First Sunday of Advent
November 29, 2009
 
 
  Fourth Sunday of Advent
December 20, 2009
 

First Sunday After Christmas
December 27, 2009
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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December 27, 2009—First Sunday After Christmas

Lectionary Texts: 1 Samuel 2:18, 20, 22; Psalm 148; Colossian 3:12-17; Luke 2:41-52

Sermon Text: Romans 8:18-27

The Preposterous Exchange: Groans

Onomatopoeia is the technical term for words that sound like what they mean. Words like "whisper," "clunk," and "varoom." Groan is another one of those words.

When you say "groan' out loud, it resonates deep in the belly, not just from the throat. As you speak it, the vowels tend to drag out.

It was while preparing for a funeral that I really began to think about this word "groan." It was for a boy named Timmy. Timmy had been born a normal baby. But at nine months he developed an acute case of meningitis that hit him so hard and with such fury that he nearly died. Somehow Timmy survived. But as a result of the high fever he sustained severe brain damage. The doctors said he would live to be five or six. He lived to be eighteen.

But Timmy never went beyond the developmental stage of a one year old his entire life. He had to be spoon-fed. He wore a diaper. He had no purposeful movement and was never able to talk. In fact, Timmy couldn't really communicate at all. All he could do was twist his mouth and make guttural sounds. His parents still tried to communicate with him without words. They said Timmy could show pleasure by laughing, but most of the time he would just groan. Incomprehensible groans of anguish and pain, the depth of which no one could understand.

His parents told me that as Timmy got older there would be times when they could sense his frustration at being unable to communicate begin to rise, and a small tear would trickle down his face. And as I looked at his smallish body in the casket, his face swollen and distorted, I wondered if anybody really knew what Timmy was feeling--if anyone anywhere was ever able to interpret his painful, frustrated groans.

Several years ago a woman in our church lost a son. Eyla was 95 years old; her son was 71. He was one of two children, both of them boys. Regardless the age, no parent should have to lose a child. My wife and I visited with her following the death and with tears streaming down her face she said: "My heart is broken. I feel like a part of me is missing. I don't know what to do." As we held her close and listened to her mournful cries over the loss of her son, I wondered: Can anyone anywhere really interpret her sorrowful, heartsick groans?

Timmy and Eyla, got me to thinking about this word "groan." And as I began to investigate, I was amazed at how many times the word "groan" appears in the Bible.

I looked up other references of the word "groan" or "groaning" in the Bible, and I found that it's a question the Bible often asks. For example, Psalm 102 says: "The Lord looked down from his sanctuary on high, from heaven he viewed the earth, to hear the groans of the prisoners and release those condemned to death."
When the Israelites groaned in their slavery to the Egyptians, God reached down to deliver them. When they groaned under foreign oppressors, God raised up judges to lead them. And I found that the image presented in these passages was that of a faraway exalted God bending down to hear the pain of the oppressed.

It was as if the Hebrew writers never ceased to marvel that a transcendent God, high and lifted up, would care enough to intervene on their behalf. Or as the psalmist expressed it: "What are human beings that you are mindful of them?" The writers of the Old Testament drew great comfort from the amazing truth that God himself listens to our groans, and acts on our behalf.

But I love the honesty of the people of God, because the Bible is far too realistic to close the story there. What about the times God does not seem to intervene? What about the times when prisoners, or widows, or war refugees, or the poor and sick, groan loud and long and yet receive no sign that anyone is listening?

God heard the groans of the Israelites in Egypt, but 400 years dragged by before he sent Moses to lead them out of slavery. It was as if the people were saying: "Hey, you up there--are you deaf? Can't you hear our pain? Can't you hear our groans?"
Job said: "My groans pour out like water." The writer of Psalm 6 complained: "I am worn out from groaning; all night long I flood my bed with weeping, and drench my couch with tears." Another psalmist turned his groan into a desperate question: "I remember you, O God, and I groaned . . . Will the Lord reject forever? Will he never show his favor again? . . . Has God forgotten to be merciful?"

That question haunted the Jews for four centuries after Malachi and the last few prophets had faded from the scene. They saw no miracles, witnessed no spectacular interventions, and heard no new words from the Lord. And they began to think: "Perhaps he has forgotten how to be merciful. Perhaps he has plugged his ears to our groans." And their cries hung in the air as unfulfilled promises.

But then a message was sent from God--a message and an answer. His name was Jesus. Jesus put an abrupt and decisive end to such questions. Not only had God not "plugged his ears," he had suddenly taken on ears. literal ears: eardrum-ossicle-cochlea, human ears.

On the cracked and dusty plains of Palestine God heard firsthand the molecular vibrations of human groans: from Jews oppressed by Roman conquerors, from a Roman officer grieving over his son's death, from quarantined leprosy victims, from prostitutes, tax collectors, and thousands of others who groaned more from guilt than from pain, but who groaned nonetheless.

And amazingly, even Jesus himself groaned. According to the author of Hebrews: "During the days of Jesus' life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death" (5:7). But Jesus' loudest cries and tears did not save him from death.

He made the words of the desperate prayer from Psalm 22 his own as he cried out from his cross: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning?"

Why did Jesus come to earth only to suffer and die? Have you ever asked yourself that question? The Bible gives many answers to that question, but one of the most mysterious to me is the possible answer suggested by some that suffering served as a kind of "learning experience" for God.

Such words sound faintly heretical to speak, but before you disregard that thought completely listen again to Hebrews. "Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered" (5:8).

"In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering." (2:10).
While these words, full of fathomless mystery mean many things, they surely mean at least this: The Incarnation had meaning for God as well as for us. God putting on human flesh and coming to earth had meaning for Him as well as for us.

Of course, God understood physical pain, because He was the Creator who designed our marvelous nervous system that carries pain messages to our brains as a warning against harm. But had He, a Spirit, ever felt physical pain? I'm not sure any of us know. But one thing I am convinced of is that because of Jesus, God himself experienced what it is like to be a human being.

In 33 years on earth He learned about poverty, and about family squabbles, and social rejection, and verbal abuse, and betrayal. And he learned about pain. He learned what it feels like to have an accuser leave the red imprint of his fingers on your face. He learned what it feels like to have a whip studded with metal and bone lash across your back. And he learned what it feels like to have a crude iron spike pounded through skin, tendon, and muscle. On earth, God learned all of that, in Jesus.

And do you know what that really means? That means that in some incomprehensible way, because of Jesus Christ, God hears our groans differently. And marvel of marvels whatever we are going through, God himself somehow also goes through. Hebrews 4:15 says: "For we do not have high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet was without sin."

We have a high priest who, having graduated from the school of suffering, "is able to deal gently with those who are ignorant and are going astray, since he himself is subject to weakness" (5:2). Because of Jesus, God understands, truly understands, our groans.

And therefore we need no longer cry into the dark abyss: "Hey, is anyone listening? Are you listening?" By joining us on earth, God gave visible, historical proof that he hears our groans, and even groans them with us.

My survey of biblical groans led finally to Romans 8, where the word plays a central role in one of the great chapters of the entire Bible. Paul's language soars as he contemplates the wonderful new life in the Spirit that is so different from the life of despair described in the previous chapter.

Romans 8:22-23 tells us: "We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as children, the redemption of our bodies." As Paul sees it, since Adam's fall the planet and all its inhabitants have been emitting a constant stream of low-frequency distress signals.

But listen to verse 26: " . . . the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express."
As a pastor I spend a lot of time listening to people pour out their private groans. I know very well the helpless feeling of not knowing what I ought to pray.

• How do you pray for a person in a dead-end marriage that hasn't shown signs of life in many years?

• How do you pray for a victim of child abuse who as an adult finds it impossible to enjoy sexual intimacy even with their married partner?

• How do you pray for a parent of a child diagnosed with terminal cancer?

• How do you pray for starving people in Haiti?

• How do you pray for a Christian in Cambodia imprisoned for her faith?

What can we ask for? How can we pray?

Do you know what Romans 8 is saying? Romans 8 announces the good news that we need not always figure out exactly how to pray. Of course we need to think about what to pray for, but when we can't, we need not despair. We need only groan, and he hears.

It was always amazing to me how my wife understood the cries of our children. She learned to distinguish a cry for food from a cry for attention. She even seemed to know the difference between an earache cry and a stomachache cry. To me, the sounds were identical; but a mother instinctively discerns the meaning of her child's nonverbal groan. And it was their cry, the very helplessness of our children that gave her such compassionate intensity.

But beloved, I want to tell you something. The Spirit of God has resources of sensitivity beyond even the wisest mother. Paul tells of a Spirit who dwells within us, who detects needs we cannot even articulate, and expresses them in a language we cannot comprehend. When we do not know what to pray, he fills in the blanks! And it is in our very helplessness God delights in compassion, because our weakness gives opportunity for his strength.

That's why Paul can say that not only is God not deaf to our groans, but that God in fact can hear groans faster than we can voice them. He says: "If God is for us, who can be against us? For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

I hope you have seen something of how God responds to our pain. The Bible gives us, if you will, a progression of intimacy in God's involvement with His creation.

The Old Testament tells us of a God "above," a Father who, though transcendent, is not unfeeling or distant, but who attends to our tiny human needs. The Gospels tell of a further step, of God "with" us, who became one of us. A God who took on ears. And the Epistles tell of the God "within" us, an invisible Spirit who gives expression to our wordless pain. The same God manifesting Himself in our history!

And because of that ever present God, I was able to look into the eyes of two grieving parents, standing at the open casket of their precious little boy and say: "Someone heard Timmy's cries for help. Someone heard his unspoken groans. God was there all along. And by his grace, God found a way to articulate the unspoken groans that rose from deep in Timmy's heart, into prayers. Prayers that were answered by his comforting presence."

For those here today whose pain is so great you have little left to say . . . take hope! One day there will be no need for groans at all. For one day our groans will be transformed into expressions of eternal joy and praise to God.

*This sermon is adapted from the ideas and thoughts suggested in chapter 14 of Philip Yancey's book The Jesus I Never Knew (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995).