I Have Kept the Faith
"For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time for my departure is near. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing."
— 2 Timothy 4:6-8
These lines come from a man in chains in Rome, writing to someone much younger. A few sentences on he asks him to come quickly. He wants the coat he left behind at Troas, and his scrolls. He mentions that at his first hearing nobody stood with him. The last thing he asks, at the very close of the letter, is that the young man get there before winter. Almost everything has been taken from him and he is still making plans. His first picture is a libation, the wine that went with many sacrifices under the Law, emptied out before God and gone the second it touched the ground. His word for leaving is the ordinary word for untying, the way a boat is untied from the dock or a tent is taken down when camp moves on. His second picture is the games: the contest, the course and the wreath all come from that world. Those wreaths were woven from leaves and dried out within weeks, and earlier in this same letter he wrote that the wreath goes to the competitor who stuck to the rules. So the claim at the end is not that his life was long, but that he took it all the way to the line. A life is weighed by whether it was carried to the end, not by how it began.