“Hope For Tomorrow”

Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Creation Series

September 3, 2023

Romans 8:18-25

There are two general approaches to salvation. The first is the idea that the world is headed for destruction, and the whole point of being a Christian is to be evacuated to heaven before that happens. You get your ticket to heaven through baptism and good behavior, and then you take the train away from this world and all its struggles. God rescues your soul from difficulty and pain. Pie in the sky in the deep by and by. And escape from evil, sin, and death.

The second approach is the idea that God has not abandoned God’s beloved creation, and salvation is not an escape from pain but a renewal of the goodness God intended from the beginning.

Unfortunately, much of western Christianity—and western popular culture, in general—holds to the first idea. It denounces the goodness of this world, and people seek rescue from it all. And it’s every person for themselves. But that’s not what Paul says. That’s not what the Bible says. And it’s certainly not what Jesus says.

In his letter to the Romans, Paul talks a great deal about faith. As he nears our passage, he delves further into what baptism has to do with it. Baptism, he says, is our connection with Christ. In chapter 6, he says, “For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” Our baptism isn’t a ticket to heaven, it’s the tie that binds us to God.

Paul goes on to compare this bondage to slavery. Likely, many of his original readers were either slaves or even slave-holders. Paul gives us a choice—either bind yourself to sin or bind yourself to Christ. Being bound to Christ is actually the way to freedom and eternal life—not as a way of escape but as a way of transformation.

Because what we believe about tomorrow impacts how we live today.

In chapter 8, Paul’s words can become a bit confusing. He starts to compare life in the flesh to life in the spirit. And we might hear this as the flesh being the tangible, earthly bodies and the spirit being the intangible soul—that our earthly bodies are meant to be left behind when we go to heaven. But we have to read on because Paul’s understanding of flesh and spirit isn’t that at all.

Life in the flesh is all about seeking our own ways, trusting no one but ourselves, looking out for number 1, and so on. He isn’t denouncing our embodied selves. He’s speaking condemnation on the ways society has undone the communal understanding of ourselves. We are community. We are entangled with each other. There is no me versus you. There is simply us. And that ‘us’ encompasses the universe—all of creation. To see oneself in the midst of that interdependence is to live in the spirit.

Which is how we find ourselves in today’s passage. Paul approaches God’s salvation as an act of giving birth—bringing forth new life. Like a woman in the midst of labor pains, the suffering that we endure—that creation endures—is nothing compared to what it will produce.

What we believe about tomorrow impacts how we live today.

I was 2 days beyond my due date when my labor was induced. Basically, that means that I was given drugs to kick-start the contractions. And boy did they kick. There was a time when I simply was oblivious to what was around me. Poor Mark. And it took 15 hours before Seth came along. But the doctors kept monitoring me and my baby—watching the heartbeats, ensuring that there was no distress. And as long as I knew he was safe and on his way, I could wait it out. Not patiently. And thankfully with an epidural. But I could wait and push.

Paul says, though, that creation was subjected to futility—primarily because of human sin. Futility meaning pointlessness, or even barrenness, impotence, labor with nothing to show at the end. And if that were the end of it, if there were no hope for new life, if there was no heartbeat to listen to and wait for, the heart of creation would break. Like a new mother’s heart after hearing only silence.

But Paul tells us that the heart still beats. The heart of hope can still be heard. Creation is groaning in labor, awaiting the arrival—the revealing—of God’s children. Waiting for God’s chosen people to come forth. We, who have the first fruits of the spirit, are the heartbeat that keeps pounding in spite of all we see and hear around us. We keep beating because our hope is in something more than a vague, wispy escape from this world. Our hope is in a reclamation of creation. Redemption of our bodies. Restoration of all that is and has been good. A whole new life that is brought forth for all the universe. A new heaven and a new earth.

That is the promise of Isaiah—where weapons are made into ploughshares and the lamb can lie down with the lion. That is the promise of Revelation—where Christ establishes God’s reign here, in this place; where there is no need for light because Christ will shine for us; where pain and sorrow and death no longer exist. It is the promise of Jesus—where the marks of death are merely scars on the bodies of renewed life.

This is what we hope for. When this happens, when Christians live in the freedom of Christ and the power of the Spirit to the glory of God, the whole creation will be freed from the brokenness and frustration which currently spoils and limits everything.

What we believe about tomorrow impacts how we live today.

Legend says that Luther was once asked what he would do if he knew that the world would end tomorrow. He said, “I’ll plant a tree today.” Because he believed—we believe—that the end of the world is only the beginning. That the things we create and build in love today will translate into love received tomorrow. That nothing good in this life is done in vain. And so we wait for God’s full revelation. But in the waiting, we continue to work—not to gain our salvation but to leave our mark of love on this world in way that will show forth God’s love in the next.

Because we believe that God is redeeming all that has been and has yet to be, and what we believe about tomorrow impacts how we live today.

Pastor Tobi White

Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church

Lincoln, NE