"For Me to Live is Christ's"

by Robert Hamerton-Kelly

There have been some powerful and effective Christian works composed in prison. In our time there was Martin Luther King Jr’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail; during WW2 there were Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Letters and Papers from Prison; and in the 17th century John Bunyon wrote The Pilgrim’s Progress, a classic of the Congregationalist tradition, in the King’s Jail. These are a few of many Christian works from prison that have been memorable and effective, but none has been as influential or as memorable for us Christians as the Letter to the Philippians, which Paul wrote from Death Row in Rome. Therefore, the minimal context of our provocative saying, “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain,” is prison with the expectation of execution.

The broader context is the return of the man Epaphroditus, whom the Philippians had sent to Rome to comfort and help Paul, to his home in Philippi. He had indeed helped Paul, bringing money for his support and the spiritual comfort of his presence, from Paul’s beloved Philippian church; but he had fallen ill and had almost died and news of this had reached his home church and they were mightily worried and concerned. Paul writes this letter for him to take back with him, a letter of thanks, of teaching, and a testimonial for Epaphroditus.  “So receive him in the Lord,” Paul writes, “ with all joy; and honor such men, for he nearly died for the work of Christ, risking his life to complete your service to me” (2:29-30).

Such service was essential in those days because the prisons did not supply food and if your friends did not feed you it would go very hard with you. In the case of Paul, however, his churches rallied round and supported him, and all the way from Philippi in Asia Minor, Ephaphroditus had traveled, hundreds of miles, to represent his congregation among Paul’s supporters. (This function of the church is still one of its most important activities; in these days when it is so easy for people to be loners, when community is so easily fragmented, because we are so mobile, and for other reasons, it is life-giving to find a community that, for the sake of Christ, welcomes us and rallies around in time of need. Our little community is very good at this I believe; we do take care of one another, and especially of those who have no one else to do that for them. So Ephaphroditus stands for the church as a nourishing, supporting and caring community, and Paul wrote this letter of thanks for him to take home with him to his church).

We seem to have moved from the figure of the patriarch Abraham to the figure of the Apostle Paul in the course of our lectionary this year, and so let us intentionally reflect on his life as an inspiration and a challenge to us. So much   of traditional piety uses notable Christians as models and challenges. Official saints play a pivotal role in Roman Catholic and Orthodox piety and they can indeed be helpful for us all, but I proclaim my Protestantism by my concentration on the biblical Apostle Paul, whose writings make up the largest single block in the NT, and whose teaching expresses incomparably the meaning and power of the person and work of Jesus the incarnate God.

Look at him here! In prison under sentence of death, and what does he say to his beloved friends, who owed their faith and salvation to his word and witness? Listen: “I want you to know, brethren, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, so that it has become known through out the praetorian guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ; and most of the brethren have been made confident in the Lord because of my imprisonment, and are much more bold to speak the word of God without fear” (1:12-14). Amazing! Under sentence of death Paul’s person and presence cause the good news that in Jesus Christ God has acted to set us free from the powers of the present evil age, that is, the gospel, to be known throughout the imperial bodyguard, the Praetorians, and to all the rest in the prison. Furthermore, this imprisonment has not caused the Christians in Rome to be intimidated but rather the opposite, “…most of the brethren have been made confident in the Lord …and are much more bold to speak the word of God without fear.” Finally, they know that Paul is under a death sentence not because he has committed a capital crime, but that ”…my imprisonment is for Christ.”

The gospel is the good news that God has intervened in the present evil age to set us free from its powers. Paul lives this good news right in the belly of the beast, in an imperial prison under sentence of death. Only a mocking, a flogging and a crucifixion could go deeper into the maw of the Roman monster than this; but since Paul believes the gospel he walks through this hell as a free man, with head held high, following Jesus who went through it before him and emerged victorious. This remarkable freedom is surely what turned intimidation into encouragement for the Christians in Rome, and made them bolder not meeker to preach and witness that Jesus is God’s victorious deed and that we are free at last.  Paul was not afraid.

Listen! “Yes, and I shall rejoice. For I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance, as it is my eager expectation and hope that I shall not be at all ashamed, but with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (1:19-21). What a marvelous phrase, “…with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death.” These are the words of a free man. Jesus Christ set him free from the old infirmity that terrifies our lives and cripples our consciences, the coward’s curse, the fear of death.

I believe that the crusading order of the Teutonic Knights, which in the 12th century settled on the eastern marches of Prussia to guard the West against the Slavs, used to teach a soldier to imagine his own death, imaginatively to die before battle and so fight as a man already dead. The Apostle understands this: he says that he was “co-crucified” with Christ. In Galatians 2 we read, “For through the Law I died to the Law, that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live in faith, that is to say in the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up to death for me” (2:19-20).  For this reason death cannot frighten him, he is free of the final fear. How? Christ claimed him there in the belly of the beast and snatched him away to freedom. So what can death do to one already dead, and now in the process of rising with Christ?

Paul goes on to tell the Philippians that he would in fact prefer the Romans to carry out his death sentence because he wants to depart this world and be with Christ, but he believes that they will not do so because God has work for him still to do in this world, work that includes the Philippians. “My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account. Convinced of this I know that I shall remain and continue with you all, for your progress and joy in the faith” (1:25).

What might we add by way of application to this marvelously edifying picture of the Apostle as Christ’s free man in the face of the final fear? Perhaps nothing; perhaps this! You are that free man/woman! You in fact are free from the power of death, and all the anxieties and aberrations that that fear causes. For that reason you may walk with head held high through the valley of the shadow, and if you do that your fellow Christians will be inspired and the pagans will at least take note that you like Paul are not a criminal nor a crank, but a Christian. Finally, we might add that this courage to be free comes only to those who exercise the courage to believe, not conditionally but absolutely, not secretly but openly.  “For me to live is Christ!” That is, my life is absolute as his is absolute, and whether I am here in the belly of the beast, or there in the arms of my beloved, I am free from fear, I am free at last for the fullness of joy.