OPENING STORY
On this Armed Forces Day weekend, I am reminded of one of the persistent dreams of my childhood. When I was a kid, there was nothing I hoped for more than to one day be a Soldier like my dad. In fact, both my parents had served, and some of my earliest memories were putting my dad’s Army-issued boots and parka on to go outside and tromp around in them. On camping trips we would use gear with that distinctive “Army smell”, and many weekends and patriotic holidays were spent with veterans groups honoring those who served. And when both my grandfathers died, they were buried with military honors. All this served to reinforce my desire to one day serve. As I grew older, the hope that I would get to serve my country one day was placed on the back burner as I went to college and started a family; but when one day in 2009, shortly after Samson was born, and Marcia and I were completely out of money and unsure what to do, I decided to to walk into a recruiters office and join up. This was the height of “the Surge” in Iraq and Afghanistan and while there was a wait list for Navy and Coast Guard Officers, the Army and Marines were taking just about anybody they could.
So, I went off to Basic Training at Fort Jackson, and after that headed to Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning. But one day, during a training exercise, where we were “reacting to contact” by jumping out of trucks and maneuvering on foot, I stepped in a puddle and broke both my knees. You heard me. I wasn’t jumping out of airplanes or practicing combatives or anything else manly or strenuous, I stepped in a puddle just right and broke my tibia. When the docs told me I would either need to go enlisted/needs of the Army (meaning I wouldn’t get to pick my own job) or get out, in either case giving up my commission, because it would take too long to heal; I decided to stay in and go enlisted.
Since I didn’t get to pick my job, the Army could have made me something adventurous and exotic like laundry specialist or water treatment specialist, but it was a risk I was willing to take. I still wanted to serve. And I had already spent many nights lying awake wondering if I would even get to with the extent of my injury. But through it all, I held on to the slim hope that I’d still get to serve my country in some way, and I ended up becoming a UAV operator. At the time I had no idea what a UAV or a drone even was, and had no idea that I would be at the forefront of aviation technology, or that the job would awaken an enduring love for aviation which I still hold today. I couldn’t have hoped for a better job, and I still thank God for the opportunity I was given.
WHAT WE HOPE FOR
If there are two things which are universal to the human condition, it’s that we all hold hope dear to our heart, and we all have to face disappointments and some time or another. Some of these can be truly devastating, and many of us carry the wounds of unfulfilled hopes. And yet, even being wounded, we find ourselves still hoping. Though many may not realize it, hope isn’t just a universal experience, it’s a universal need.
As Paul, in Rom. 8: 22-27 states,
“For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”(1)
In this passage, Paul is clarifying something which is often misunderstood. He is both expanding the definition and the scope of what hope is. Despite what some might think, hope is not simply wishful thinking or putting our faith in an uncertain future. But that’s often how we use the word. We say things like, “I sure hope it rains tomorrow,” or “I hope the Cubbies win the World Series,” with the subtle resignation that the outcome of our “hope” is both uncertain and contingent on outcomes associated with impersonal chance. But this is not the type of hope Paul is talking about. Rather, he makes it clear that the hope of the believer, event the hope of creation, is the settled anticipation of things to come,(2) and the assurance that God is a keeper of promises.
In fact, Paul is both contrasting hope with and placing it in the context of past disappointments and pain. Going back a few verses earlier, in vv. 20-21, he says, “For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.” Creation itself has been warped and damaged by human sin. One only needs to look around to see that this is true. Whether it’s islands of plastic larger than Texas floating the Pacific, polluted air and water, or vanishing species; there is little denying that human selfishness and sin has a real, damaging effect on the world around us. But the consequences of sin aren’t only confined to ecological effects. We live in a world filled with broken relationships, starvation, the threat of war, human trafficking, and a myriad of other problems which we ourselves caused. We have wounded creation and ourselves, and so a cry of pain rises to heaven; and whether or not we hear it, God most certainly does.
But there is something else in that cry. It isn’t only a cry of mourning for what was lost, it is a cry of hope in the promise that God will break the chains of bondage and corruption and that as children brought into the family of God, we will find freedom in Christ. Paul compares this cry to the cry uttered in the middle of “the pains of childbirth.” As any mother will tell you, there is nothing like the pain experienced in childbirth. My wife Marcia has described it as equivalent to running a marathon. It is exhausting and painful, but it finds its purpose in the screaming little bundle of life which the mother will soon get to hold in her arms for the very first time.
In the same way, the Christian life is expressed simultaneously in the “already” and the “not yet.” We feel the pains of this world, we are hurt by broken relationships, and we carry the scars of disappointments, and in this pain we cry out to God. But our cry is also one of hope. For we understand that our cry isn’t futility directed at an unfeeling universe; rather it is an expression of understanding and hope, that our pain is temporary, that scars will be healed, and that relationships will be restored. It is an expression, not of wishful thinking, but of settled anticipation of things to come. For we firmly proclaim that or Lord is risen! And as Paul states in 2. Cor. 5, because He is risen, we no longer live for ourselves, but for the One who for our sake died and was raised.
It is this expression of hope, which Paul describes as one of “the firstfruits of the Spirit” in v. 23. You may remember from Gal. 5:22-23, that Paul lists a number of fruits of the Spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”(3) These aren’t simply Christian virtues which we are called to strive for; because if we relied on our own efforts alone, we would never attain them. Rather they are the gifts promised to every Christian who accepts God’s free gift of grace and is sanctified by that very same Spirit. But it is significant that here, Paul alludes to “the firstfruits” of the Spirit.
By using this term, Paul alludes to the Jewish tithe of the first portion of the wheat harvest, as commanded in Exo. 34:22. This tithe, and its associated festival, became “the Festival of Weeks” or Shavuoth, because it is 49 days or “seven weeks of days” after the Passover, which was celebrated in the Spring around this time each year. But in Rom. 8 this idea is flipped on its head. Instead of the people bringing their first fruits to God as an act of worship, it is the Spirit which brings the first fruits of hope into the lives of the believers. Expressions of hope, as acts of worship, then both find their source and their object in God. The Spirit provides the very means by which the Christian is even able to worship at all.
And just as Paul alludes to the first fruits of the Spirit in describing the hope of the believer, he also reminds us of the experience of the Christian community on the Day of Pentecost (the word “Pentecost” itself means “the fiftieth day after Passover”, and was the Greek term for Shavuoth), when the Spirit was poured out on the early Church as described in Acts 2. It was this outpouring which changed a fearful and confused community into one whose hope was in the Resurrection of the body both promised and confirmed in Christ’s own resurrection. For, as Peter said in that passage, it is a promise which is for us, our children, and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” This outpouring of the Holy Spirit fundamentally changed the lives of those present, enabling them to really experience and give expression to the hope brought fifty days prior on Easter morning. It also provided the means by which the body of believers would be sanctified, displaying both the fruit listed in Gal. 5 and the first fruit spoken of in Rom. 8.
Returning to Rom. 8, v. 26 makes it clear that without this outpouring, and without these first fruits, we would not even know how to reach out to God in prayer; whether to express pain or hope. Just like the joy experienced by the mother holding her child for the first time, or the pain of loss experienced by someone whose spouse is no longer with them; we will find times where there just are no words adequate to express our need before God. I don’t know how many times as a hospice Chaplain, comforting a loved one, I found myself in situations where any words that I would have offered would have fallen far short of what they needed in that moment. And so I just sat with them, silently praying for the Holy Spirit to hold and comfort them, and hoped that my presence in their moment of pain would in some small way remind them that God loves them and walks with them in their suffering. I was not enough, and my words were not enough. But the God’s Spirit is always enough; just as God’s grace is enough.
RESTING IN GOD'S PRESENCE
When we realize this, we become aware that not only does the Spirit provide us with the means to respond to God’s grace with expressions of hope and prayer, but He also enables us to pray in the depths of our own spirit “with groanings too deep for words” (v. 26), when conscious words cannot suffice. When we no longer know what to say, we at least know that we can rest in God’s presence, trusting that the Spirit intercedes on our behalf, giving expression to the inexpressible. So I invite you today and in the coming week. Carve out some time to talk with God. Meditate on the hope which has been assured for us in Christ’s death and resurrection. And if there is something you’re struggling with, or a deep hurt you are holding on to, give it to God. You don’t have to have just the right words to do so. You might not even know what to say. If that’s the case, just sit quietly, and let the Spirit speak to you and for you. For just as God was faithful to raise Christ from the dead, we know He is faithful to walk with you through whatever it is you are going through.
FOOTNOTES
(1) ESV.
(2) Allen, Joseph, et. al. “Annotations” in The Orthodox Study Bible (Nashville, Thomas Nelson, 2008), 1536.
(3) ESV.
Delivered on May 20, 2018 – First Church of the Nazarene, La Junta, CO
