“Meanwhile, I thought I should send Epaphroditus back to you. He is a true brother, co-worker, and fellow soldier. And he was your messenger to help me in my need. I am sending him because he has been longing to see you, and he was very distressed that you heard he was ill. And he certainly was ill; in fact, he almost died. But God had mercy on him—and also on me, so that I would not have one sorrow after another. So I am all the more anxious to send him back to you, for I know you will be glad to see him, and then I will not be so worried about you. Welcome him in the Lord’s love and with great joy, and give him the honor that people like him deserve. For he risked his life for the work of Christ, and he was at the point of death while doing for me what you couldn’t do from far away.”
I’ve never risked my life for the Gospel, so when I read passages like this one I approach it from a learning perspective. We all make sacrifices and give up worldly things when we follow Jesus, but it’s a different thing to press so far into the mission that you almost die. Paul also references his own repeated experiences of sorrow, and he is glad that he did not have to add yet another loss to his life experiences. I can relate to the experience of grief and the ways in which following Jesus can take people out of your life at times. Particularly in ministry, sometimes you do feel loss after loss after loss and you press ahead.
If you want to find out more about Epaphroditus, you can read this article. My first observation was that his name sounded very Greek, which in fact it was. He was named for the Greek goddess Aphrodite, the god of love, beauty, and fertility. What a contrast to how he lived out his life, surrendering pleasure and embracing suffering for the cause of Christ. We can see that he found the true God of love, and it produced a willingness to risk even his own life.
It’s radically counter-cultural in America to embrace suffering. We’re constantly trying to get rid of all things unpleasant. Yet freedom comes when we humble ourselves and become servants. We talked earlier in this series about becomes slaves to Jesus. That doesn’t give us an easy life, but it gives us supernatural and eternal freedom. It’s time to shake off the chains of pride, greed, self-focus, and vanity. You may not be ready to risk your life for the Gospel, but what about risking these idols that feel central to your life? You just might find exactly what you’ve been searching for.