Where do you hide your emergency house key? (And if you’ll give me that information, you’ll give me your Bank PIN number) Do you have it near the back door in a fancy marble box engraved with the words: Emergency House Key?
Do you have it encased in an alabaster jar sitting on a pedestal on your front lawn? Where do you keep your emergency house key?
Most people hide the emergency key in an unlikely place; some grungy place, some lowly place. Let me guess: Is it under the welcome mat at the front door? Is it in the rain water drain pipe? Is it in a fake rock on the front lawn? Or did you get really cleaver and put it in the dog house?
One day God wanted to hid a treasure on earth more valuable than a house key. He wanted to conceal eternal life in a hiding place somewhere here on earth. So where do you think God hid His treasure of eternal life?
Not in the splendor of a Gothic cathedral; not in the opulence of an alabaster Temple; not in the fine art of a Renaissance painting but rather God choose to hid his great treasure on eternal life in a clay jar.
A clay jar. A human being. An ordinary vessel made from the elements of earth, subject to infirmity, instability, insecurity, cracks and leaks. God hid eternal life in clay jars.
Why would God do such a thing? Why would he hide this unspeakable treasure in a clay jar? If you won a million dollars you’d put it in a bank, wouldn’t you? Who in his right mind is going to stuff a million dollars in a large clay pot and put it under his bed? Who would do that?
God did! And of course, he had much more than a million dollars. He had eternal life to invest. And where to put it? Where?
God entrusted it to human beings – clay jars.
Why? Why would God do this? Why did he entrust us with this incredible treasure of eternal life? I want to suggest of couple of reasons:
First of all, God did this because He didn’t want anything to distract from the glory of the treasure itself. Paul says in verse 7 that we have this treasure in jars of clay in order to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.
In my humble opinion, the Mona Lisa is displayed in the wrong place This magnificent work of art is in Paris – just about the most beautiful city in the world. There it hangs in the Louvre – the ancient palace of the Sun kings. Paris and the Louvre are works of art themselves. By the time one gets to Mona Lisa she’s a letdown. You can hear the whispers: It’s a lot smaller than I thought it would be.
I’ll tell you where the Mona Lisa should hang. The Mona Lisa should hang in Moolix’s Ice Cream Shop on Bernard. Then people would be really impressed. They go in there for one of the 40 plus flavors; take one look at the wall and go speechless. What is that doing here?
God placed his treasure of eternal life in human beings because He didn’t want anyone to confuse the place where the treasure rests and the treasure itself.
When angels and demons walk to and fro over the earth (as we’re told they do) looking for God’s treasure they check out the Taj Mahal. Not there! They look into the Great Synagogue of Jerusalem. Not there! They check out the Temple in Salt Lake City. Not there! They wander through the Gothic cathedrals of Europe. Not there.
Finally, a spirit being stumbles across an ordinary Christian. A Christian with 17 different dysfunctions. A Christian with a body that is definitely last year’s model. A Christian with a long list of failures.
And the spirit being is speechless. This is almost embarrassing: That God would hide His treasure in a place like that? Why would God hide His treasure in HER? What is eternal life doing in HIM?
But you see friends, God entrusted the mystery of eternal life to frail, cracked humans not that we would look good but in order that He would look good. God placed the treasure of eternal life in cracked clay pots so that nothing would distract from the treasure.
I want to suggest that there is a second reason why God placed such a rich treasure in such a fragile jar.
He wants to humble us. We are by nature a very proud people. Some of us actually believe that the human race is getting better and better. Many of us think that education will solve all of our problems. Others of us are so arrogant that we think we can shape our own destiny. We can achieve anything we want to.
When we compare ourselves among ourselves we don’t come out all that badly. But when we are forced to compare ourselves to Jesus Christ of Nazareth then we are either humbled or we try and destroy the evidence.
So, God came along and in his mysterious wisdom placed this treasure of the life of Jesus Christ in a few of us to show the whole world how dreadfully inadequate we all are. God did not wish to trample us down but acknowledge that without Jesus we are nothing.
We are clay jars. A truly great person will see that. For all of our achievements; for all of our control over the rest of creation; for all of our boasting humans are still very fragile. We are involved in so many events over which we have little or no control. We live in a body that is subject to every bug that comes through town. So often we’re at the wrong place at the wrong time.
We are clay pots. We need this humble reminder from time to time. When a Roman general would return from a victorious battle they would have a victory parade for him and his armies in Rome. At the front of the parade the General would ride with a golden crown on his head. The people would cheer as he passed by. At the very end of the parade the general’s own soldiers would pass by. As they marched pass they would do two things: first, they would sing praises to their General and secondly, they would shout out obscenities and insults at the general lest he be overcome with too much pride.
We need that balance. God has designed it that we are surrounded by infirmity and yet he has filled us with glory. We need to see both this morning. Eternal life in Clay jars filled with eternal life.
Holy Father, help us to see two things this morning. First of all, show us how wonderful this treasure is – this life in Jesus Christ, this eternal life dwelling in us. But also, reminded us as we sit in lovely Church building, in this great land of peace and plenty how fragile we are; how weak we are; how spiritually poor we are.
Save us from pride and arrogance and help us to walk in such a way that people all around may see Jesus Christ in us, in whose name we pray, Amen.
