SATURDAY, June 29 Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Apostles 2 Timothy 4:1-8. As for me, I am already being poured out as a libation, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Today is the feast of Saint Peter and Saint Paul. In life they had separate ministries—Peter to the Jews and Paul to the Greeks, as they put it. But in death they are intimately connected by the quality and profound influence of their combined ministry. Fascinating, then, that the characterization given to Paul’s ministry in the verse above is of his life being poured out as a libation. A libation in pagan ritual was drink poured onto the ground, offered to the gods—“wasted” essentially for an invisible higher purpose. We will never see the fruit of much of what we do in life. Much that we invest in might even seem wasted because there is no immediate result. Peter and Paul had no idea what they were feeding into. All that either of them could point to was their intention: they had finished the race, they had kept the faith. Minister and teacher Oswald Chambers wrote that living water does flow out from us, but it flows out behind us—we seldom see it. The fruit of our work does matter, but it nourishes others who come after.
Posted on: Sat, 29 Jun 2013 12:09:59 +0000