Title: Groaning in our Waiting
Text: Romans 8:18-25
Thesis: The Holy Spirit gives us hope in our hopelessness.
Introduction:
I read this week that there is a high end, reservation only and cloth napkins restaurant in Portland, Oregon named “The Groaning Board.” My guess is the food is fabulous so the groaning is likely over the prices on the menu.
I was surprised to discover that there is such a thing as a “groaning toilet.” It the groaning sound caused by the hydraulic properties of water vibrating through the waterline of a building. While we may think there is air in the waterline plumbers know it is caused by a defective diaphragm in the fill-valve or ballcock in the toilet tank. You can figure out which fill-valve is faulty by a process of elimination.
In September of 2013 some Canadians were convinced aliens were making groaning noises in the sky. That theory was pretty much debunked. However there were noises. The Huffington Post cited a University of Saskatchewan physics professor who said the groaning noises in the sky were from the electromagnetic waves emitted from the Northern Lights. I don’t know what that means but it must be…
Groaning. We understand groaning as to make a deep sound because of pain or some strong emotion as in grief or disappointment or to make a low sound associated with extended suffering, sorrow and toil. (Groaning is more than expressing annoyance or unhappiness. It is more than murmuring and complaining.)
Groaning is unintelligible. It’s a sound that expresses what is inexpressible. Groaning expresses feelings that cannot be fully expressed with words. Heartbrokenness. Grief. Despair. Physical, emotional and spiritual exhaustion. Shame… we groan when we are in the depths hopelessness and helplessness and utterly at a loss as to what to say or do.
It is those experiences of hopelessness that the Holy Spirit of God comes to us.
I. The Holy Spirit gives us hope in our waiting, Romans 8:18-25
What we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later. For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are. Romans 8:18-19
The thought here is that we are here and now, so to speak, but we are looking forward to there and then. The in between time is called “waiting.”
I don’t know that any one gets a big kick out of waiting. Sometimes waiting is a really long time.
On Friday the BBC reported a Canadian, Edgar Nernberg, found five fish fossils while digging a basement for a new house. He is a (New Earth) creationist (and remains so) but he knew he had found something extraordinary and contacted a paleontologist.
The (Old Earth) paleontologist said the fossils were found in sandstone from the Paskapoo Formation which is a Paleocene Age sedimentary rock which preserved evidence of life at that time immediately following the mass extinction of life at the end of the Cretaceous Period which wiped out 3/4th of the species on earth, including the dinosaurs, 60 million years ago.
Here’s my point. Five fish died 60 million years ago. Those 5 fish waited 60 million years for Mr. Nernberg to excavate them with a backhoe. For the first time in 60 million years those fish were once again in the light of day. 60 million years is a long time to be trapped in a sedimentary rock.
That kind of elapsed time puts the frustration of sitting in a doctor’s office waiting room or sitting in traffic in the poor person’s lane on 36 while the rich guys blow by in the express lane in perspective.
Our text today speaks more to waiting in sedimentary rock than to waiting in traffic. And specifically to how creation and mankind waits for what is yet to come… our hope.
A. Our Present Hopelessness, 8:18-23a
We know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of child birth right up to the present time. And we believers also groan even though we have the Holy Spirit in us as a foretaste of future glory. Romans 8:22-23
In Genesis we read of how one of the consequences of Adam’s fall was that the ground would be cursed. We don’t really get that beyond the fact that people would have to scratch a living from the soil and do battle with thorns and thistles in order to get food to eat before we would eventually return to the ground from which we were made, i.e., “dust to dust ashes to ashes…”
For Adam and Eve and for us the idyllic life in the Garden of Eden was no more and will never be until Jesus comes again.
Meanwhile we work really hard at taming the land.
Reminds me of the preacher who stopped to chat with a farmer in his parish. The pastor complimented the farmer on the beautiful farmstead… white house. Red barn and outbuildings. White picket fence around a manicured lawn. There was a grain elevator and a row of galvanized steel grain bins. The cattle in the feedlot were fat. And the corn and soybean fields were lush and green with promise.
Feeling all pastoral he said to the farmer, “The Lord has given you a mighty fine farm hasn’t he?” The farmer replied, “Yes it is a mighty fine farm but you should have seen it when the Lord had it.”
Despite our best efforts at reclaiming the earth… the earth is groaning.
1. Creation groans, Genesis 3:17-19
Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Romans 8:19 and 22
Earth is a beautiful thing and filled with breathtaking wonders. But the earth is also a hard and harsh place… and if it is not hard enough to be the Earth, I can’t help but think that we have not done much to ease the groaning.
In the beginning God blessed Adam and Eve. He said, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky and the animals that scurry along the ground. Look I have given you every seed-bearing plant and all the fruit trees for your food. I have given every green plant as food for all the wild animals, birds and small animals…” Genesis 1:28-30
It seems we’ve been fairly zealous in multiplying and a bit overzealous about subduing the earth since…
We have laid claim to all the Earth’s natural resources and with blatant disdregard, left our waste all over Earth.
Science News reported in April of this year on the ongoing impact of the Deepwater Horizon spill in the gulf five years ago. Currently, of the 5 million barrels of oil spilled only 25% has been accounted for… 75% is not accounted for. There continues to be an unusual die-off of whales, dolphins and porpoises with over 1,300 stranding themselves along the coast. Autopsies indicate they suffer from internal petroleum related lesions. Even the crickets in the marshes are dying out because the marshes act like toxic sponges.
Currently we have an inland pipeline spill north of Santa Barbara, California that made its way through a culvert into the Pacific. We’ve seen pictures of that mess and the frantic efforts to clean it up and save the wildlife. (But worst of all… it messed up Memorial Day Weekend at the beach for some folks.)
And all this just as we’re swinging the doors open for Arctic drilling. A new court ordered analysis predicts a 75% chance of a major spill if those oil leases are developed. Any oil related disaster in the Arctic is exacerbated by the fact that there is no effective way to get there and clean it up. Meanwhile it’s adios to the bowhead and beluga whales, polar bears, seals and marine and coastal birds.
So despite our efforts to care for the environment and cultivate and reclaim the earth… our use and abuse of creation has done little to relieve the suffering of the earth. Our text speaks of how the earth has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth from the time of the fall right up to the present. (8:22)
It is foolish for any man to think he has any concept of what it means to be in hard labor in anticipation of the birth of a child. But my sense is that it is not pleasant and that the primary goal is to get that baby born as quickly as possible. So imagine what our earth has been experiencing from the time of the fall 6,000 years ago until now.
Not only does creation groan as it waits for that day when all will be made new… when the old heaven and earth are replaced by the new heaven and earth. We too… people groan.
2. We groan, 8:23a
And we believers also groan even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory. For we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. Romans 8:23a
We groan, so to speak, because of two things. Sin and suffering. You could say that sin and suffering are inseparable in that there would be no suffering were it not for the consequences of sin. However we do suffer the effects of sin in our own lives and we suffer the effects of sin in the world.
We groan over our own sinfulness. Some of us can look back over our lives and see how our own propensity to sin has scarred us or marred us for life. The scripture is not wrong in Galatians 6 where it speaks of our reaping what we sow. For some of us the reaping is experienced in the present.
We may groan over the effects of broken relationships that were the result of sin. We may groan over the effects of the trail of liter that we’ve left in the wake of our having run amok. In our acts of rebellion we have not only sinned against God but we have hurt ourselves and other people along the way.
We groan over the effects of sin in the world.
There is much that is disheartening… the thousands of refugees surging to reach Europe from the Western, Central and Eastern Mediterranean. These are people desperately fleeing for their lives only to have human traffickers abandon them as sea to sink or swim.
And there is much that is just disgusting.
If there is not sufficient evidence of human brokenness oozing from the darkness every day… one of the latest being of Dennis Hastert, former Speaker of the House, who has been charged with lying to the FBI about 3.5 million dollars he agreed to pay someone to keep quiet about his alleged sexual misconduct and abuse of former students way back between 1965 and 1981, prior to his entry into politics.
We groan because we are mortal beings. We suffer the effects of being human as in human suffering. We grieve over the deaths of the people we love. We groan under the weight of aches and pains of physical infirmities, debilitating and even terminal diseases, memory loss and dementia and just growing old.
None of this stuff was part of God’s original plan. The Garden of Eden was God’s plan for us. No sin. No suffering. No sickness. No death.
So as the earth and mankind wallows in the waiting… God give us help for our waiting and it’s called hope.
B. Our Future Hope, 18:23b-25
We, too wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children… including the new bodies he has promised us. We were given this hope when we were saved. Romans 8:23-24
Our text today teaches us that the interesting thing about hope is that it is about looking forward to something we don’t yet have... but will. Romans 8:25
Just as creation groans, creation also looks forward to what is not yet but will be.
1. Creation Hopes, 8:21
But with eager hope, the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. Romans 8:21
In Revelation 21 John shares of his vision of what is to come. And I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And saw the New Jerusalem, coming down from God… Revelation 21:1
We could literally let our imaginations run wild on what a new, idyllic, Eden-like world will look like but I’m sure the earth is not going to be groaning with tornadoes and hurricanes, and earthquakes and climate change and droughts and floods and solar flare ups, and holes in the ozone layer, and volcanic eruptions and lightning strikes and whatever kind of so called “act of nature” we might imagine.
All of creation will be just as it was it was originally intended to be.
We too look forward to what is not yet but will be.
B. We Hope, 8:23b
We too wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us full rights as his adopted children including the new bodies he has promised us. Romans 8:23b
I recently saw a saying to the effect, “Cremation is my last hope of a smoking hot body.”
Comparing the human body to a seed that is planted in the ground and dies only to rise up from the ground as a living plant, the bible says, “In the same way with the resurrection of the dead, our earthly bodies are planted in the ground when we die, but they will be raised to live forever. Our bodies are buried in brokenness but they will be raised in glory. They are buried in weakness but will be raised in strength. They are buried as mortal, human bodies but they will be raised immortal, spiritual bodies.” I Corinthians 15:35-44
John saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And saw the New Jerusalem, coming down from God… I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, “Look, God’s home is now among his people! He himself will be with them.
And then the bible says, “He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things will be gone forever.” And the one sitting on the throne said, “Look, I am making everything new!” Revelation 21:3-5
I don’t know about smoking hot but I am sure we will be what God originally intended for us to be. No more: Cancer of any kind, dementia of the Alzheimer’s kind or any other, kidney disease, muscular dystrophy, bi-polar manic episodes, schizophrenia, depression, childhood diseases, macular degeneration or glycauma… not so much as a hangnail.
And then there is the hope of what will be when we are reunited with our loved ones from this life… in the next. Parents who have lost children here and now will see them there and then. Children who have lost parents here and now will see them there and then. Siblings who have lost siblings in the here and now will see them there and then. Men and women who have lost their spouses in the here and now will see them there and then. Old friends lost in the here and now will see them there and then. And on and on it goes…
And it will all be because God will have given us our full rights as his adopted children including the new bodies he has promised us. Romans 8:23b
Conclusion
When you look through a window you see life from the perspective of that window. If we look to see Earth and all of its chaos… there is plenty of evidence that the earth is groaning as it waits to be made new when Jesus comes.
When we look to see mankind and the chaos of life… there is plenty of evidence that we too groan as we wait to be made new when Jesus comes.
The importance of this text is to teach us that the earth’s groaning and our groaning is not the end of the story… the end of the story is a new heaven and earth and new heavenly bodies.
So I checked to identify antonyms to the word groan and found quite a list: Laugh. Cackle (which seems more like it). Giggle. Snicker. Exult. Snort. Rejoice. Glory. Revel. Jubilate. Jump for joy. Be on cloud nine.
In the 1896 edition of the International Cloud Atlas the book defined the ninth cloud as the cumulonimbus, which rises to over 6 miles. 6 miles is apparently as high as a cloud can go. So when a person is on cloud nine that person is as high as a person can be… it is to be on top of the world.
We may be living in the depths of chaos here and now but when we look through the window to there and then we see what God has before us.
And if we can get a bit of a grip on what it is we are seeing: The less restrained among us may cackle and snicker and jump for joy while those more refined will quietly exult and rejoice and glory in our hope.
God’s Word reminds us that it will not always be like this… there is hope!
