Congregational Communication - Friday 13th Jan 2023
It has not been the start to the New Year that many of us would have chosen, gathering in church to respond to the news of the Vinicombe’s accident. But that is just one of three serious motor vehicle accidents that have happened to believers known to me and many in the congregation over this holiday period. Sudden turmoil and pain, lives changed. And I am conscious of others in hospital even now undergoing difficult treatment for cancer, enduring not only present pain but facing the prospect of death if the treatment is ineffective or intolerable. I can honestly say I have not had a Christmas like this, so full of unsettling and grievous news, before, and it has made me think again about the goodness of the gospel hope, and in particular with Paul’s words in Romans 8.
Romans 8: 18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is going to be revealed to us. 19 For the creation eagerly waits with anticipation for God’s sons to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility—not willingly, but because of him who subjected it—in the hope 21 that the creation itself will also be set free from the bondage to decay into the glorious freedom of God’s children. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together with labour pains until now. 23 Not only that, but we ourselves who have the Spirit as the firstfruits—we also groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. 24 Now in this hope we were saved, but hope that is seen is not hope, because who hopes for what he sees? 25 Now if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with patience.
I have always been committed to this hope, to the resurrection of our bodies in a new heaven and earth. But recent events have forced me to realise that I have not felt its goodness as I should, and so have downplayed it in my own thankfulness to God and in my sharing the gospel. And not feeling its goodness as I should I have not longed for it as I should, and so have been more vulnerable to the seductions of this age. I suspect I am not alone in this and write today so that we can all think why this is the case and together not just affirm our hope of the resurrection but rejoice in it and long for its realization.
I can see three reasons I have not felt the goodness of this hope as I should. Firstly, up till now in God’s mercy my personal experience of ‘the sufferings of this present time’ has been limited. Illnesses have been curable, problems fixable. There is the growing accumulation of grief that comes with getting older and the loss of those we love, but there have also been other loves entering my life. I am aware of the trials of others but the very faithfulness of those around me enduring more of the not rightness of this world than I has to some extent insulated me from feeling this world’s fallen reality. Secondly, when I think about sharing the gospel I have often been thinking about how I can share the gospel in the main with people like myself – materially prosperous, well resourced, with good healthcare – people who do not see themselves as needy, who are often content and happy, or seem to be so, and have to be persuaded of their need, persuaded of the realities of sin and judgement. Thirdly, living in this society it is hard not to be numbed by the world’s spin on itself. We are preoccupied in the media with the powerful, the beautiful, the well. The sufferings of this present age we can overcome, or are always on the verge of overcoming we are told. If there is chaos in the lives of some we attribute it to their choices and are confident we will make better choices. We are masters of our fate, able to keep ourselves safe, secure and happy.
All these factors have obscured for me the world’s reality. It is an age characterised by ‘present suffering’ from which it cannot escape by itself. All those who live in it are living with the consequences of creation’s subjection to futility, with its bondage to decay, because of God’s response to human sin. Sickness, accident, the grief of disordered desire, the pain of broken relationships, the destruction of natural disasters, death and the mourning it brings – are pervasive and ineradicable features of our age, and of our and our neighbours’ lives. The shock of the events of this Christmas season has reminded me of this, helped me to feel it again, forcefully. While we can and should in love together seek to bring comfort and help to those suffering, we will never be able to change the character of our age, never bring an escape from that futility and decay which is the human experience, and which can so easily overwhelm us.
To recognise this is to feel again the goodness of the hope God has given us and creation through the work of our Lord Jesus, the hope of resurrection. This is more than a hope of continuing individual life after we die. It is the hope of renewed bodily life, life experienced as powerful, glorious and imperishable, uncorruptible [1 Cor. 15:43]. It is the lame walking on strong and whole legs, the blind seeing, the demented restored to their right mind. It is the hope of renewed community life – together with the Lord [1 Thess. 4:17]; of relationships that are rich and honourable, not sources of pain and belittlement, because we have been transformed into the image of the Son, our characters wholly conformed to His by His powerful Spirit. It is the hope of the renewal of the whole creation in the glorious freedom from futility and decay of the children of God. This is a glorious hope, one to let ourselves long for, and one to share, for the world is the way it is for all its inhabitants and even if some deny it, many feel it’s not rightness in their own lives.
Many know the grief of losing those they love in an untimely way, of their children facing pain and difficulty battling serious illness, of living with pain following an accident, of their lives upended by the faithlessness or folly of others. We should not be embarrassed by those who want to think this life is all there is, who claim future hope undermines loving engagement now, into going quiet on our hope, the hope Christ alone, alone risen from the dead, gives.
And the great wonder is that to know this future hope, a hope founded on the gospel that Christ has died for our sins and risen again, is also to know a present love, a present Saviour who is with us as we walk through this life, including as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death. Psalm 23.
It has been an unsettling beginning to the year and we don’t know what trials await us or our neighbours in the year to come. But the nature of this age is that sooner or later there will be those trials, the sufferings of this present time, sufferings Paul says are not worth comparing with the glory that is going to be revealed to us. 19
As perhaps you like me feel again in what has happened to our brothers and sisters the not rightness of this age make sure you know and feel at least in some part the goodness of our hope in Christ, freely given us by our gracious God. Resolve to share it, and pray that others have their eyes opened to see the glory of a risen Saviour, who has defeated death and will one day destroy death forever [1 Cor. 15:24-26]. Start that praying by praying for GSF [Get Some Fun school holiday program] that in God’s mercy the children who come will be able to live with this good hope from their earliest days, and know the Saviour who gives it to them all their days.
