Everybody's wounded

Romans 8:12-25 (The Message)
The Message (MSG)
Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson

12-14So don't you see that we don't owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There's nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God's Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go!
15-17This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It's adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike "What's next, Papa?" God's Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what's coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we're certainly going to go through the good times with him!
18-21That's why I don't think there's any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times. The created world itself can hardly wait for what's coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens.
22-25All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it's not only around us; it's within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We're also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don't see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.


Invocation:
We gratefully acknowledge that You are the Lord our God and God of our people, the God of all generations. You are the Rock of our life, the Power that shields us in every age. We thank You and sing Your praises: for our lives, which are in Your hand; for our souls, which are in Your keeping; for the signs of Your presence we encounter every day; and for Your wondrous gifts at all times, morning, noon, and night. You are Goodness: Your mercies never end; You are Compassion: Your love will never fail. You have always been our hope. For all these things, O Sovereign God, let Your name be forever exalted and blessed. Amen





Peggy Noonan, writing for The Wall Street Journal, comments on a scene in Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down. The movie is about the Battle of the Bakara Market in Mogadishu, Somalia, in October 1993. In this particular scene, the actor Tom Sizemore, in the role of a hard-bitten, hard-core U.S. Army Ranger colonel, is in command of a small convoy of Humvees trying to get back to base with mortar and rocket fire exploding all round. In this violent vortex, the colonel stops the convoy, brings some wounded on board, throws a dead driver out of the driver’s seat and yells at a bleeding sergeant who’s standing in shock nearby:

Colonel: Get into that truck and drive.

Sergeant: But I’m shot, Colonel.

Colonel: Everybody’s shot, get in and drive.

Noonan is struck by those words: “Everybody’s shot.” They suggest a metaphor for life. Everyone has taken a hit, everyone’s been hurt. We’re all walking wounded.
The apostle Paul affirms the same truth. Everyone suffers, but, he adds, of the sufferings “I don't think there's any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times ” (8:18). He even argues “The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs” (8:22) awaiting that day of future redemption.

He wouldn’t have been surprised by news that people were being pummeled, because he himself was forced to endure imprisonments and floggings, beatings and a stoning. “I've been jailed more often, beaten up more times than I can count, and at death's door time after time. I've been flogged five times with the Jews' thirty-nine lashes, beaten by Roman rods three times, pummeled with rocks once. I've been shipwrecked three times” he reports to his fellow Christians; “and immersed in the open sea for a night and a day. In hard traveling year in and year out, I've had to ford rivers, fend off robbers, struggle with friends, struggle with foes. I've been at risk in the city, at risk in the country, endangered by desert sun and sea storm, and betrayed by those I thought were my brothers. I've known drudgery and hard labor, many a long and lonely night without sleep, many a missed meal, blasted by the cold, naked to the weather. ” (2 Corinthians 11:23-27). (The Message)

When it comes to enduring extreme hardship, Paul is hard-core: He talked the talk and walked the walk.

But, in his letter to the Romans, Paul isn't so much whining about present sufferings as focus on the glory yet to come. Paul isn't interested in complaining about todays pains -instead he's setting his sights on the heavenly kingdom of God.

The key for Paul is that God is at work in the middle of all this suffering, working to bring us to our true destiny, and to free the world itself from its bondage to decay. The whole process is like a birth, one that involves intense pain and moaning and “groaning in labor pains” as a baby is being delivered, but one that has a truly glorious outcome. Sure, “We”re also feeling the birth pangs” he concludes, but it is in hope that we are saved (vv. 22-24).

Our hope is that God is working actively and intensely against the powers of death, even as we get pounded by a variety of forces. God is constantly undermining the ability of evil to separate, alienate, discourage and destroy us, and we hitch our hope to God’s promise of a new heaven and a new earth, where “Death is gone for good—tears gone, crying gone, pain gone—all the first order of things gone."(Revelation 21:4)

Theologian Amy Plantinga Pauw invites us to practice resistance to the powers of death and destruction as we hope for this new kingdom. She urges resistance, active resistance, as a sign of our Christian hope. She tells the story of worship services in Latin America, in which protests against unjust deaths often form a part of the liturgy. In worship, the names of the deceased are read off one by one, names of persons who have often died brutally and tragically. At the reading of each name, the congregation exclaims, “Presente!”

These loved ones are not gone, they are “Presente!” Present and accounted for! Their fellow Christians refuse to accept violent death as the last word on them. As part of what Scripture describes as “so great a cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1), these persons are declared present to the living community of faith.

How is this possible? Only through God’s gift of life, a gift that triumphs over war, abduction, rape, abandonment and even that last and most horrifying enemy — death.

We perform an act of true conviction and endurance and hope whenever we climb to our feet after we have been beaten down. It is an act of true faith to get up and shout, “Presente!” — to make a bold statement of our belief that suffering is never the final word when God is at work in the world.

Let's join together in a Litany of Hope. I will read “The One” and you respond with the bold print.

The One: In our work lives, we’ve been downsized and fired, unappreciated and underpaid, but this evening we are

The Many: Presente!

The One: In our relationships, we’ve been hurt and betrayed, neglected and abandoned, but this evening we are

The Many: Presente!

The One: In our personal efforts and initiatives, we’ve met with disappointment and failure, rejection and resistance, but this evening we are

The Many: Presente!

The One: In our family lives, we’ve experienced disagreement and distance, illness and death, but this evening we are

The Many: Presente!

The One: In our own bodies and minds, we’ve been nailed by sickness and disability and deterioration, but this evening we are

The Many: Presente!

The One: In our experience of the faith, we’ve suffered doubt and disillusionment and disappointment, but this evening we are
The Many: Presente!

The One: In spite of all these poundings, we stand here this evening, present and accounted for. Together, we are ... say it again

The Many: Presente!

As people who are in community with each other, and in community with the goodness of God, we can count ourselves as children of God and joint heirs of God’s promises, along with Jesus Christ. In fact, Paul points out that we suffer along with Christ “we're certainly going to go through the good times with Him!” (v. 17). Our pains are never completely pointless if they bring us closer to the one who suffered on the cross for the salvation of the world.

Don’t misunderstand. This is not to say that God desires our suffering, or that God somehow enjoys watching us get pummeled and pounded. No, the Lord invites us to join him in working to free the world from its bondage to decay, and to do whatever we can to overcome those forces that can separate, alienate, discourage or destroy us. We may suffer as we do God’s work of justice and reconciliation in this world, but suffering is not going to be the final word when we make it to the Lord’s eternal Eden.

As we do this heavenly work, we are never forced to work alone. The Spirit of God “is right alongside helping us along. If we don't know how or what to pray, it doesn't matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. ” (vv. 26-27). This holy power leads us and guides us, comforts us and abides with us. In fact, it is nothing less than the Spirit of God that constantly reminds us that we are children of God, “We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what's coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! ” (v. 17).

We’re heirs — heirs with Christ. Heirs of a world that is constantly being pummeled by the asteroids of economic instability, terrorism, warfare, domestic violence, hunger and disease. Heirs of a world so in need of acts of generosity, love, peace, protection, nourishment and healing.

But that’s not all. We’re also heirs of everlasting life in a kingdom that is out of this world, a heavenly home that God is preparing for us and for all who believe. We may still get pounded here on Earth, but as we’re pelted by hardship we know we can survive, and even thrive, trusting that anything we suffer now is going to be wiped away by the glory to come.
We can work and pray for the healing of this hurting world, always inspired by our vision of the world that is to come.