Hope

Romans 8:12-25
So then, brothers and sisters, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh— for if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God,

and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. 18I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.


Lets not kid ourselves here. Lets be honest with each other Wayside. We live in difficult times. We live in a world that is begging deliverance from its current situation. And its hard. It’s hard because we see what the world is going through and we also see what we’re going through. Where I live in Buckingham VA, you don’t have to look far to see that things are bad.

Groaning...That’s the word Paul uses. Groaning. What do you think when I say that? Groaning. Can you hear it? Can you hear the groaning? I drive to the dump to take my trash and at the corner gas station stands a man and his young daughter. She’s ringing her hands and he’s holding a sign heading to Louisville looking for work. Another car drives by and he groans.

Can you hear it? One member of my congregation has been a cattle farmer his whole life with skin like leather and he can barely stand up straight or use his left arm anymore because of his back. He’s 45 and looks like he’s 65. He drinks for the pain that he can’t afford to have because cattle prices have plummeted while feed and gas prices skyrocket. So, the health insurance he needs to have the operation is out of reach. He works 14 hour days and calls me drunk at night to handle his pain both physically and spiritually and he groans.

Do you hear it? She shows up some Sundays looking vacant and lost and you can tell throughout the whole service she’s somewhere else. She’s left lost and conflicted. She loves him so much and yet has no idea where he’s gone or when he’ll come back. And she sits at home watching the news and sees what is horribly called collateral damage. She sees the bombs in the market places and the faces of another mother’s son who is training to kill hers. She loves him so much. She knows every hair on his head and yet she is left with vague phone calls and no details. And she hangs up the phone, looks at her husband, and she groans.

Can you picture it? A straight “A” student and dedicated church goer. A heart that bleeds compassion and a mind of a pastor. And he feels his call so deeply its as though God whispers it in his ear every night. He’s sat with people as they die. He’s comforted those that are left behind. He holds their hands and wipes their tears. He knows the Bible so well its almost as though he’s written it himself. Everyone at seminary thinks highly of him and respects him. And yet after he’s given of himself so completely to the will of God and what God is calling him to do there won’t be and ordination service because he’s told that who he loves is sinful, wrong, and even an abomination. He walks away from the meeting with the committee and, wiping the tears he can no longer control, he groans.

Can you see it? He looks out his window from his desk as he pauses while writing a letter to a church he hopes to visit. He’s struggles to find just the right word and just the right image that will fit into his point. He sees the suffering and the persecution. He understands what they are up against. How can he testify to the utter amazingness that he experiences of of God? What can he say of the hope that he sees in all of the world around him in times so precarious as these? When people are scared to say who they are and what they believe? When those he calls beloved are being beaten and tortured and killed? How does he show them a God of grace amidst the sufferings of this life? And then it comes to him. The groans they are experiencing now, give way. They are labor pains. The suffering that they endure is made all worthwhile if they endure and expect the Kingdom - if they hang in there and keep working toward. It’s like childbirth. There is pain and suffering but they are birthing pains that give way to hope. And so Paul pens it down, “All of creation groans in Labor pains.”

Groaning... That’s what Paul calls it. And there’s enough of it to go around these days Wayside. And I wish it were the kind of groaning we do after my dad tells us a joke, but the truth is, its a groaning that comes from suffering. So, actually it may be the kind of groaning you do when My dad tells a joke... And it seems there’s an overabundance of suffering these days. You know, if we look around we can see it and if we listen we can hear it. Its hard not to if we view the world in human terms. And Paul was painfully aware of the groanings around him too.

And while Paul suffers and sees the church suffering - and while I suffer and you suffer - and the cause of it all is always something different - Paul reminds us that we don’t suffer alone. We are never alone. All of creation groans with us. Our sufferings aren’t quantified or qualified. There aren’t different gradations of suffering, as it were. It’s all linked together. The painful part of the whole thing is when it seems like it isn’t going to end. That it just won’t stop - that our suffering will go on and on. And yet, Paul reminds us that this too shall pass. The pain comes and it subsides. We groan but it gives way. What is crucial and where the English is misleading is where Paul tells us to Wait with patience. The greek isn’t as passive. It tells us to expect and endure. Expect God’s Kingdom and endure the work to be done or even endure our present situation. Expect what comes next and endure through the moment. And I don’t know about you, but to me that sounds exactly like childbirth to me.

I’ve never physically had a baby, but I’ve seen it. And I’ve seen it done the hard way. My wife Beverly, for those of you who don’t know her, is... well, she’s just not normal. She decided to have natural childbirth. Which incidentally, looks to me like the most unnatural thing to do. “Natural childbirth” I found out means no pain medication... For either of us. And even though they both had this in common, the births of my children that I witnessed were two entirely different things. Olivia, the one year old, came out no problem. In fact, Beverly my wife was so calm about it that she insisted on doing some laundry before we left. I was in a panic.

Isaac, our 2 year old, was induced. So, that morning we took our time packing our bags and arranging babysitters. We had time to get settled once we got to the hospital and the whole thing was pretty laid back. I was worried. I’d been watching the Discovery Channel and their birthing shows. So I had some idea of what to expect. I knew that babies looked like eggplants smothered in butter when they first come out. And although God has blessed me with many things, a stomach of steal was not one of them. I can get kind of queezy at gross things. So, I was worried.

My plan was to be there for Isaac’s birth, but I just kind of figured I would hover around Beverly’s head and maybe wipe her brow and not really pay attention to what was... uh... going on at the other end. It was a good plan. But the time came pretty quickly. The doctor asked for a test push and then quickly told the nurse to grab everything. That baby was coming. The first hint to me that this wasn’t going to be quite what I expected was when they started to set up like they were going to paint the room. They put tarps over everything. But, I moved myself into my planned position at the head of the bed looking at my wife. But that nurse... Maybe they were short handed, maybe she hated me, I don’t know, but you can imagine my shock when she turned to me and said those awful words, “Would you mind helping hold up her leg?” All the way up here? I thought. No she wanted me to do it all the way down there. Front row seat. I began groaning.

Now, Beverly “politely” urged me to do what the nurse was asking. Then she started screaming. Not groaning, but screaming. I was groaning. My hand was being crushed. But she was screaming. If you can picture it, I had one hand holding her leg and the other hand I believe my wife was trying to liquify. And she was screaming. I’ll spare you all the details of what happened next but... uh.. the people who want to tell you about the beauty of childbirth or even the groans of labor pains are wrong. It was by far the scariest thing I have ever seen in my entire life.

I was supposed to cut Isaac’s umbilical cord. But when he came out, there was a little bit of chaos and rushing around. Now, like I said I had been watching the Discovery Channel and the birth shows. So, I was ready for what a new-born baby looked like. And I also knew they cry right away. But Isaac didn’t cry. They hurriedly cut the cord because it was wrapped around his neck and rushed him over to the incubator thingy. And time stopped.

I stood there as they grabbed the paddles from the crash cart. I stood there as they pulled out the mask and bag to pump air into him. I stood there in eternity as galaxies rose and fell. Nothing existing outside of this moment. They were were trying to tell me everything was okay. But nothing else exists in a world where time stops. It was just me and that baby. I though we were stuck in this moment of anguish forever and I began to groan.

Then one of the nurses slapped his foot. He started to wail. Only a moment had passed. Just a moment. And that’s when I almost passed out. Time sped forward trying to catch up and it nearly blew me over. It was a moment of pure panic that scared me to the depths of my soul, and yet it gave way to total relief. Then it was peaceful, calm, serene. And I looked into my son’s eyes and saw past the dirty diapers, and the chocolate syrup on the kitchen wall, and the coloring on himself and his little sister and the terrible 2s and the scraped knees that have already come. And I saw past the bad report cards, and crashed cars and sleepless nights worrying, and all the stresses and frustrations that will inevitably come with being a parent. I looked into his new eyes and saw all the hopes and dreams of a new world and a new life. I thought of how truly remarkable our God is. I thought about what an amazing privilege and responsibility it is to help guide and direct this new hope into fruition. To make this world better for him. And to build him up to make it even better. And then I thought, “Oh Crap.” But, I held that little baby boy like I was never going to let go... in some ways I’m not sure I really have.

I’ve never known a peace inwardly and outwardly so serene as those moments after a child is born. All the chaos and screams and pain and suffering give way to this moment where nothing else in the entire world exists or matters - as you stand there staring into these new eyes seeing the world for the first time. I cannot imagine any greater hope or any better definition of the Hebrew word shalom. It is a peace like no other peace I’ve found. I bet is was the same feeling on a morning over 2000 years ago in a very different part of the world. All of creation is groaning in labor pains asking to be delivered. Can you hear it? Can you hear the groans? Creation is groaning in labor pains and we are asked to deliver Christ.