NOTES for Ti2 4:10-17

For Paul it is clear that everything happening to him is not random. And the Lord saves him not simply in order to please His apostle, since for Paul death would not be a misfortune but gain, as he writes in another letter (Phil. 1:21). In his own salvation Paul seeks first of all the answer to the question: Why? If the Lord wished to preserve my life in a hopeless situation, then for what purpose? And he finds the answer: in order to establish the Good News, so that all unbelievers may learn about Christ.

Every person mentioned in the Bible becomes an example for us in something special and very personal. Luke, who wrote much but is rarely mentioned in the text of Scripture, is often lost against the background of those whom he described so brightly and vividly. Whenever we try to make out his features and hear his voice, it is best to remember the apostle Paul's words from today's reading: "Luke alone is with me." Here Luke is the one who remains nearby when the celebration is over, when the days follow one after another, filled with hard and thankless work. He will remember and preserve what matters most; he is faithful and patient. And he will never turn away from the One in whom he believes, and that, you will agree, is very important on a difficult road.

At the end of the second letter to Timothy, Paul writes to his student that the end of his earthly path is near (vv. 6-8). At the same time, the apostle says of himself that he is "already being poured out," having in mind the libations that were made during sacrifice (v. 6; in the Synodal translation, "I am already becoming a sacrifice"). For an adequate understanding of what Paul says, it is important to remember that, according to the Torah, a sacrifice had to be accompanied by a libation: the sacrificial meat lying on the altar was poured over or sprinkled with wine and oil; otherwise it was considered unfit for sacrifice (Num 15:1-12). The libation was not the main component of the sacrifice; the meat remained that, or more precisely, the sacrificial blood with which those present were sprinkled, thereby sanctifying them. But the sacrificial meal, during which, unless the matter involved a whole burnt offering, those taking part in the sacrifice ate consecrated meat, would have been impossible without wine and oil, in many ways depriving the sacrifice of meaning, since an essential part of it was precisely the sacrificial meal. And Paul compares his life and his ministry with such a libation, and his death as a witness with the moment of sacrifice, when this libation alone can play the role appointed to it by God, becoming an element of the sacrifice that sanctifies the people of God and, through them, the whole world.

Such a comparison is certainly no accident: the apostle understands perfectly well that his whole ministry and his whole earthly path can receive meaning only in that fullness of the Kingdom which will be revealed to him at the moment of the complete transformation of his human nature, while through him also being revealed to the Church and to the world. Just as sacrifice was a divine-human action whose culmination became the encounter between God and the people taking part in it, an encounter that sanctified those people, so the witness's meeting face to face with the One to whom he bore witness all his life becomes the moment of his final sanctification and complete transformation. Of course, Paul himself, his life and ministry, turn out to be only part of the grand process connected with the unfolding of the Kingdom in the world, and not even its main part: at the center here, as is easy to understand, stands the Savior Himself. But now this part is finally united with the whole, becoming its inalienable element while still preserving all its uniqueness. And the history of the Kingdom takes one more step on the way toward that fullness which will include within itself the world transformed by the breath of God.