An Offering for Jesus
“I lift mine eyes, but dimm’d with grief / No everlasting hills I see,” wrote the Victorian poet Christina Rosetti in her poignant poem “A Better Resurrection.” Rosetti’s poem describes grasping for hope when she feels none, “numb’d too much for hopes or fears.” Yet Rosetti was anchored in a hope deeper than her feelings of despair. Though she could see “no bud nor greenness” pointing to Christ’s resurrection renewing her life, she confessed, “Yet rise it shall” and prayed, “O Jesus, rise in me.”
In 2 Corinthians, the apostle Paul also described experiencing suffering “far beyond [his] ability to endure, so that [he] despaired of life itself” (1:8). But he found that his despair taught him to find his hope only in “God, who raises the dead” (v. 9).
And he learned that as we carry the hope of the gospel in the still-imperfect “jars of clay” of our bodies, Christ’s resurrection life and hope shine through, revealing “that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us” (4:7).
This shift happens in Rosetti’s poem too. As she lifted her broken heart up to God, her prayer became only that the broken pieces of her life would be “cast in the fire” to be molded and transformed into an offering “for Him, my King.” Her poem concludes simply: “O Jesus, drink of me.”
By Monica la Rose - Our Daily Bread Ministries
2 Corinthians 4:5-12
5 For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.
7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 10 We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 11 For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. 12 So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.
