People pray for all sorts of things and on all sorts of occasions.
We pray beside sickbeds and gravesides, we pray for those less fortunate and
those troubled in spirit, we pray for blessing and for God’s will to
be done. Sometimes we pray out of an anguish and longing for that which we
can neither comprehend nor articulate. What do these prayers sound like when
they strike the divine ear? According to Paul they sound like “groans.”
Romans 8 is the apostle Paul’s description of life in
the Spirit. This section of chapter 8 appears to highlight the activity of
three important subjects: the creation (vv. 18-22); the believer (vv. 23-25);
and the Spirit of God (vv. 26-27). In comparing “present sufferings”
(v. 18a) with future “glory” (v. 18b), all three are involved
in the same activity: groaning. The creation groans (v. 22); the believer
groans (v. 23) and the Spirit groans (v. 26).
Paul tells us that the whole creation “waits with eager
longing” for liberation (v. 19, nrsv). Since Adam’s sin, suffering
and decay have been woven into the fabric of creation, not only as consequence
but also so that the whole create order might strain forward in the darkness,
searing for a glimmer of hope. The very brokenness of creation is a prayer
to God for deliverance, and the sound of that prayer is “groaning”
(v. 22).
Even Christians groan. When we look at the plight of the world
with an honest view, we can see the despair. We see homeless men, grieving
widows, starving children, despots in power, and “wheelchair ramps leading
even into the sanctuaries where God’s victory is proclaimed. Such visions
leave us only two choice: resignation or hope.”1 Were it not for what
we have also seen and experienced in Christ, our options would be reduced
to one desperate alternative. But because of the life, death, and resurrection
of Jesus Christ, we hope, and “in this hope we were saved” (v.
24).
Even so, there are times that “we do not know what we
ought to pray for” (v. 26). It is unclear whether it is our ignorance
of how to pray, that is, how to put the words together; or ignorance of what
we ought to pray for, that is, the content of our prayer. But what is abundantly
clear is that the Spirit makes our groaning His own. He actually uses our
groans as prayers. In the moments of our deepest frustration in prayer, when
we are frustrated into incoherence and even silence, we are not alone. The
Spirit is interceding through our confusion and deepest heart cries.2 By the
grace of God our groans become prayer, our prayers align with the will of
God (v. 27), and our hopes for redemption are realized.
Despair is the need in this text. There is a subtle danger in
Christianity that in our talk of victorious living and the blessing of God
that we forget we live in a fallen world full of pain and suffering. One writer
has said, “Someone is always trying to take the cross out of the sanctuary
and put up a ‘smiley face’ in its place.” Romans 8 implicitly
asks the question: What can the people of God hope and pray for in the midst
of suffering?
We live in the in-between time of God’s redemptive history—the
interim between Christ’s first and second coming. Which is to say that
the first advent of Christ’s coming has not nullified the need for His
second advent. The coming of the Messiah has introduced a messianic age that
lives in the theological tension of “already and not yet.” Christ’s
birth is the beginning of a new future in the present that is not determined
by and limited to development of structures and forms of the past. Yet we
also eagerly anticipate what is yet to come in the redemption of all of creation.
In light of what God has done and is doing in Christ, we live
in joyful hope. In that hope we prayerfully yearn and faithfully live toward
the age to come, where God’s full purposes shall be fulfilled both in
our lives and for all of creation. Maranatha is the prayer for those living
in the meantime: “Even so, come, Lord Jesus” (Revelation 22:20,
kjv).
(For a complete manuscript
of this sermon, go to www.preachersmagazine.org.)
Thematic preaching is different than topical preaching. Topical
preaching takes a contemporary subject of interest and then seeks to discover
what the Bible says about that topic. Typically, topical preaching is principle-centered,
drawing from many different contexts in Scripture. Thematic preaching takes
a biblical theme and traces it through Scripture from beginning to end. It
looks for the common thread that ties the theme to redemptive history and
ultimately fulfills its meaning.
I have chosen to trace the biblical theme of “groaning”
for this sermon. It is surprisingly common throughout Scripture with an obvious
progression in the way God responds to that groaning. The Old Testament tells
us of a God “above,” a Father who, though transcendent is not
unfeeling or distant, but who attends to our most basic human needs. The Gospels
tell of a further step, of God “with” us, who became one of us—God
who took on human ears and feelings. And the Epistles tell of the God “within”
us, an invisible Spirit who gives expression to our wordless pain and inarticulate
suffering. The same God manifesting himself in our history!
The sermon could explore the different dimensions of how God
responds to our suffering. The Great High Priest theme of Hebrews and the
lament psalms offer further guidance here. God’s people need to know
that God not only identifies with their pain, but also enters into that suffering
with them. The sermon should enable the text to do again in the hearts and
minds of the contemporary congregation what it intended to do for the first
audience in Rome: inspire trust in the present and hope in God’s future.
1. Thomas Long, Proclamation 4: Aids for Interpreting the Lessons of the Church
Year (Minneapolis: Fortress press, 1989), 61.
2. Alex Deasley, “The Ministry of the Spirit in the Life
of Prayer,” Preacher’s Magazine vol. 58, No. 2 (1982).
