Thursday • 9/26/2024 •

Today’s is the ninth of ten devotionals that treat Paul’s last three letters — those to his ministry proteges, Timothy and Titus. Last week, in the first three devotionals on the so-called Pastoral Epistles, 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus, we saw how God overcomes our lack of faith, hope, and love. Following those three meditations are four devotionals in which we show how God implants in us basic ingredients of human flourishing, what are often called the classical “cardinal virtues”: godliness and temperance (which we treated last Thursday and Friday), and justice and courage (which we treated Monday and Tuesday of this week). Finally, in these last three devotionals of this special series on the Pastorals, we see how Paul inspires us to faith, hope, and love.

We close this series on the Pastoral Epistles where we started: with faith, hope, and love. These three are often called the “theological virtues.” And today we focus on hope.

These days, hope seems like a fool’s notion. Words from W. H. Auden’s poem, For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio, ring true: “Nothing can save us that is possible, we who must die demand a miracle.”

Imager: from "Clayton Moore as 'The Lone Ranger' on 1949 TV series" by Movie-Fan is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Indeed, “nothing can save us that is possible.” The reality of this world mocks the classical “cardinal virtues” and their portrait of the good and noble life. There’s no salvation there. Amid our communication revolution, wisdom and truth are drowned in an ocean of mis- and disinformation. Argue for Paul’s “good religion” (eusebeia) — only to find yourself contending against a spirit of Lone Ranger spiritualism, custom-designed Christs, and well-deserved suspicion of organized religion and the institutionalized church.

Seek to advance justice — only to get dragged into irresolvable disputes over whose definition of justice is in play, that of libertarians or that of communitarians? All along fearing that self-interest is in the driver’s seat in most people’s definition of what is right and what is wrong.

Argue that in a world that puts before us an infinity of choices, the first choice is to decide to curb our appetites — only to invite stares of incredulity and eyerolls that silently accuse: “What a prude!” Sociologist Peter Berger says we live with a “heretical imperative,” the demand that every value be chosen, not prescribed or given or assumed. It’s an imperative that says the only real heresy is self-limitation. It’s an imperative that scoffs at the suggestion that many of our social problems would dissipate if we tamed our lust and greed and ambition.

But … the miracle did happen. Nonetheless, into a world not altogether different from ours, Auden maintains, the miracle that his characters demand did transpire. Indeed, the miracle became incarnate. Hope was born on Christmas Day and hope was confirmed on Easter morning. The characters in Auden’s poem recognize the shattering (Tolkien would call it “eucatastrophic”) wonder of what is happening to them and to their world through the birth of the Christ Child:

Our sullen wish to go back to the womb, to have no past, no future, is refused … Tonight for the first time the prison gates have opened. Music and sudden light have interrupted our routine tonight and swept the filth of habit from our hearts. O here and now our endless journey starts.*

We live, therefore, in Auden’s “For the Time Being” — that period between the two great “appearings” (epiphaneiai) of God’s miracle. As Paul notes, Christ “appeared” in humility to redeem us (Titus 2:11; 3:4; 2 Timothy 1:10) and Christ “will appear” in glory to consummate all things (Titus 2:13; 1 Timothy 6:14; 2 Timothy 4:1,8).

And so, we can note the hopefulness with which the apostle faces the prospect of martyrdom in 2 Timothy 4:1–8. He knows that God, “the judge of the living and the dead” will execute perfect justice in his own time and in his own way (verse 1).

Meanwhile, knowing that hard times are ahead (verse 3), Paul urges the things that make for “good religion” — he wants the legacy he leaves to be one of heralding the gospel, convincing, rebuking, encouraging, and teaching — and these things “with all patience” (verse 2).

And he models for Timothy a perspective of courage and self-mastery as he faces his own end with equilibrium:

a sense of completion and contentment (“I have fought the good fight; I have finished the race”),
a sense of having grown in his own faith (compare his former “I acted in faithlessness” with his final “I have kept the faith” — 1 Timothy 1:13b; 2 Timothy 4:7c), and
a hopefulness that death will yield to glory (“there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness” (2 Timothy 4:8a).

Friends, we can resolve to let Christ-our-Hope urge us on to courage and to resolve in our own promotion of “good religion,” justice, and self-control. Because, despite everything we see around us that could bring despair, Paul boldly asserts the same crown of righteousness is reserved “not only to me but also to all who have longed for his appearing” (2 Timothy 4:8c).

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+

* I have taken the liberty of collapsing lines from various characters in Auden’s oratorio: chiefly shepherds and wise men.