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Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God, our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, amen.
Suffering happens, right? We’re no strangers to suffering, especially in our current times, it seems. And suffering happens in several different ways, okay? It happens by natural problems, like hurricanes, fires, floods, earthquakes, viruses. And suffering happens by human-made problems: murder, sexual assaults, racism, civil unrest, world unrest. And suffering also happens by personal problems: sickness, financial problems, loss of job, worry about the future. For my students at University Lutheran, GPA problems, work overload, all-nighters, stress.
But maybe worst of all is the suffering that happens in ourselves, suffering that we cause—saying, doing, or even thinking harmful things, wishing disaster on other people, selfishness, stealing, lying, cheating on papers or exams—all kinds of suffering. And when suffering happens, this reading today from Romans chapter 8, the epistle for today, it really speaks. And I’m going to read parts of it for you here again.
When Paul says to the church in Rome, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.”
Now it might be handy for you to actually have that reading up if you don’t already for today to be looking at that as I walk through it here a little bit. But suffering happens because creation is subjected to futility, Paul says there. It’s in bondage to corruption. And this all started with Adam and Eve. When they disobeyed God, ate what they weren’t supposed to, listened to who they weren’t supposed to, and did what they weren’t supposed to, there were consequences. That consequence was not just to them but to the whole creation and to all people following. Genesis 3:17 God said this to them, “Cursed is the ground because of you,” and that’s what sin has done. That’s what their disobedience has brought: a curse and subjected all of creation to futility, putting us in bondage.
It even cursed the ground, cursed creation, cursed us. Cursed us with suffering, and then at the end of suffering, death. And we humans brought it. It was our rebellion against God, our disobedience, our sin. All have brought this curse to creation. We even confess it in the general confession. We say that we are by nature sinful and unclean, and suffering is that fault of humans. I guess I like to say it this way, just in a short little saying: humanity causes calamity.
And now all of creation, we groan and we groan in the pain of childbirth. Suffering on earth, it hurts, and all of creation is cursed, and it’s in pain, pain like childbirth. Now, men can’t totally relate to that; we don’t really know what childbirth pain is like. But the comedian Carol Burnett once described childbirth as like pulling your bottom lip up over your head—kind of pain. But we can all relate to the pain of suffering. We all know groaning.
We all know what that’s like, especially today with this, I’ll just call it COVID suffering, alright? There’s isolation, lack of freedom, the inability to gather freely to worship together. For some people, maybe it’s been a loss of their job or finances, and probably quite common is just fear. Is just being tired of it all suffering? Maybe so. But creation and we ourselves, we groan in that pain. We groan in that suffering. The suffering of the world and the suffering of our sin. But we desperately want a cure. We desperately want relief from that suffering.
In verse 19, Paul said it so wonderfully this way: he said creation waits with eager longing for the revelation of hope, for the revealing of hope. And then in verse 21, hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage and obtain freedom of the glory of the children of God. That’s what we want. That’s what we’re so longing for, eagerly longing for, that Paul says. We desperately want the suffering to be gone, to be free of it.
And with COVID, we eagerly wait for a vaccine or at least declining numbers of cases and hospitalizations. But in verse 23, it says more than this; it says, we wait eagerly for adoption and redemption. We want more from God. And God has so much more for us in our suffering.
And as he puts it, as Paul says, it’s no comparison. It’s not worth comparing because what God has for us is so much better than what we’re suffering now. Verse 21, I’ll say it again here: I consider that the sufferings of this present age are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. Actually, that’s verse 18; I misspoke on that. It’s not worth comparing. Suffering. What God has for us is not even close to what our suffering is. It’s so much better. Because suffering, it’s always going to be a part of us. It’s always going to be a part of creation. Sin will always be with us. And we’ll always be groaning, but there’s hope. Hope that saves us. As he says in verse 24, how hope from God, God’s hope.
The people question even today in suffering, where is God in all of this suffering? Where is he? Why doesn’t he do something? Well, where is God in all of this? He’s right in it with us. And this is something different about Christianity than any other religion: that God comes to us. God comes into this suffering and groaning creation, and he comes in his Son, Jesus Christ. And in Christ, God lives with us and suffers with us and suffers like us, and then he dies for us.
Jesus suffered even death. Jesus suffered all of the things that humans bring to him as being fully human, and he would also suffer death. We even said that in the Creed. We believe in Jesus Christ that he suffered and was buried. Suffered isn’t there just little aches and pains; it’s his death, and he was buried.
See, when Jesus came into our world, into our groaning, suffering creation, when Jesus came here, it wasn’t just to hang out with us, or to chill, or even to spy on us. Jesus didn’t come here just to teach us, correct us, or be an example to us. Jesus came to suffer and to die for us, to suffer and die for you. He suffered a horrible, horrible death on the cross for you, groaning with the curse of your sin on Him, doing it to forgive you and save you, free you from the bondage of corruption of this groaning, suffering creation.
Galatians chapter 3, Paul writes this about what Christ has done: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it’s written: ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.'” See, when Jesus was crucified, he suffered the curse of what we have and taking it from us, suffering the consequences of that curse, and instead forgiving us, and then freeing us from sin and death because he was set free. Jesus rose from the dead and frees us from the sin and suffering of this world, getting rid of the curse of death for all creation. Jesus sets us free from eternal groaning and gives us eternal joy instead.
It’s interesting, the Greek word here in the reading today for suffering is pathemata. It’s where we get the English word pathos from. And pathos, defined, is something that evokes pity or compassion, which is beautiful because when people suffer, there’s often pity or compassion from others as a response. And when creation suffers, when we suffer, it evokes God’s pity and compassion for us, and He acts on it. He hears our groaning, and He sends pity and compassion in Jesus to suffer and die to redeem creation and give us hope.
Yeah, humanity causes calamity. We cause suffering, and we suffer too, and we groan, but God relieves it by suffering with us and promises permanent relief in eternal life to come.
Now, there’s another kind of suffering that I didn’t mention before, and it’s the kind of suffering that was going on with the Romans when Paul wrote this letter: religious suffering. Okay, that’s what Paul was dealing with here, with the Roman Christians, because they were suffering because of their faith in Christ. People wouldn’t do business with them, they would avoid them, ignore them, and turn them into the authorities because they would refuse to acknowledge the emperor as divine.
And the emperor at that time was Nero, yeah, that guy, that emperor, who had no love for Christians and would even take many of them who were arrested and have them covered with pitch, with tar, and put them up on poles in his courtyard and light them on fire to be torches for his parties. Now that’s religious suffering; we call it sometimes persecution, and it’s not like that for us today, but it may come. It may come. And if and when it does, these verses in Romans 8 still speak that the suffering that we have now is not worthy of comparing to the glory that God has for us. It’s no comparison. Someday all the suffering will be gone. It’s temporary, and then there’ll be nothing but God’s glory for us.
So for now, we live with suffering. Sometimes we even groan in it. But God is with you in it. And you can look forward, eagerly, knowing that the present sufferings don’t compare with the glory that is to come. Amen.
Now may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.
