2 Corinthians 13:11-13 Commentary

“Finally, brothers and sisters,” Paul tells his readers of all times and places in verse 11, “rejoice!” [chairete*]. In other words, the apostle basically finishes his second letter to the Corinthian Christians with a summons to be “cheerful” (The Message) or “joyful” (New Living Translation). So it’s as if he tells Jesus’ friends, “When it’s all said and done, rejoice!”

Yet preachers can freely admit we’re not always sure just what it means to chairete (“rejoice”). Since happiness is generally animated by good circumstances, joy only somewhat overlaps with happiness. In fact, the Scriptures sometimes summon us to rejoice in spite of our circumstances that make us unhappy.

That’s a reason why “joyfulness” and “cheerfulness” seem to get closer than happiness to the attitude to which Paul summons Jesus’ followers in this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson. Those attitudes, after all, include the sense of gladness in God, God’s care and purposes, often in spite of our immediate circumstance. Christians rejoice to know that God is loving, faithful and gracious no matter how things sometimes look.

Paul spends at least some of his second letter to Corinth’s Christians describing some of the causes for Christian rejoicing. We can rejoice because God, according to 1:3, comforts us in all our troubles. Christians can, what’s more, rejoice because God, as the apostle writes in 3:12, equips God’s people to reflect God’s glory. We can rejoice on top of all that because God, according to 4:7, displays God’s great power through human weakness.

But what, preachers might ask, if Paul is saying something more about the shape of Christian rejoicing throughout this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson? What if the apostle is reflecting on what rejoicing in God’s good purposes looks like in daily life? Might this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson furnish some of the shape of rejoicing?

If that’s the case, in verse 11-13 Paul repeatedly summons his readers to rejoice in God’s goodness by working for the Christian community’s wellness.  Christian joy doesn’t just well up from the Church. It also expresses itself in the Body of Christ’s attitude and behavior.

While joy can certainly lodge within Jesus’ individual friends, it generally expresses itself within God’s adopted family. Paul even underlines that communal understanding of joy by both addressing his call to his “brothers and sisters” in Christ and using the second personal plural form of the Greek imperative chairete (“rejoice”).

We rejoice in part, as Paul summons his adopted siblings in Christ in verse 11b, by striving “for full restoration [katarzisesthe].” This, however, is not an entirely easy invitation to fully understand. Biblehub.com suggests katartizesthe can also be translated as to “be perfected,” “complete thoroughly,” “repair,” or even “adjust.”

Yet what does Paul want Corinth’s Christians to “restore?” There is certainly a hint of an apostolic call to Corinth’s Christians to let the Spirit repair any rifts in their relationship with God. Verse 11b may perhaps even include an implied summons to rejoice by letting the Spirit complete the sanctifying work of repairing Jesus’ followers’ Christlikeness.

But the context strongly suggests Paul is calling for the local church’s repair and restoration. We sense that the apostle is challenging his readers to do everything they can to repair their relationships with their fellow Christians. Those who are glad in God do all in our power to be reconciled not just to God, but also each other. Jesus’ friends rejoice by first lamenting and confessing the Church’s fragmentation and then letting the Spirit more fully unite us with our fellow Christians.

The rest of verse 11 seems to bolster that interpretation of working to repair the Christian community. After all, Paul invites the Christians in Corinth to rejoice as they “encourage [parakaleisthe] one another.” Jesus’ friends display our gladness in God and God’s goodness by, among other things, building each other up rather than tearing each other down. We swim against the culture’s riptide of hostility and suspicion by humbly encouraging our fellow Christians to live up to the high calling that is following Jesus.

As an aside, however, preachers might want to note that the precise meanings of both katartizesthe and parakaleisthe are not perfectly clear. Though preachers may not choose to get into the “weeds” of their Greek meanings with our hearers, those who know Greek or have access to multiple translations will notice the variations in their interpretations. The NIV’s choice of interpretations seems to reflect the communal nature of this Sunday’s Lesson’s exhortations. Those whose translations vary from the NIV may need to listen for the Spirit’s promptings about how fully to explore that variety of other translations’ interpretations.

In verse 11d the apostle goes on to invite his readers to “be of one mind [to auto phroneite].” That suggests one way of rejoicing in God’s goodness is to be unified in our love for each other. While that unity may not always manifest itself in complete agreement on some vexing issues, it means Jesus’ followers commit to loving and respectful debate with each other. While we may not yet be ready to live out that being of one mind by worshipping together, we commit to finding other ways to reflect the unity Christ won for us by giving his life and rising from the dead.

Paul carries forward this theme of the communal nature of rejoicing with his call in verse 11e to “live in peace [eireneuete].” In doing so he reminds Christians we don’t just view our brothers and sisters in Christ as our adopted siblings. We also treat each other that way. We don’t just talk about living in harmony. Jesus’ followers also live our unity.

Paul even summons his readers to rejoice by living out that unity in a way with which 21^st century North American Christians may not feel fully comfortable. In verse 12 he writes, “Greet [aspasasthe] one another with a holy kiss [hagio philemati].” Jesus’ modern friends may, in fact, prefer to choose to share our greetings by joining Paul’s neighbors in simply sending our “greetings [aspazontai]” (13). The principle? We commit to rejoicing by refusing to pass by or ignore each other, but by respectfully acknowledging our brothers and sisters in Christ.

The apostle even seems to suggest the kind of rejoicing community for which he advocates in 2 Corinthians 13 creates space for God’s “love” [agapes] and “peace” [eirenes] to make their home within the Body of Christ that is the Church. After all, he follows what The Message paraphrases as verse 11’s calls to “Encourage one another” and “Live in harmony and peace” with its “And the God of love and peace will be with you.”

This at least implies that one way we experience God’s love and peace is through the love and peace God’s adopted children experience with and from each other. Might we even go so far as to say a loving and peaceful Church incarnates, however imperfectly, the incarnated Son of God?

Preachers whose churches use the NRSV translation don’t have to worry about whether to add an extra verse to this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson. The NRSV, after all, treats “May the grace …” as verse 13. Preachers in churches that use versions like the NIV, however, need to choose whether to add its verse 14 to this Trinity Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson reading.

Since the blessing is so lovely and often used, preachers would be wise to include it in this Sunday’s proclamation. There Paul writes, “May the grace [charis] of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love [agape] of God, and the fellowship [koinonia] of the Holy Spirit be with all of you [panton hymon].”

Preachers might call hearers’ attention to a couple of things about this poignant benediction. We might note that a reason we can rejoice and be glad in God and God’s good purposes is that Jesus’ Christ’s grace, God’s love and the Spirit’s fellowship are with us. Since the tense of meta (“be with”) is ambiguous, it’s biblical to remind Jesus’ followers that the Triune God is already with us in all of the ways we need.

What’s more, by referring to the koinonia (“fellowship”) of the Holy Spirit, Paul implies the self-giving “community” of the Triune God makes itself present in the community of the Body of Jesus Christ. Christians who rejoice in the fellowship we enjoy with our siblings in Christ are graced by the fellowship the godhead enjoys within and among itself.

*I have here and elsewhere added in brackets the Greek words for the English words the NIV translation uses.

Illustration

In the film The Shawshank Redemption, Andy Dufresne (played by Tim Robbins) locks himself in the Warden’s office, and plays a recording of a duet from Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro over the PA system. The whole prison stops to listen. We might even dare say the men who were imprisoned rejoice – however briefly.

Andy’s friend Ellis Boyd “Red” Redding reflects on what happened: “I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singin’ about. . . . I like to think they were singin’ about something so beautiful that it can’t be expressed in words and makes your heart ache because of it.

I tell you those voices soared, higher and farther than anybody in a gray place dares to dream. It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made these walls dissolve away . . . and for the briefest of moments, every last man at Shawshank felt free.”