Last letter before dying
So the old man is nearing the end in a prison and he writes his last letter to a young friend (2 Timothy). What will he talk about and what will he say about those matters? Will he tell the young man that if he had his life to live over again he'd take better care of himself? Will he say he wished he hadn't run so far so fast on so little? Will he say he regrets all the beatings and deprivations he suffered; privations that have led to being old before his time? (When you're lying on a hospital bed knowing that this is as good as it gets from here on out I suppose all kinds of thoughts come as unwanted guests. Guests you're too tired to turn away.) What will the old man ask for? Nothing but a couple of friends, an old coat that he could use when it gets cold and a few books.
And what about his message? Will he say it was all a mistake? That he'd got it all wrong? That he can hardly now believe how big a fool he was to have followed Jesus of Nazareth into what turned out to be a dead end in a Roman prison? Will he advise the younger man to jettison the faith and eat, drink and be merry for it was all one colossal blunder? And if he is indeed brought to the executioner will he apologise for anything he might have said that undermined the emperor's authority? Will he write a letter of apology to the Great Sannhedrin, renouncing Jesus of Nazareth and wishing he had pursued unchanged his Jewish heritage instead of this life-wasting pipe dream? (In prison or a nursing home, in a hospital waiting-room or in the quiet darkness of your bedroom where depression feeds on you, faith can take a beating.) How does the old man see the faith? He saw it as worth fighting for; as something worth keeping and he believed it was anything but a dead end. Life ("a crown of life," not fading laurel leaves) was ahead of him. All this he feels and is sure of because he knows Someone and that's why people like him could sing praises in prison and sleep like babies in their mother's arms before dying.
©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.
Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, the abiding word.com.