1. Please pray with me. May the words of my mouth and meditation of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock, and our Redeemer. Amen. The message from God’s Word this 8th Sunday after Pentecost is taken from Romans 8:28-39, and is entitled, “Christ Jesus, Ruling Over Ruins,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2. If you go to Coventry Cathedral in Coventry, England and stand before the altar, you’ll be overwhelmed. Overwhelmed by the tapestry that rises above you. The scene is Christ enthroned in glory. A wounded Christ is seated on a throne. Surrounding him is a band of gold that branches out into four corners. And in each corner is a symbol of one of the evangelists. These 4 evangelists give us one vision: a vision of the wounded Christ ruling over the fallen world. The size of the tapestry makes it overwhelming. It’s about the size of a tennis court, hanging in the air. It took 12 weavers 3 years to complete. And yet this woven picture of Christ, enthroned in glory, hanging above the altar, overwhelms in another way. It overwhelms us with God’s love.
3. What Graham Sutherland did with thread in this tapestry is what the apostle Paul does with words in his letter. This morning, we consider one of the most beautiful passages of Paul in Romans. A time when he has woven together all of God - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – with all of creation – death and life, angels and demons, present and future, things seen and unseen. All of God rules over all of creation in love. Paul takes us to the end of the story of God, which is really not an ending at all but a new beginning, a glorious re-creation of all things and the final victorious revelation of God’s people as more than conquerors in God’s love. But, when we read the words of the apostle Paul, something interesting happens. It’s not as if we’re standing there, at the foot of this tapestry, looking up at an overwhelming figure. No, Saint Paul has invited us upward so that we are with the figure of Christ in the tapestry and, from there, has asked us to turn around and see what Jesus sees.
4. So often, when we come to church, we come with a limited vision of God. We look at God through the experience of our lives and that limits what we see. Did he answer my prayers this week? Did he give me strength to deal with work? To handle the kids? God can become small. Small enough for us to fit him into our lives. Once a week. On a Sunday. But, Paul wants to change our perspective. We don’t fit God into our lives. No, God brings us into his life, his love, his rule of the world. Paul asks us for just a moment to see the world through the eyes of Jesus, risen from the dead and ruling in love. So, this morning, let Paul bring you to God, in Christ, ruling over ruins.
5. God in love is ruling over ruins. Paul’s words remind us of the ruins of this world. He names those things people fear would separate them from God. Tribulation, distress, and persecution. Famine and nakedness. Danger and sword. And these are not just words for the apostle Paul. No, Paul is naming the reality of what he has seen in his ministry. He is journeying to Jerusalem, carrying a gift for the poor who are suffering under famine. Paul has been in prison. He has suffered tribulation and danger. He knows how the world fights against God’s people. But, the evils, aren’t only those that stand outside the Christian. Paul knows there is evil that flows from within. He stood there as Stephen was stoned and he approved of his execution. Paul knows this hatred and abuse from the inside. He could easily stand there, guilty before God, accused of his sin.
6. In this section of his letter, Paul invites us to bring it all before God – the evil that stands outside of you, the forces that threaten to destroy you, the loss of a job, the death of child, the tragedies you know you will never get over. But, he also asks you to be honest about the evil within. We stand before God, suffering from a world in ruins but also suffering from our own sins. The distance that lies between you and your son or daughter, the anger that brews between you and a co-worker, the greed that causes you to turn a blind eye to others in need. Paul asks us to bring this all before God to gather it up and place it before his throne, because Paul knows what God in Christ is bringing to us. Love.
7. While we bring all of our evil before God, God brings all of his love to us. This is Paul’s insight. If you were to go to Coventry Cathedral and stand there, below the tapestry, looking away from it, toward the church, it’s amazing what you would see. As Jesus looks from the tapestry, he sees a church in ruins. Coventry Cathedral is a church built upon ruins. On November 14, 1940, the city of Coventry was bombed. It experienced the blitzkrieg, the nighttime horror of Hitler’s Luftwaffe in World War II. In one night, this cathedral, this place where people had worshipped for almost 900 years, was reduced to charred wood and ruined stones rising from the earth in columns of smoke.
8. Jock Forbes, a stonemason at the time, looked over the ruins and saw two medieval timbers, charred from the fire, and fallen to the ground in the shape of a cross. They took these timbers and placed them, as a cross, on top of a pile of rubble, making an altar before a wall of shattered stones. Behind them, they placed the words, “Father forgive.” Then, a new cathedral was built extending off of the old ruins. This tapestry hangs at the altar of that new cathedral. From it, Jesus sits enthroned, facing the ruins of a fallen world. There, in front of him, are the seats where people gather. But behind the people are the ruins of the old cathedral. Separating the people from those ruins is a wall of glass. On it are etched images of angels and saints. Figures from the Old Testament & New Testament, the Christian martyrs of the past and present. Jesus, enthroned in glory, looks out over a fallen world. But, His vision is one of hope. He sees the angels and all the host of heaven. He sees the saints and the prophets, the apostles and martyrs, the ways in which his church has triumphed in the midst of suffering. And through that glass, in the midst of the ruins, are the charred remains of a cross, a place where God’s love was made visible to all people.
9. This is what the apostle Paul wants to share with you today. Christ sees you, living in a world ruined by the fall. You live among wars and violence. At times, you are victims of suffering. But, at other times Christ sees that you are evil toward others. This world would ask us to give up and forget about God and about this suffering and sin. And many try to do that. But, Paul invites you to stay. To stand in the midst of all of this and to stand before God, in your sin and suffering. Why would Paul ask you to do this? Because Paul knows the one who rules over all. Jesus. And Paul knows that this Jesus who sees all has given all of himself for you.
10. At the heart of all suffering and sin is that charred cross when Jesus offered his life for our sinful flesh. Through his death and resurrection, Jesus defeated the powers of sin, hell, and death and claimed you as his own. God is for you. In Christ. Listen to Paul. He asks you, “Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn?” Here, can you hear the note that Paul sounded earlier in his letter? Earlier he said, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (3:23- 24). Now, Paul lets this note echo in the space of all of creation and it forms an overwhelming symphony of grace.
11. From that one note, the sound grows louder and, like the new cathedral joined to the old, the vision grows larger. Paul sees not only the heart of this love but the depth of it all. God’s love spans our entire life. Paul writes, “for those whom he foreknew, he also predestined . . . and those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called, he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.” Then, Paul sees not only the breadth but also the height and depth of this love. Not only has Christ died and risen for us, but Christ also rules over all of creation in love so that Paul can sing a never-ending song. Paul begins by saying, “all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose” and he closes by saying, “I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor 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.” Paul knows that we are immersed daily, in a ruined creation, but he asks us for a moment to lift our eyes and to see this vision of Christ enthroned in glory. It’s a vision that gives us hope.
12. And hope is a hard thing. Think about the cathedral. After the Coventry Cathedral was bombed, it would have been easy for the people to look at the ruins in despair, to give up and walk away. Or, they could have cleaned up the ruins, and built a new church where no one would know the difference. One option lets the destruction win and denies any hope of a future. The other option lets the future glory win and denies that suffering is real in this world. But, what they did was something different. They held the suffering and the glory together in a vision of hope. They didn’t walk away from the church, defeated by suffering, but built a new one. Yet, they didn’t clear away the ruins and build on top of them. Instead, they left them as a reminder of suffering in this world. The ruins and the church stand together as a visible reminder that in the midst of the fallen creation God continues to rule in love and his rule gives us hope.
13. What happened at Coventry Cathedral decades ago happens in our lives every day. Every day, we are confronted by the suffering of our world and the sins of our flesh. Listen to the news; you can hear the suffering. Look at your heart; you can see the sin. For some, the temptation is to despair. They are tempted to give up, to lose hope, to believe that God hasn’t conquered and try to fend for themselves. For others, the temptation is to a foolish hope. They take a passage like this one from Romans, and use it to dismiss the real pain and anguish of suffering. “All things work together for good,” they say, and it doesn’t matter whether they’re speaking to a mother who has lost her son in a drunk driving accident or a father who struggles to raise his children after a divorce. “All things work together for good,” they say, and yet their words don’t recognize the real pain and evil in front of them. Christian life in this world is neither of these options. It’s actually a paradox – a strange combination of glory and suffering. We’re certain of the glorious future that God has in store for us, we know and trust that all things work together for good, but we also see the reality of suffering in this world and are moved to compassion for those in the midst of it. Seeing the ruins of this world, we don’t give up hope. And seeing the hope of the future, we don’t deny the suffering of this world. No, instead, we live in both worlds – in the reality of suffering and in the certainty of hope.
14. The apostle Paul reminds us that “Christ Jesus is the one who died – more than that, who was raised – who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.” Often when artists depict Christ enthroned in glory, they show him seated on a throne with one hand raised in blessing. That isn’t what you see on this tapestry. Instead, you see Jesus, sitting with both hands raised upward in prayer. This Jesus who died, rose, and rules over all things prays for you. As you make your way home, as you enter into another week, he continues to pray for you. Jesus takes your burdens, your sins and sorrows, and presents them in prayer to his Father. Nothing you encounter can separate you from God. Neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor 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. We are more than conquerors in Jesus who rules over these ruins in love. Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus until life everlasting. Amen.
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