“Christ Jesus, Ruling Over Ruins,” Romans 8.28-39, Pentecost 8A, July ‘20

 

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 8^th 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.

 

“The Holy Spirit, Who Prays for Us,” Romans 8.18-27, Pentecost 7A, July ‘20

 

 

1.                Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen.  The message from God’s Word on this 7^th Sunday after Pentecost is taken from Romans 8:18-27.  It’s entitled, “The Holy Spirit, Who Prays for Us,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.

2.                 In Psalm 139, the psalmist asks, “Where shall I go from your Spirit?” He meditates on the places he might go. If he goes up to the heights of heaven, God’s Spirit is there. If he goes down to the depths of Sheol, God’s Spirit is there. If he goes to the farthest parts of the sea, even there, God’s Spirit guides him and holds him. The Spirit of God overwhelms the psalmist. He sees the Spirit every place he goes. And so, it remains for God’s people today.

3.                Look to the heights of heaven and you can see the Holy Spirit. In Genesis, the Spirit of God hovers over the face of the waters. Time begins and creation takes shape. Look to the farthest reaches of the sea and you can see the Holy Spirit. The disciples gather together for prayer in a house in Jerusalem on Pentecost and suddenly the Spirit does more than hover over the world; he descends into it, in a flash of flame and the wildness of the wind. He fills mouths with speech and hearts with wonder, clothing God’s people with power from on high and sending them forth in mission to the ends of the world.

4.                Today, as we contemplate Paul’s letter to the Romans, I’d like to take you to one more place. The place to which I’d like to take you is a hallway. A hallway in Florence, Italy in the Galleria dell’Accademia. Here, voices are hushed and sounds are silenced. There is little to hear in this place. But there’s much to see. This hallway is part of a museum and, as you stand there, you’re surrounded by 4 unfinished pieces of stone. It’s as if time itself has been frozen. An artist was working but stopped in the middle of his work, leaving 4 pieces of marble. The edges are rough. These rocks look like they’ve been cut from the quarry and dragged to this place. And yet, emerging from these blocks of stone are the beginnings of figures. Some have no faces. Others are missing arms, hands, feet.  But, you can see the beginning of 4 figures. They are slaves. Begun by Michelangelo but never finished. His work has been frozen in time. What they once were, rough blocks of marble, is gone. What they will be, beautiful sculptures, isn’t yet here. Instead, we stand here in the hallway in the midst of an awkward moment. We can see the future, slowly taking shape, and yet the past is painfully with us, as figures appear before us locked in the stone.

5.                In our text this morning, Paul invites us into a hallway like this. He asks us to see how we are caught right now in the middle of God’s greater work. Paul begins by saying, “The sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Rom. 8:18). Suffering and glory held together. Like rough stone, our present world is filled with suffering. God had originally formed a beautiful creation. Wherever one looked, one could see God’s fingerprints and it was beautiful and it was good. But, Adam and Eve, brought death and suffering into God’s creation. They disobeyed God and brought God’s curse into the world. “The day you eat of it, you shall die,” God had said and now God came and subjected the beauty of creation to the bondage of decay. Such punishment was set in stone and only God could free his creatures and bring about a new creation. This is the glory that Paul has seen in Jesus Christ. The beginning of a new creation. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the promise of a new and never-ending life. God has begun his work, and like this glimpse of figures in stone, it’s only a matter of time before the full glory of God is revealed.

6.                So, Paul writes to the Romans to help them stand in this painful moment. And his words come to us to help us stand here today. In Christ, we’ve been made into the children of God. This is certain. His death has destroyed the power of sin for you and his resurrection has brought you the promise of a new creation. But, what we are isn’t fully seen. Take a deep close look at God’s people, Paul says, and you will see a people, suffering and groaning because they desire to be free.  We stand, positioned between the sufferings of this present world and the glory yet to be revealed. And in this place, the apostle Paul asks us to meditate on our situation and to trust in the work of the Holy Spirit.

7.                To meditate on our situation is like taking a good close look at these figures in stone. If you look closely, you will see that each of the figures Michelangelo carved is different. One is young. Another is older and bearded. One slowly awakens and another is busy working, bearing his burden in the heat of the day. While each of them is different, one thing remains the same. All of them are slaves. Young or old, working or sleeping, all are slaves in the eyes of the world.

8.                So, too, for God’s people. If we meditate on our situation, we can see deep suffering among God’s people. In America, Christianity used to be a strong cultural force. Prayer was said in public schools. At graduation, high schools would hold baccalaureate services led by ministers. In December, one could find a nativity scene displayed in the public square. That connection between Christianity and American culture is dying. We find ourselves being pushed further and further away from public notice, written into a smaller corner of the public square. Such experiences are scary. It looks like we won’t survive. Some might even wonder if God has abandoned us. Unfortunately, some American Christians have confused the power of God with the powers of this world. To them, the strength of God and his church are related to the strength of America as a Christian nation. Now, as American culture turns against Christianity, Christians can begin to wonder about the love and blessing of God. Has God abandoned his people? How can we be God’s people, the church, in a non-Christian nation? To such a situation, Paul’s words offer hope. Listen to the apostle Paul for he offers you, today, God’s love and blessing in this letter.

9.                Paul knew the suffering status of Christians in this world. In Rome, Christianity wasn’t a legal religion. Christians sought to worship one God in a city that had many gods. Christians sought to confess “Jesus is Lord” in a city that confessed “Caesar is Lord.” Christians worshipped a person who had been associated with insurrection, was publicly tried, condemned, and crucified. This suffering Jesus ruled over a suffering people. Christians were pushed off to the side. They were meeting in small homes rather than beautiful churches. They were populated by slaves rather than powerful rulers. Soon, they would experience persecution. They would carry their dead into caves and tunnels carved underground and hold worship services there in the dark.

10.             “If I make my bed in Sheol,” the psalmist cries, “You are there (Psalm 139:8).” When persecution shoves you into the darkness of death, into that place where you open your eyes, but you can’t see God, God is there. That’s Paul’s message. The Spirit of God is there, even in the darkest places of death. Open your ears and you will hear him. You will hear the Spirit of God, crying out in this place with you. Crying out for you.  This is what Paul is revealing to the church in this letter. The world is groaning as it awaits the revelation of the sons of God and the new creation. God’s people are groaning as they are locked in positions of slavery and rejection by this world. But the apostle Paul reveals one more thing. The groaning of the Spirit, who is praying & interceding for you.

11.             Paul writes, “Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God” (Romans 8:26-27). In these words, Paul joins groans with a glorious vision.  On the one hand, the Spirit prays for us with groans too deep for words. There are times when we’re at a loss for words. The suffering we’ve seen in this world, the longing we have for the new creation is so strong that we can’t find words to express it. What do you say when you go to a child’s funeral? You stand there, next to her parents, your heart filled with groans that words cannot express. What do you say when your wife tells you the doctor said it was cancer? How do you respond when an earthquake strikes in Haiti, a hurricane in New Orleans, a terrorist in New York? We have trouble speaking to one another, and even more trouble speaking to God. At moments like this, Paul asks us to listen. To hear the groaning. The Spirit takes our suffering and puts it into prayer.

12.             But, the groans of the Spirit, are joined to glory. The glorious desires of God for his people. For all creation. One of the interesting things about Michelangelo’s unfinished sculptures is how he approached carving figures into stone. Michelangelo believed that his work as an artist was to free figures from the stone. Though his work is unfinished, we can catch glimpses of his master plan. The glorious vision of these figures was there in the mind of the artist and, only through time and effort and the removal of stone did that vision slowly come into being.

13.             In a similar way, Paul talks about the glorious vision of God seen by the Holy Spirit. Paul says that, “the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God” (Rom. 8:27). The Spirit knows not only the mysteries of our suffering, but also the mysteries of God. God’s vision of a new creation. You have been joined by baptism to God’s new creation in Christ. God is shaping our lives, forming our faith, working in sometimes painful ways as he continues his promise to bring about the kingdom. We can’t see God’s overall design. Sometimes, we can’t even see the smallest carvings he does as he leads this world to that day of the new creation. But the Holy Spirit is our Comforter and Counselor. The Spirit knows the mind of God and the Spirit knows the suffering of God’s people. And, as Paul proclaims, the Spirit joins these two into prayer. Groans and glory are held together by the Spirit for us in prayer. When we experience suffering and find ourselves not sure how to put all of this into words, the Spirit himself speaks for us. He brings our prayers to the throne of the Father. Our suffering touches God’s glory in the words of the Spirit and we trust his work because of God’s love made certain for us in the death and resurrection of his Son.

14.             I invite you one more time into the hallway of the Galleria dell’Accademia. Note that these sculptures are displayed in a hallway where people pass from one place to another and, at the end of the hallway stands a work of great beauty, Michelangelo’s David. No longer is this figure a slave encased in stone, but now he stands, in glorious freedom.  How much greater is that glory of David’s son and David’s Lord. Our Lord, Jesus Christ, the Ruler of a new creation. In him, God the Father will bring all things to completion. Jesus is the one who stands there, ruling over all at the end of this world and the beginning of the new creation. Paul can barely see this, but he knows that it is there and so he offers us hope. Hope that lives and breathes through the prayers of the Holy Spirit. Although we suffer in this world, we are heirs of the next. The Spirit knows the mind of God and he hears our cries and prays for us according to God’s will. Christianity may be losing cultural power in America, but it isn’t losing spiritual force. God rules over all creation. He sees your life, he knows your suffering, and he has sent his Spirit to be here for you. He listens to your groans, he sees God’s greater plan, and he puts your life into prayer according to God’s will. So, wherever you go, you are never far from the Spirit. At home, at work, falling asleep or rising for work, the Spirit sees and prays for you according to the will of God. Amen.  Now the peace of God that passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus until life everlasting.  Amen.