Rescued From the Lion’s Mouth

2 Timothy 4:6-22
Ordinary 33
October 26, 2025
William G. Carter

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. From now on there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have longed for his appearing.

Do your best to come to me soon, for Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica; Crescens has gone to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia. Only Luke is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful in my ministry. I have sent Tychicus to

above all the parchments. Alexander the coppersmith did me great harm; the Lord will pay him back for his deeds. You also must beware of him, for he strongly opposed our message.

At my first defense no one came to my support, but all deserted me. May it not be counted against them! But the Lord stood by me and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion’s mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and save me for his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen. Greet Prisca and Aquila, and the household of Onesiphorus. Erastus remained in Corinth; Trophimus I left ill in Miletus. Do your best to come before winter. Eubulus sends greetings to you, as do Pudens and Linus and Claudia and all the brothers and sisters. The Lord be with your spirit. Grace be with you.

I don’t know about you, but we often receive mail that was not intended for us. If it’s a credit card statement or a utility bill, we take it back to the post office and ask them to get it right. If it’s an advertising flyer, my tendency is to throw it in the recycling bin unless it’s interesting. Then, I might take a peek. It’s extremely rare to get personal letters at all, much less letters that are misdelivered. 

When we read the New Testament letters of Paul, we are reading letters that were never intended for us. At some point, the church decided we have something to learn by overhearing this personal correspondence. Paul mentions people we do not know. He says, “Tell Prisca and Aquila that I said hello. Greet the household of Onesiphorus.” We don’t know who that is. But we keep looking over his shoulder. Today, unlike most of Paul’s other letters, we listen in to somebody who has traveled a very bumpy road.

In this letter, Paul is an old man, far from home. He's tired. He’s cold. He is worn out. In an uncharacteristic moment, he admits about how other people have let him down. He usually doesn't grumble like this. Paul frequently stays upbeat and positive, and usually takes the high road. Yet today we hear a twinge of weariness in his voice.

"Dear Timothy," he writes, "do your best to come and see me. Demas ran off to Thessalonica, chasing after the pleasures of this world. Crescens has gone to Galatia. Titus disappeared in Dalmatia. I sent Tychicus back home to Ephesus. Now I'm stuck here all alone, with only Luke to keep me company."

Paul says, "Bring that cloak I left behind in the fellowship hall at Troas. Pack up my books and my parchments. Bring them too." Here is a man who is summing up his life at the close of day.  He says, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race. The time of my departure has come."

This is a remarkable moment of self-reflection. Maybe that's why the apostle sizes up his successes and failures. Like Alexander the coppersmith. We don't know much about him, except that Paul was ready to write him off. "He did me great harm," said Paul, "and the Lord will pay him back for his deeds."  Then he gets on his high horse: "You also must beware of him, for he strongly opposed our message."  Then he starts wagging his finger, "At my first defense, no one came to my support. Everybody deserted me."

These are the words of somebody who comes up short. According to the accounts, nobody worked as hard as the apostle. Paul traveled throughout the known world, preaching the good news about Jesus, debating in the synagogues, starting churches, training the next generation of leadership, working tirelessly. There was opposition along the way – of course there was resistance and opposition – but he accomplished so much.

At the end, most of his closest companions had left him. Everything he worked so hard to accomplish seems at risk. His entire life’s work might be circling around the drain. In this letter, he gave a lot of encouragement to young Timothy. It sounds like he could use bit in return. He’s disappointed. Anybody knows how he feels?

Some of us raise our kids, teach them to stand up and be productive. We encourage them to be independent. And they are so good at being independent that they never call, forget to keep in touch, make other plans at Thanksgiving. It’s disappointing.

Or there was the dream job. From the moment it’s posted, you imagine how good it would be: more money, better hours, more vacation time, greater responsibility, in an excellent location. And then you get the job, and it’s all those things – and it’s also a whole lot less. As a wise old sage said, “If it looks like the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, just remember it’s still grass. It’s only grass.” That can be disappointing.

Others of us can’t wait for the holiday catalogs to arrive. All these wonderful things we never thought to purchase, and here they are in glossy splendor, with the enticing tag line, “Free shipping.” So we put together the wish list, give out quiet hints, live in patient hope. Christmas comes, and there is the perfectly shaped package. Rip open the paper, squeal in delight, and it’s the wrong size, or the wrong color, or nothing like we expected.

How do we deal with disappointment? Sometimes the best way is to push through it, stay positive, spin the situation in an affirming way. Squeeze that lemon into lemonade. Turn that frown upside down. Accentuate the positive.

Or in Paul’s situation, begin by listing your accomplishments. How does he spin the situation of weariness, abandonment, and disillusion? He says, “I’ve fought the good fight, finished the race, kept the faith, and I know there is a crown of righteousness waiting for me. And you can have that crown, too!”

Yet it sounds empty when the next words out of his mouth are, “Demas has abandoned me, Alexander the silversmith has done me wrong.” Which is it, Paul? The good fight or the lingering resentment? A good place to stand is in the honesty of that ambivalence, and say, “All the above, and I’m a tangled mess.”

Of course, another time-honored approach to disappointment is to reduce our expectations. The runner-up to the contest says, “The winner was a lot better than me.” Or the graduate with below-modest grades says, “I wasn’t valedictorian material anyway.” Or the bar-room romantic describes his girlfriend by singing the old country song, “She wasn’t much to look at except through the bottom of a beer glass.” Hear all of that? Reduced expectations.

Sometimes it’s called “putting cushions on the floor,” a softening of the outcome. Yesterday, I married off my nephew near Ithaca, New York. At the hotel yesterday morning, there was a swarm of young women, most of them six feet tall or taller. Women’s basketball team? No, the Columbia University volleyball team. They were in town to play Cornell. I looked them up on the internet – Columbia was 2-15.

I checked last night. Columbia is now 2-16. We can imagine the pep talk on the bus ride home. “At least we won two. There are more games to come.”

Sometimes the best way to salvage a disappointment is to look for the blessing in the middle of the experience. It can be a way of parenting. The beloved girlfriend dumps the sophomore, and me, and Mom might say, “Well, wait for the right one.” Thanks, Mom, even though there is little consolation. Or a six-point buck kissed your bumper on a Friday night, Dad says, “The car can be replaced but not you.” The intent is there.

Someone calls this, “Looking for the grace in the grit.” That’s a great phrase. There may be flecks of gold in the mud, so look again.

It sounds like the advice of Yoda to Luke Skywalker. In one of the Star Wars movies to say, “Pass on what you have learned. Strength, mastery, hmm… but weakness, folly, failure also. Yes: failure, most of all. The greatest teacher, failure is. Luke, we are what they grow beyond. That is the true burden of all masters.” True enough.

And if we look at Paul’s final words, we see plenty of grace in the grit, blessing in the brokenness, and mercy in the mess. He laments how everybody ran out on him. “They all ran away,” he says. “Everybody deserted me.” Did he remember that happened to Jesus, too? Thugs came to arrest Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane while everybody else ran away. Yet Jesus had the graciousness to say, “Father, forgive them. Forgive them all.” There’s Gospel there.

So, Paul takes a breath. He has been abandoned, and he prays, “I hope these things aren't counted against them." It's a remarkable turn, a turn toward mercy. Sometimes the Gospel appears in the small details.

And then, as Paul unloads about how weak he feels, how abandoned he is, how there’s nobody except Luke by his side – what does he do? He names all the people he still loves. They are out there somewhere, cheering him on, grateful for his life’s work, affirming what he cannot see in himself on that cloudy day.

There’s Prisca and Aquila, and the household of Onesiphorus. Then he adds, "Eubulus sends greetings to you, as do Pudens and Linus and Claudia and all the brothers and sisters." We don’t know any of those people, either, but isn’t it striking that Paul, who cries “boo hoo” that nobody is with him --- still has people with him. Eubulus, Pudens, Linus, Claudia, and “all the brothers and sisters.”

It's a good reminder that the circle of support is always larger than he think it is. There are cheerleaders on your side of the field. Today they are all around you.

All of this brings us to the final insight. It’s best summarized in one of our old hymns:

“Do your friends despise, forsake you? Take it to the Lord in prayer!
 In his arms he'll take and shield you; you will find a solace there.

Friends can be helpful. Or they can be fickle. But Christ himself stands with us. Paul can finally confess it: “The Lord stood by me and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion’s mouth.” He got through it. By the grace of God, he got through it.

Maybe you remember that poem, “Footprints in the Sand”? Some of you may have that printed and posted on the living room wall. Someone has a dream, sees two sets of footprints in the sand. It’s a sign the Lord has been walking alongside. Then the dreamer sees a section of the sand with only one set of footprints, and says, “Lord, did you abandon me when things got tough?” “No, my child,” comes the reply, “I was carrying you.”

There is a variation on that little poem. According to the variation, Christ says, “My child, I never left you. Those places with one set of footprints? It was then that I carried you. And that long groove over there is when I dragged you for a while.” That sounds a good bit more accurate.

Walking beside, carrying, or dragging us – it’s all a good reminder that life is not really about us. It’s about Christ, the Christ who rescues and saves. Paul looks back upon his life, names his disappointments, names his friends, names his needs – and reaffirms he couldn’t have gotten through all of it without the invisible, incomprehensible grace that holds us when we feel weak and all seems lost.

The good news of the Gospel is that God finishes what we cannot. The saving is not up to us. Paul has the clarity to finally say, “the Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and save me for his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever.”

And in case we need it said again, he says it again. “The Lord be with your spirit. Grace be with you.” That is always the final word.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.