Romans 8:18-27 Tenth Sunday after Pentecost - A
Our
Pastor Troy Slater
If
you listen, you can hear it. If you look
you can see it. "Creation has been
groaning,"
And
humanity decays, humanity groans. You
can see it in the tears of the widow, in the eyes of the hungry, in the images
of war. Humanity is groaning. You can hear it coming from the hospital beds
and the nursing homes, you can hear it in the cries of futility that fill the
air - cries that are silenced only in death.
Yes humanity is groaning.
We
are groaning. When we find ourselves
being less than we know God made us to be.
After all we know God's will and want to do God's will, but time and time again we still find ourselves
doing just the very opposite. And so the
cries of guilt, the pain of bringing shame upon the Savior whom we love, the
hurt of failing to fulfill the task in life to which we are called, it's all
there - all too painfully there.
Creation
groans, all of humanity groans, we groan. And if we look, if we listen, we can
hear it, we can see it all around us. ... Of course this process of decay that
we hear and see has been in motion ever since the fall in the Garden of
Eden. Not only was the serpent cursed
and promised a fatal ending, but creation was broken as well. When Adam and Eve embarked on their little
takeover plan, it not only ended in disaster for them, but it infected all of
creation. They soon found themselves
separated and at odds not only with God and with each other, but also with
creation. "Thorns and
thistles" was God's righteous judgment.
"Thorns and thistles shall mark creation for you," the Lord
God told Adam and Eve and their descendents.
That is at least until you return to creation - "for from dust you
were taken and to dust you shall return." ... Yes the groanings are all
around - we can hear it, we can see it, we can even feel it.
Although
God's Word in the Garden wasn't only one of judgment, was it? In fact He promised there in the Garden that
a seen would come from the woman - one who would destroy the deceiver, one who
would reverse the curse; the Lord God promised one who would restore His now
fallen creation to what He had originally made it to be. And creation heard that Word and in fact
creation awaits the final and full fulfillment of that Word. It groans, it aches, it longs for paradise to
be restored. We long to once again know
life as God made it to be. God promised
and so amidst the cries and the screams, creation listens and we listen to
God's Word of promise.
In
fact this morning God's Word once again breaks into the groanings that we
hear. Amidst the screams and the cries,
God speaks. Guided by the Holy Spirit,
St. Paul - in our Epistle text - assess the situation, takes an accounting of
the health of the world and of God's people, he hears the same groans we hear,
sees the same futility we see and he compares our suffering to the future that
God has awaiting for His creation and for His people. And he concludes that the future that God has
awaiting for us - the glory that He has prepared for us - well it far, far
outweighs the groaning and the suffering.
In fact "the present
sufferings are not even worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in
us,"
In
a way we are like the children of the family who were trapped by a fire in an
apartment building. With hallways ablaze
and filled with smoke, the family waited frantically for rescuers to reach them
from an outside window. In their efforts to protect the children, the parents
were overcome with smoke. And so the two
children, horrified by the experience stood on tiptoe peering through the
window watching the rescue operation below.
In these horrible moments of waiting, their hope was that the rescuers
would reach them - in time. As they
waited on tiptoe - they watched every move of the rescue team until they were
finally snatched from the trap of death....
As
we see death and destruction all around us, that's kind of what we do, isn't
it? ... In fact that's kind of like what we are doing here this morning. For we are standing on our tiptoes. Anxiously expecting, patiently watching, hopefully
awaiting our Savior amidst a world and amidst lives that cry out for salvation. We are longing for a peek, longing for the
fulfillment of God's Word of promise of our Savior.
For
we know that He has already paid the payment for sin. We know that He has won the victory over
death and the devil. We know that He,
our Lord Jesus - the righteous one - lived in our stead that we might now know
the hope of becoming His. We know that
He suffered and died on
We
know this - in fact we have been given all of this through the waters of Holy Baptism. We know that our Lord continues to give us
His undying Word of absolution and the life and forgiveness of His holy
Supper. We know and so we watch, we
await for our final deliverance. Amidst
the cries and the groans, amidst the sufferings of this present, fallen creation,
we await, we long for our Savior to come and to finally and forever take us
home.
What's that
home going to be like? No one really
knows - in fact it's probably just way too beyond our comprehension - that's
probably why Scripture doesn't really ever even try to describe heaven. But we do know that no matter how bad this
world gets - it doesn't even compare to how good heaven is. …
And so in faith, we fix our eyes on Jesus knowing like Paul that "the present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that WILL be revealed in us." Yes amidst the cries, amidst the groans, we fix our eyes on Jesus and that hope that only He can give - that hope that He has won for us by His cross and by His resurrection. We fix our eyes on Jesus and rest secure in that promise of the glory that will fully and will forever be ours when He comes again. Amen.