Frederick Buechner Sermon Illustration: To Die With Him

In our blog post every Monday we select a reading from the Revised Common Lectionary for the upcoming Sunday, and pair it with a Frederick Buechner reading on the same topic.

Next Sunday we will celebrate the Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost.  Here is this week’s reading from 2 Timothy:

2 Timothy 2:11

The saying is sure: If we have died with him, we will also live with him.

Here is an excerpt from The Wise Man, part of “The Birth” which was originally published in  The Magnificent Defeat and later again in  Secrets in the Dark:

''And now, brothers, I will ask you a terrible question, and God knows I ask it also of myself. Is the truth beyond all truths, beyond the stars, just this: that to live without him is the real death, that to die with him is the only life?"