Posted by Mark Mong

March 23, 2020

Romans 8:31-39

31 What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 32 He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? 33 Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. 35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it is written,
      “For your sake we are being killed all day long;
            we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 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.

Back in the day, our house was heated by a wood burning stove.  For much of the summer, my brothers, my dad and myself would sweat in the sun while cutting, splitting and drying the wood for the coming winter.  We would have some logs where the cutting was quite easy and took no time or energy to split them.  But we would also have logs so filled with knots and bumps that splitting them became quite difficult.  When we came upon a log such as this, we would have to break out the sledgehammer and the metal wedges.  We would pound the metal wedge into the log and ultimately after a few good whacks we would up with two logs, even when the logs didn’t want to be split.

Just as it is with log splitting, so too is it with the church.  We used a sledgehammer to pound a wedge into the log splitting the log into two pieces.  The world uses difficult times to pound a wedge between us and God, splitting or separating us into two pieces.  Through the various struggles, difficult moments and trying times, the world tries to force something between us and God resulting in two separate people instead of one mystically united people, in Jesus Christ.  As I sit in my home office this afternoon, I can’t help but look around me, not just on the internet news feeds, but at the empty shelves at our Giant Eagle and Walmart.  I can see at the very least a difficult moment, or at the very greatest the greatest crisis we will ever see.  I look at our world and I see the sledgehammer and wedge looking all too capable and present to separate us into quarantine zones where we must “shelter-in-place” and “self-isolate.”  We certainly look like a separated and defeated people.

But Paul writes to the Romans, who shall separate us from the love of Christ?  Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?  In Paul’s mind, no thing or person or power can come in between the love of Christ and the objects of that love; us.  For that thing or person or power to be able to and to succeed in wedging themselves between Christ and us, that thing must be greater, more powerful and more sovereign than Christ.  That thing or person must be so strong they are able to overcome and break apart and undo the work that God is doing in the exact opposite.  Is there such a thing or person or power greater than or superior than or mightier than the Love of God poured out in Jesus Christ? 

What then shall we say in response to the fear and anxiety caused by the spread of the virus, the dwindling supply of resources, the encroachment into our city, and the separation and isolation into isolation zones?  If God is for us, who can be against us?  He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all thing?  Who can thwart God’s work?  Who can pull apart what God pulls together?  Who can kill permanently what God can give life without end to?  Who can slam a wedge between the love of God and us, the ones God loves?  Who can interpose an immovable object between God and us that God cannot or will not move?

Paul doesn’t stop there in some passive, “pie-in-the-sky” hope, or a “grin and bear it” moment.  Paul draws the conclusion to the maximum level.  Since no one or no thing is stronger than God, we are not talking just about enduring said struggle or difficulty, Paul says it in the most emphatic way possible, no in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  We are not called to just endure and persevere; we are called through God who loves us to overcome those things.  Not with bombs, bullets or bank accounts. but with the Love which first loves us.  We are called and given Love in Christ, to overcome the world’s problems and struggles, with and through this Love.  We are called to not be passive and fearful disciples each hiding in our upper rooms, but we are called to be more than conquerors through him who loved us; nor with force or violence or the sword, but with the Love of Christ given to us.

Perhaps like Paul we need now, in this moment and in these circumstance be convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, [neither virus nor quarantine], nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.  If nothing can drive a wedge between us and God, then we should not worry nor fret over the difficult moments here and the difficult moments to come, but instead we must entrust our lives and our care into the hands of the God who loves us, even at great personal cost.  But, it also means that if God has graciously and out of God’s good pleasure chosen to love us, we must learn responsibility with that Love, by overcoming this virus and our quarantines with that Love.

My friends, I know we are bombarded daily and hourly with news and updates, but I wish only to bombard you with something else, something in my opinion which needs more of our attention and devotion.  Amid this moment of crisis, we need to tend to our faith just as much as our Facebook feeds, we need to nurture our hope just as much as nurture our pantries and we need to share the love given to us in Christ Jesus, not everyone has Jesus yet.  This is the destiny God has chosen for us, this is who we are called now to be, this is the new reality and the new narrative God is calling us into.  Let us step into that new reality, the Kingdom of God, and let us even now live as God’s Children.  Amen.

Prayer

O Loving and Mighty God, we thank you for the gracious choice to love us even in spite of us.  We ask now that as we surrender ourselves to your love, in this difficult and trying moment, you would not only help us to endure, but through your Love help us to overcome.  In Jesus’ name we pray.  Amen. 


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