“A blessed hope to sustain us”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Saturday, July 2, 2022
Romans 8:18-25 (Forward, p. 65) CEV p. 1179
Here the apostle Paul uses a wonderfully evocative image to describe both the state of the world and all of creation, and also our own lives as God’s people. He describes our present situation as being full of pain and confusion, full of groaning and agony, like the birth pangs of a woman about to give birth. He describes the present situation as being, not the least, a pleasant time, whether for the world or for us. We are not ‘happy campers’, not at all!
However, the end plan is that all of us, creation as well as ourselves, will one day be set free from this rather unpleasant situation. God has promised something much, much better, an existence that is set free from pain and decay, one that shares in His glory. So, we wait patiently for what we do not yet see yet know that it has been promised. And so, we are encouraged and sustained by this hope even as we wait for Him to do this. Amen.
Forward notes: “For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience” (verses 24-25).
“Living through the COVID-19 pandemic is the closest I have come to what feels like the audacious hope of the early church. When we celebrated Easter together last year—even masked, even distanced—it revealed to me just how much we dared to trust in God, that we celebrated resurrection even amid such despair.
“In the eighth chapter of Romans, Paul pleads his case for the power of the spirit and the power of hope itself. All of creation may groan together, but we already have the spirit of Christ within us. I wonder how Paul’s message of hope, despite all odds, would have sounded to the Israelites who sang about weeping in exile. I know that even as I give thanks for the power of God’s love for us in Christ, living through COVID-19 is the closest I’ve come to understanding Psalm 137, too. As a community, there are memories we hold together of life before the pandemic’s rupture, yet with
God, we can boldly trust that a time is coming when all pain will be a memory.”
Moving Forward: “When and where do you see hope?”