If you were only going to read one chapter of the Bible, I'd make it Romans 8. It is so full - life after death, the mystery of faith, the reality of suffering and the pains it takes to birth a new creation, hope, patience, love - it's so full that every line speaks to me, especially right now.
In the past week and a half, I've been to the funeral of one friend and the baptism of my godson Adam. My little sister had a baby. My great uncle died. Another friend had cancer surgery. Another friend saw her lima bean-sized child on the ultrasound for the first time. It's been a week packed with endings and beginnings.
This chapter of Romans speaks to these significant life events. It acknowledges the tenderness that accompanies such times. It calls out our longing for answers in the middle of changes we don't understand and it responds to our longings with a sense of beloved mystery. It puts all the shifts of our everyday lives into a grander perspective.
Through all the changes, large and small, God is laboring. My sister worked 15 hrs to bring her little son into this world. God is working like that to bring us into the world too, but we're not being ushered into the world as it is.
We're on our way to the future. That future will be good.
A Gilda Radner quote that I absolutely love says something like "it'll all be alright in the end. If it's not alright, it's not the end."
The difficulty for this life is that we too often think we're at an end. Endings are devastating and we can't see over the horizon. This passage from Romans emphasizes that in beginnings and endings there will always be mystery. We need the spirit to intercede with sighs too deep for words because we often don't know the words.
Bottom line: these changes of our lives - the big and the small - are all part of the larger narrative of God's love. We are to take courage because through it all, God is working. If it's not alright, it's not the end. At the end, we will be inseparable from God's perfect love.
Romans 8:18–39
18I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. 19For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; 20for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21that 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. 22We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; 23and 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. 24For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? 25But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.In the past week and a half, I've been to the funeral of one friend and the baptism of my godson Adam. My little sister had a baby. My great uncle died. Another friend had cancer surgery. Another friend saw her lima bean-sized child on the ultrasound for the first time. It's been a week packed with endings and beginnings.
This chapter of Romans speaks to these significant life events. It acknowledges the tenderness that accompanies such times. It calls out our longing for answers in the middle of changes we don't understand and it responds to our longings with a sense of beloved mystery. It puts all the shifts of our everyday lives into a grander perspective.
Through all the changes, large and small, God is laboring. My sister worked 15 hrs to bring her little son into this world. God is working like that to bring us into the world too, but we're not being ushered into the world as it is.
We're on our way to the future. That future will be good.
A Gilda Radner quote that I absolutely love says something like "it'll all be alright in the end. If it's not alright, it's not the end."
The difficulty for this life is that we too often think we're at an end. Endings are devastating and we can't see over the horizon. This passage from Romans emphasizes that in beginnings and endings there will always be mystery. We need the spirit to intercede with sighs too deep for words because we often don't know the words.
Bottom line: these changes of our lives - the big and the small - are all part of the larger narrative of God's love. We are to take courage because through it all, God is working. If it's not alright, it's not the end. At the end, we will be inseparable from God's perfect love.
Romans 8:18–39
26Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. 27And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
28We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. 29For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family. 30And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified.
31What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 32He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? 33Who will bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. 34Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. 35Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36As it is written,
"For your sake we are being killed all day long;
we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered."
37No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
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