Romans 8:18-30
Immeasurable Hope

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.

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 firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

New International Version

If we choose to listen, it is easy to hear what Paul describes as the groaning of all creation. We witness natural disasters, and we are horrified as we consider the human toll from the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 and Hurricane Katrina of 2005. Then we realize these two catastrophes are merely normal occurrences when we ponder the geological and meteorological history of our planet. We witness the violent death required in nature for the survival of higher life forms in the food chain, and we seek to make the slaughter of animals for our food consumption more "humane." We wrestle with fairness in society, struggling with concepts like the "acceptable unemployment rate" in capitalist economies, and the weight of evidence supporting the truism that "power corrupts" in controlled economies. If we choose not to search out these groanings all around us, we have a ceaseless supply of horrors provided by our news sources, with hourly stories of human evil and sadness that we deeply wish were not taking place around us. As songwriter Chris Rice put it, "our world is spinning backwards." And not just our world, but our communities and our lives are rocked by crises and difficulties. Sometimes, we might feel so discouraged that just getting up in the morning seems like a significant accomplishment.

How can we possibly make sense of this? Not with our minds and hearts. What we feel is "good" and "right" so often contrasts with what exists around us. Disasters do not spare even those with the most sincere optimistic viewpoints. Our efforts to overcome problems with reason always seem to fail, somewhat like the conclusion a friend of mine reached after his "idiot proof" system crashed, "The idiots were a lot smarter than I figured." The science of physics gives us the Law of Entropy, telling us that the basic principle of the universe is that everything moves naturally from a more ordered state to a less ordered state: coffee cools, cars break down, buildings fall, mountains erode, and stars burn out until the entire universe is cold, dark, and formless. When we think we can conjure hope from this world, we fail.

But we need hope. Our souls depend on hope the way our minds depend on stimulation and our bodies depend on air. Paul tells us that our need for hope can only be fulfilled in God, that our dissatisfaction with our present universe is designed to lead us to what God has in store for us. We can live for this world, in all its disappointment, despair, and decay, or we can live for heaven, becoming who God has designed us to be. We can slide downhill towards our inevitable death, or we can be born to eternal life.

Paul, demonstrating his erudite intellect, confirms the irony that it is only when we stop trying to make sense of this world that this world makes sense: "Hope that is seen is no hope at all." We cannot save ourselves. We cannot find Life in a universe that is dying, but only in the One the Creator sent from heaven to our world. We cannot live for this world without being captured, consumed, and discarded by this world. But we can live in this world and overcome this world when we live for heaven. When we live for heaven, we live in the hope and faith that the pain we see all around us is being used for our good in God's marvelous plan, powered by God's astounding Love.

Our senses cannot observe it, and our minds cannot conceive it, so God eagerly fills our souls with the heavenly Hope we need, so we can live the life God wants for us now and forever.