Unveiled Faces: Grace Amongst Thorns 2 Corinthians 12:1-10

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Rolf Snow
5 years ago
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1 Unveiled Faces: Grace Amongst Thorns 2 Corinthians 12:1-10 We re down to the final 4 weeks of our time together in the book of 2 Corinthians, you might remember that when we began this series, I mentioned that it s rarely preached front to back. That s not to say that you ll be unfamiliar with it, 2 Co`rinthians is chocked full of passages of scripture that are well known and often quoted. Tonight s text is no exception. You ve likely heard this text fractured down the middle, you might even think that it s two separate places in the bible. But rarely is this passage talked about in a unified fashion. It s when we do that though, that I think Paul s understanding of the Christian life begins to really sing. You ll remember that last week Paul was pushed to the breaking point in his frustration and began to, Boast in an unexpected way. We walked systematically through all of the suffering that he had endured for the Gospel: Disease, Hardships, Shipwrecks, Torture. The fun just keeps coming, but it takes an interesting turn. Read the text. The Man and His Vision: Paul describes an anonymous man who is granted by God to see wonderful things. He s granted the opportunity to see heaven itself. What are we to make of this? Well, the first thing we should recognize is that almost everyone agrees that the anonymous man is Paul himself. -This is really the biblical equivalent of you saying to someone, So I have this friend that But the question remains, Why is this something Paul is reluctant to talk about? It seems as though it almost pains him to bring it up, and when he does he can t even bring himself to take credit for the experience. Think back to the beginnings of this series, to the sort of things that Paul was being criticized for. One of them is that he isn t performing

2 enough miracles, that his ministry is far too plain and ordinary to truly be christened by God. -Paul mentions this experience that he had so long ago so that the Corinthians will not be ignorant of the fact that he has experienced supernatural workings of God. But he is cautious to mention it because he does not want them to think that this is the norm in the Christian life, or that it somehow makes him more legitimate than those who have not experienced it. This leads us to something that is profoundly important. Because some of us have expectations of the Christian life that Paul isn t willing to set. Expectations that come from not allowing the full scope of scripture to speak. Some of us think that the Christian life is a summer camp of increasing intensity. -You leave worship with this incredible emotional experience, the next week you see this miraculous healing. The following week someone is speaking in tongues. The next day a non believer professes faith. If those things are absent, you think the Lord isn t at work Think even of the way that we speak about our services, Man, God showed up because Our expectation is so often that God is at work in the miraculous, the unexplainable, and yet Paul s hesitancy towards discussing this vision, I would argue, is because he wants it to be clear. The Christian life is not primarily built on the exceptional, the supernatural, the spiritually shattering. It is built on God s faithfulness in the midst of ordinary pain and ordinary life. It s this that Paul turns his attention to A Thorn In The Flesh: I want to be up front with you as we come to this passage, a whole lot of ink has been spilled over what sort of ailment Paul might have had, but at the end of every argument we are forced to basically say, We have no idea.

3 Some have argued that the thorn in Paul s flesh is a physical ailment, possibly deteriorating eyesight, or some sort of chronic pain. Other s have argued that it was some sort of spiritual struggle with lust, or anxiety. Others still have argued that it was a person, maybe an individual who was working to undo the work he was doing in each city. Yet humility is so necessary here: WE DON T KNOW WHAT THE THORN IS But I think even the ambiguity here is an act of grace for us. Because the minute something vague is named, it loses it s ability to speak to all people. -My favorite band of all time is Jimmy Eat World. And that is at least halfway because of the words to the songs. There is something about the way that Jim Adkin writes that connects with almost all of my experiences -But what enables this is that they re vague enough that I can see myself in them. The one instance I can think of where he has explicitly explained his lyrics came regarding a line in the song, Table for glasses. - It happens too fast to makes sense of it or make it last. Lead my skeptics eye. I took this romantically, a relationship attempt that doesn t last long, involving people who are hesitant to pursue anything, I could relate to that. At least, until he explained that it was about a visit to an art show where he witnessed a performance piece that nobody else caught. It didn t ruin the song, but it distanced me from it emotionally because I wasn t there and I don t know what that experience was like. I d imagine that if Paul had named his thorn as poor eyesight, everyone with 20/20 would feel a disconnect. Or, if he had named it as anxiety, everyone who had never experienced it would feel disconnected. But Paul only tells us of a nameless pain that troubled him, and that is something that we all can relate to. A Gift For His Good: Paul makes clear that this thorn is in some way a messenger from Satan, and yet it is given to him. That in some way, that I

4 don t presume to understand God has allowed this painful issue to befall Paul not for the purposes of evil but for his ultimate good. This is the case again and again in our lives, that sometimes the Lord allows for us seasons of profound difficulty that are, in retrospect, for our good though it may not have felt that way during the experience. When I first took over the College ministry in the spring of 2014 I entered in to one of the darkest seasons of my whole life. I ve always been an anxious person, I ve always been a pessimist, and I ve always been prone to concocting doomsday scenarios. But this hit me in a way I had never experienced before. -I legitimately remember sitting in my bed at night and asking God to kill me It was sitting at my kitchen table that some of you have sat at before as we ve talked about life, and I remember begging God, like Paul, to take this darkness away from me. And as clearly as I ve ever heard anything, his response to me was his response to Paul, not yet. My grace is suffiecient for you, my power is perfect in your weakness. I m 3 and a half years removed from that. I still walk with a limp, Paul still has a thorn. There are places of darkness to which we can descend that we will never fully recover from this side of glory. And yet, the word of the Lord remains the same for you, now, in the midst of your darkness, in the pain of whatever thorn you might feel, My Grace is sufficient for you. Paul cried out to the Lord 3 Times: This is a direct Paralell to Jesus s own cry in the garden before his crucifixion Yet the silence of the Father is the very fountain from which the grace of God flows towards Paul in his own darkness. It is because Christ has been afflicted that he can carry us in our affliction.

5 Rest upon me is tabernacle language, used to describe the setup of that structure, it is also the language that John uses when he says, The word became flesh and dwelt among us. Paul is saying here that God takes up residence not among the strong but among the weak. Not among the powerful but the lowly, not among the well off but the afflicted. -You, here and now, amidst whatever thorns you experience and beset by whatever darkness now covers you need to know that God has not abandoned you, but he rests with you in a real way, with grace sufficient to carry you through.

Contentment in the Midst of Weaknesses A Lesson from Physical Suffering

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