A better time to come
Romans 8.12-27
Many of us will love Romans chapter 8, with its ringing assurances, “If God is for us, who is against us?” and “Who will separate us from the love of Christ?”. But we have to wait until next week for those familiar words.
If you were listening to this part of Romans 8, you could have been forgiven for getting a bit confused. Paul’s rhetoric is difficult to listen to at times. But actually this is no less splendid than what is to come – and read in the context of our current world crisis, it seems wonderfully fresh and relevant. And context is important here – not least the context of the wider discussion in chapter 8 and even before that. For Paul has set up the idea of “flesh” as being at war with “spirit”, a battle which is played out in our own lives and the choices we make on a daily basis. As Paul says in chapter seven, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.”
But chapter 8 begins with another one of those assurances, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” The hopeful message that Paul communicates to the Christians in Rome, and which I am sure he also wants us to hear, is that our choice to follow Jesus means that we are not condemned; because of what Jesus has done for us on the cross, we are set free. Whatever struggles we might still experience – like Paul, we will still experience struggles - we “are not in the flesh; …[we] are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in [us]…”
Wow! God has made his home in us. That amazing claim is made in the verses just before those we have read today, but this is important context. It is a significant reminder that this is grace at work, the gift of God. By nature, we are focused on the flesh – the material things of this world, everything that gives us passing pleasure but never ultimate satisfaction. We are tempted, and we give in to temptation. We damage one another, and we damage ourselves. And yet, Paul invites us not to focus on that – but to focus on God who makes his home with us. That is his gift – and that makes us his debtors, as we read here in verse 12.
The thing about a gift is, you always have a choice. To receive it, or refuse it. To unwrap it, or to admire the wrapping paper. To use it and enjoy it, or to leave it in the box, on the shelf, in the drawer. Or to accept the gift, play with it – and then throw it away. It’s your choice. Not to accept God’s gift is to “live according to the flesh” – and the power of the ‘flesh’ image is that flesh will die. Life, however, is found in the Spirit; “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.”
I’m glad that all the affirmations aren’t contained in the rest of the chapter; we do have some here, too. And Paul doesn’t just gloss over this, as a passing metaphor. No, he drives this one home. We “are children of God”.
Being someone’s child is important. When someone has been adopted, they might want to know who their biological parents were, however well they were cared for. Paul says we are “children of God”. We are adopted into his family, as children, not bought into it as slaves. However well we have been cared for by our earthly parents, or however much we have been neglected, we have a heavenly parent, whom we can call “Abba!” “Daddy!” What a privilege! Along with Jesus himself, says Paul, we can call God “Abba” – and that makes us, like him, heirs, joint heirs of the kingdom of God. Once again, wow!
But when Paul mentions Jesus – the Christ, the chosen one – the cross is never far from his thinking. For Paul, the significant thing about Jesus is that he was sent by God to suffer and, by suffering, to deal with sin. Sin is everything that holds us back in the flesh – what Paul has already so brilliantly explored – and it has taken Jesus’s suffering to deal with it. And as Paul remembers that, he remembers both that we also suffer, as co-heirs, as members of the family, and he also remembers that that suffering will come to an end – in the greater time to come. Suffering is real, says Paul, and it is written into the DNA of the whole of creation, but “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us.” There is a better time to come.
In this current crisis, it is no surprise to read “We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now”. It is a powerful image, even if it used by a man. Like a woman in child birth, the whole natural order is in pain. Sometimes the way we treat one another and the world in which we live, it is as if we can’t help ourselves. Well, we can’t. Which is why we need to be adopted, saved from ourselves. Paul even says we can look forward to “the redemption of our bodies”; that flesh that has symbolised our downfall will be renewed. That’s our hope.
Whatever our struggles, whatever temptations we face and sometimes resist, sometimes give in to, whatever we suffer along with a suffering world, Paul’s message is essentially hope-filled. This is good news. I can never understand people who think Christianity is a negative religion, always going on about sin. Switch your televisions on! The world goes on about sin and about the damage it does – in soap operas and on the news, in tv drama and in documentaries, the pain we bring on one another is all around us. We are neglected children, fighting in the playground; we are ungracious recipients of the gifts of God; we bring global warming and even a global pandemic on ourselves, because of the choices we make. And Paul says, there is hope – in Christ.
And that’s not the end of it. I reminded you at the beginning how chapter 8 ends, with the love that never ends. But that’s for another time – and we must, as Paul says here, be patient. If we long for the labour to be over, for the child of hope to be born, that is understandable. But ultimately hope is about a relationship and we are asked to trust the father. In the midst of our suffering, can we trust him? We are invited to trust, to have hope, to be patient. I think that means that we have to turn our eyes on Jesus – and follow his example. May the Father give us the courage of the Son in the power of the Spirit. Amen.