken. I hear this often from the elderly or the infirm who are bed-ridden in hospitals, nursing homes, and even in their own house: what good am I? Why is God leaving me here? I can’t do anything? It’s as if they are looking at themselves and no longer seeing jars of clay, just cracked pots. Our culture has a simple solution for cracked pots of people: throw them away. Abort children who might face physical or mental difficulty, euthanize the elderly so they aren’t a burden on our healthcare system. Afraid of growing old, or developing Alzheimers or getting cancer? Travel to one of several Eurpoean countries where they actively advertise suicide tourism – “Come here, visit here, die here.” Lord, have mercy.

Remember – the value isn’t in what you do at all. A jar doesn’t do anything except contain. It’s a passive purpose. Your value in the eyes of God isn’t what you do. It’s what has been done in you. Your value is that you contain both the death and life of Jesus in your body. Your body declares the wonder of Christ’s mercy and grace for you. Baptized into Christ, you died with Christ; baptized into Christ, you were raised with Christ. Your life is no longer your own – it is Christ’s. This is why Paul can say, “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down but not destroyed.” In our lives as vessels of the Gospel, we will be chipped by people who hurt us, we will be scratched by those who despise the message we share, we will be displaced by those who don’t want to hear what we have to say, but that doesn’t change whose we are: we are vessels of Christ, filled with the joyous news of Jesus as Lord.

There is a story that was told of a pastor who went to Europe shortly after World War 2. He was visiting a small village seeing the destruction that had taken place during the war and the rebuilding efforts that were underway. He came to a church that was still under reconstruction. What caught his attention wasn’t the blow-out wall, or the burned roof, or the bullet-marked walls. What caught his eye was the statue of the saint that the chapel was named for – perhaps it was St. Andrew, I don’t remember, that was located inside the narthex of the chapel. This statue was, obviously, the victim of the war: the lower legs had been blown off, so the torso had been repositioned and reseated in plaster. The arms had been hit, and the left hand was missing at the wrist, the right hand at the elbow. The face, though, was particularly troubling – a piece of shrapnel had taken the lower part of the face from below the nose to the neck. Frankly, it was a hideous statue. As this pastor stood, staring, at this grotesque statue, somebody in the village stopped to say hello. The pastor asked why this statue of the saint was allowed to stand; why it hadn’t been destroyed and replaced with a better figure of the saint. The villager smiled and explained that they wanted that statue left, as it was discovered, on purpose. It stood to remind ever worshipper who came and left the church that he or she, regardless of their physical condition, still stood as a witness of the Good News of Jesus, and that just as this broken, shattered and disfigured statue was saved from the war, so each person – regardless of their brokenness, or shattered heart, or disfigured body – was saved by Christ Himself.

I realize that this story is a mixed metaphor – a statue vs a clay jar – but the point is the same. “For we who live area always being given over to death for Jesus sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.” In the name of Jesus. Amen.