The text was also perfect for the day. It was full of encouragement and reassurance that God loves us. Period. Always. Everybody. Regardless of what humanity may intend. God's love wins. It was such a gift to me to be able to proclaim the message that is the main thing keeping me going most days.
The text for the July 26 service was Romans 8:26-39.
Click here for the audio only of the message. Click here for the video of the entire service.
And here's the script:
Come Holy Spirit. Intercede for us that we may hear of your love for all time. Amen.
How often in your life, or this year, or this month, or week or even today have you wondered…
WHAT ELSE?
What else can happen?
How can we take anymore?
When will this pain end?
This week I have been remembering a lot of stories from my past…
Like the one where I was sobbing as I sat with my parents, uncertain of where to go to college. I had a scholarship to Texas A&M but was terrified to be so far from home, to be at such a big school. How could I handle that?
Or when I lost a job – a job that I had experienced as a specific and direct call from God – and I wondered… How DARE they fire me? I was called here by God!!
Of this past Thursday when I started the day begging God for grace. For relief from the heat and for relief from an extremely busy and overwhelming day. And what happened? A thunderstorm overhead that destroyed the tent we had put up over boxes of produce to protect them from the sun. 150 families lined up in a seemingly endless line of cars. And exhaustion and frustration among everyone, leading to sharp conversations.
Have you been there? Asking
* WHAT ELSE LORD?
o Where have you been?
* WHERE ARE YOU?
* What is the meaning of all this?
But here we are in 2020 – the year of murder hornets, Saharan sand storms right here in NC, and a plague… interrupted social interactions, long weeks and months away from family and loved ones, and endless uncertainty about what will happen next and how this virus will behave and evolve.
It’s easy to get down in the dumps or be afraid.
It’s tempting to give in to anxiety and frustration.
It’s easy to wonder… where is God in all of this? Has God finally given up on us?
Now… I am no historian but I do know that every time I start thinking “it’s never been this bad before!” it only takes a little peek into the past to see that maybe it isn’t so new after all.
Take Paul’s list in our text, for example. Nearly 2000 years ago Paul gave us a list of worrisome things that might make people of the time wonder where God is:
Death or life
Angels or rulers
Present or future
Powers (he doesn’t even bother to list all the kinds!)
Height or depth
Anything in creation
All are nothing compared to God’s love.
Nothing can vanquish God’s love.
What’s more, walking in that love ALWAYS leads to good, because God’s love can only BE good.
If we are walking in God’s love, then who can say we are wrong? (Although, of course, many, many people will want to.) Who can hurt us in any lasting way?
Paul notes that ONLY JESUS could. Only the God-nature of Jesus could have put a dent in all that love. Jesus could have decided differently because only the human Jesus is also God. Oh sure, doing so would have meant abandoning God… but if anyone had ever been able to do that, Jesus was the one.
And how did that go??
Jesus came and lived a fully human life here on this very earth. Jesus lived among
death and life
angels and rulers and powers
height and depth and all manner of creation
Jesus saw the best and the worst of humanity – and usually saw them in ways different than the other human beings around him saw tbem.
Because Jesus loved. Jesus loved that love that nothing could stop. Jesus did not defy his God-nature but stayed firmly in the God-love the whole time. Jesus loved fully and perfectly.
And how did humanity react? In the ultimate NO WAY kind of way. Humanity killed Jesus.
For just a moment, and despite being the only person who never once did a thing that even might separate him from God, Jesus died. He separated himself from all that was his and in doing so he broke the back of evil.
He overcame all those things that try to stop us.
Jesus was resurrected.
No one said Jesus had to give up anything. He freely gave up his life, and all that was eternally and infinitely his. And none of the brokenness of the world could hold him.
And now, Jesus and the Spirit are continually interceding for us, calling us to walk in the love that cannot be denied or vanquished.
Blocking earthly attempts to separated us from God, by continually wooing and inviting and drawing us closer to God. By turning even our worst days into something better than we could hope to expect if we can only notice it.
Because Jesus voluntarily succumbed to death, and broke the power of death (and life, and angels, and rulers and powers and height and depth and whatever else is in creation)
Everything is still working together for good when we walk in faith.
When we
* Believe that there is a God who loves us (and everyone who is not us)
* Believe with even the tiniest mustard-seed-sized belief
* Believe in a way that soaks into our whole life, into every breath and movement
* Believe in a way that realizes God’s love is the best treasure and worthy of sacrifice.
* Believe that we are one precious example of a creation that is so beloved down to the tiniest cell and electron and quark that nothing CAN be destroyed before God decides that all time should end.
Scientists call that conservation: conservation of matter, of charge, of angular momentum…
And I’m enough of a scientist to call it that, too. But I’m also enough of a theologian to ALSO call it God’s infinite love endlessly bubbling forth in continual recreation of all that is. Always making things new.
We can see it now, and through all time, if we look:
When I was frightened to go to a big university, my father’s encouragement that led me to overcome my fears and go to Texas A&M where I was stretched and formed and started on the path of adulthood and a career that has been varied and fascinating.
Being fired from that job led me to seminary and to the ministry that now fulfills me in ways I could not imagine before.
Even this past Thursday’s rain and exhaustion led to difficult discussions that resulted in better, less exhausting ways to serve the growing crowds of people in need of food.
God made a way to something better. God made all those things work together for good.
How has God showered you with love-soaked grace that turned your pain into something good?
Maybe something even better than you dared to hope or imagine?
Can you feel the love right here, right now?
...
It is still just as Paul said to the Romans:
We cannot be separated from God’s love.
Not by hurting or unkind or angry people.
Not by flood or storm
Not by political shenanigans.
And CERTAINLY not by a virus!
So rest today. Rest from your fear and worry and anguish.
Rest in the certainty of God’s love for you… no matter who you are.
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment