It was their first Christmas, just three months after they were married.  They had eloped with little money but lots of hopes.  He had found work but she hadn't, so they knew they could not spend much on Christmas gifts.  He was eager to have her open his gift first, so she untied the ribbon, unwrapped the box, took off the cover, and inside saw a pair of socks, tan colored socks.  Now they were very nice socks, the best kind, he said, but they were still socks.  She would have warm feet, he said smiling, and that would make her feel good.  He asked her to try them on, but she hesitated and said no.  "Why try on socks?" she thought.  They would surely fit, so she would wait for a special occasion. She put the box aside and gave him her gift, a soft warm sweater.  He loved it and fawned over it and wore it that day and the next day to work.  She spent that day in their bedroom, wondering what kind of husband she had married.  Socks?  She saw the box on the dresser and turned her back on it.  But after lunch she recalled how he was so pleased with his gift.  Some men don't understand women, she thought.  Oh well!  And as she stroked the soft socks, she felt something in the toe.  It was tiny and wrapped in tissue paper.  A chain, a fine gold chain with a tiny opal stone!  She had missed the real gift, the real treasure inside.  The socks were only packaging; the golden necklace inside, that was his gift to her, that was the real treasure.

          Today's lesson tells us of a treasure we all have, a gift from God, one that doesn't appear to be much, but one that's valuable, the most valuable of all.  It's the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and we have all been entrusted with it.  In our text St. Paul had been explaining the Gospel to the Corinthians, telling them to stay faithful even though people around them might make fun of them, persecute them, or do worse.

          He told them in chapter 4, verse 1, don't lose heart.  Don't copy the ways of the evil world around you.  Stay faithful to the Word of God, which he called "the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.  For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake." (4:4-5)

          Because, Paul told them, they had the Gospel within themselves, like a treasure hidden inside clay pots!  And though they felt troubled by life, like the weight of the world was on their shoulders, don't give up!  Christians always have troubles, for they carry around the death of Christ, "so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body." (4:10)

          This body you and I have isn't made of wood but of flesh and blood.  We are human and we are breakable.  We get sick and we get tired.  We feel the pressures of the world on us, just as people did in Paul's day.  We wonder how much we can take, and for good reason.  Sometimes we take on too much.  But always remember, we carry around a treasure from God - the Gospel in our hearts, the riches of God.  We are claypots, Christian claypots, holding inside our hearts the greatest wonder of the universe - the message that Jesus Christ is Lord, our Lord.  And all who put their faith Him will have eternal life.

          Remember those old five gallon earthenware crocks our mothers used to have in the basement?  They'd make dill pickles in them, or sauerkraut or dried apples or carrots, or some other food item you'd need later in the winter.  And then we'd forget them - put them out of our minds.  But Mom didn't.  When winter got long, she'd go downstairs and open the pot and bring up some pickles or canned peaches or dried apples, and winter wouldn't seem as long.  What happened to those old claypots?  Most were just lost.  If they were cracked, they were thrown away, and only today in an estate sale would a good one bring any money.  And it wouldn't be for food value, just for looks.  But the food they once held - that was their real treasure.  That's what made them valuable.

          You and I are God's claypots.  We have the Gospel within us.  Christ lives in our hearts, a treasure greater than gold, so that, as Paul says, "The life of Christ may also be revealed." (4:10)   We are vessels that contain the mighty treasure of God, and we must share it.  We know Christ is our Lord - let's tell someone else!  We don't need to tell the world, just one other person.  A hymn we rarely sing, one of the old ones, is called, "Hark the Voice of Jesus Crying," and one of the verses goes like this:

  If you cannot sing like angels, if you cannot preach like Paul,
  You can tell the love of Jesus, you can say He died for all.
  If you cannot rouse the wicked with the judgments dread alarms,
  You can lead the little children to the Savior's waiting arms.
                                              (Author unknown)

          We shouldn't keep this treasure to ourselves.  I can't imagine my mother hoarding food if the neighbors were hungry.  If they needed something she had, she'd share it with them.  Our neighbors today are hungry also, and they need something we have.  There isn't a one among us here who doesn't know someone who is hungry for the Good News of Jesus.  It's up to us to share it.  We may feel we have nothing special at all, but we do.  We don't need to wear our faith wrapped around our heads or printed like a sign on our t-shirts.  We don't need to preach.  We just need to feed one hungry neighbor with the eternal food of Jesus Christ.

          Pastor Roger Thompson told of the time while in high school when he worked for the Brinks Armored Company in San Bernardino, California, back in the 1960's.  His job was to take care of the bags of coin that Brinks handled.  One day, his company got a call from Bank of America in downtown San Bernardino, and the bank was in a panic: "We need some coin right away!"  A quick look showed all their armored trucks were gone, and so the manager backed his 1949 Ford pickup into the bay. They loaded $25,000 worth of bagged coins into a rusty old Ford pickup.  "Hop in," said the manager said, "We're going up to Bank of America."  Thompson wrote, "I was in my T-shirt and jeans.  We drove up to the front of the bank, parked the truck, and the manager said, 'Stay here.  I'll go inside and get the dolly and we'll haul this stuff in.'"  He later wrote, "I stood there waiting against that truck for twenty minutes!  I didn't have a gun.  If anybody noticed what was in that pickup truck, I was a dead duck!  The treasure that people were walking by!  But they didn't see it for the commonness of the delivery system."

          You and I are God's delivery system for His treasure.  We're Christian claypots, fragile, even breakable, but God entrusts to us what Martin Luther called in one of his 95 Theses, "the true treasure of the church is the most holy Gospel of the glory and grace of God." (Thesis #62)

          God has created us to be both recipients and transmitters of the Gospel.  We are clay pots and sometimes we feel fragile, weak, even cracked.  We don't feel worthy to have received this marvelous treasure of the Gospel.  Yet God in His grace has given that most wonderful gift to us and placed it within our hearts and minds.

          The reason God did this?  St. Paul says it was "to show that this all surpassing power is from God and not from us." (4:7)   What we have and what we share is certainly not of our own making.  We aren't saved by what we do; we don't bring others to Christ.  We simply bear witness to what God has done for us and what God will do for others who come to Him in faith.  The purpose of this picture is to show that this Gospel is from God, not from us.

          But notice that in this section Paul also highlights just how frail and weak we Christian claypots are.  Paul says that he was "hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed but not in despair; persecuted but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed." (4:8-9)

          Those are words we can all identify with.  We all know the pressures of life, the hostile forces that want to take us over.  From time to time we all feel like we're twisted in knots from our troubles.  It's all a part of being human, of being a Christian, believing human.

          But being hard pressed doesn't mean we will be crushed.  God always provides a way out of our desperate straits.  He doesn't abandon us to do it all alone.  On the contrary, God gives us strength to bring us safely through.

          There was a day I remember when I was still single, during the time after I'd lost my first wife and hadn't yet met Carol.  The boys and I were in one of those small two bedroom condos in southern Arapahoe County.  I was up to my ears in debt and had to go on a trip for Good Shepherd, and I didn't want to leave the boys with a sitter.  I'd had a tough weekend, preached a terrible sermon and felt nauseated from something I'd eaten.  At about 4 in the morning I got up for the bathroom and slammed my foot against the dresser really hard, breaking my little toe.  Later on I was trying to get the boys out the door for school, hardly being able to walk, going back and forth in that terrible pain.  They were arguing about something when I heard a commotion out in the street.  I opened the door and a man outside yelled out, "Garbage man."  I was so confused I said, "Go get it Chuck, I'm too sore to pick it up!"  He looked at me awfully strange.  I guess that's being perplexed!  But I think we've all been there some time.

          But we are not abandoned.  The garbage of life may come special delivery, but Jesus never leaves us.  We may feel like we're hated and pursued, but God never abandons us.  Cracks may appear in our pots, but God is there with superglue.  We're not really as weak as we may feel.  The wheels may feel like they're coming off, like the old pot is cracking up, but God puts it all back together again, far better than "all the king's horses and all the king's men."  The tires may be getting bald, but at least they haven't gone flat.  God's mercy is still new every morning.  All may not be right with the world, but God is still in control, and that's good enough.  I hope and pray it will be good enough for you all.  In Jesus' name, amen.

Copyright © 2005 by Pastor Bob Tasler.  All rights reserved.