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Scripture Text (NRSV)

 

Romans 8:22-27

 

8:22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now;

8:23 and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.

8:24 For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen?

8:25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

8:26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.

8:27 And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

 

Comments:

 

I am looking forward to having this passage read on Sunday. To close our Prayers of the People each Sunday, we use the words "We gather all our prayers together, the spoken and the unspoken, the sighs too deep for words and the joys too deep for naming ...." I am not sure that all the folks know that the "sighs too deep for words" is taken from scripture. I love a chance to teach! ( : Blessings LGB


LBG, I' ve just formed an intercessory prayer group here and it met for the first time on Wednesday. I, too, am looking forward to including this passage in my sermon on Sunday. As you said, a wonderful opportunity to teach! It is verse 26, which will help me, as there are still some who want intercessory prayer to be about their topics for prayer, as opposed to allowing the Spirit to tell us. When they did try to interject their agendas, I felt the Spirit sighing deeply within me! Blessings, Don in Ontario


"We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies." Romans 8:22-23

The following quote from Hans Urs von Balthasar in "The Christian Anxiety" speaks to this mystery:

"The ultimate meaning of the anquish experienced in the contraction of teh birth canal becomes clear: it is a subjective feeling of narrowing during an objective process of expanding, in accordance with the paradox expressed in Psalm 4 (Vulgate): When I was in distress you enlarged a place for me. .... And what experientially seems contricting and frightening to the believer is in truth enlarging, a fruitful dilatatio of the birth canal, an interior trembling that expands faith, hope, love. Even if subjectively it were mortal terror, objectively it is greater blessedness, a participation in the everlasting trinitarian ecstasy."

tom in ga


We wait for adoption!

It is something really wonderful and it will change our lives. We have the first fruits but mostly it is still future tense.

It is not just heaven but some earthly transformation. What is this transformation?

We have heard terms like, new creation or new being but just what is it? Manzel


Wesley understood a difference between justification and sanctification. Justification might be equated with what some call "being saved". But sanctification was the process of being perfected in Christ. So what does this sanctification look like? How will our lives be different then? How do we catch a vision of this great hope?


God who searches the heart. Billy Joel's River of Dreams talks about In the middle of the night I go searching for something. It comforts me to think God has this kind of passion in searching my heart to know me, to appreciate and comfort me and to bring healing where it is needed deep within my heart.


I don't see the word travail here but it is one of the very poinient expressions in this powerful chapter. It discribes both great pain and pain that is a part of a process of new birth. It is pregnant with a sense of purpose. It puts the suffering in a context that gives us strength to cope, and hope.


A few years ago our U.M. bishop preached about how the bumpiest part of a plane ride is while the plane is getting up speed for take off. Sometimes turbulence means great transition is emminent. What great things are eminent for the church? If the church takes on a new being, what would that look like? If Christ's nature becomes more fully revealed in us and in the church what new forms will that take?


Today across America more people are starting to think and believe that they have a spirit. They are starting to believe that there is more to them than the physical. The yearning has started. God is working. Now when will we as the Church get our act together and start being what we are truly suppose to be? We ourselves must let the Spirit lead us. But alas we are led by feelings not yearnings of the Holy Spirit. I believe we get the two confused....We must ask ourselves when we think we are following the Spirit’s lead, "Who will it benefit?" If the answer is ourselves or just our church not the Church then we should rethink and check our attitudes. Christ sent us into the world not to feed our flesh but to obey the will of God. Even today in our churches we must ask ourselves , “Why do we come to worship?” Do we come to feed our flesh or our spirit? Do we come to worship or to be stroked? Must we always go home feeling good or can we gone home being challenged. Challenged to be more like Jesus. The yearnings of the Spirit will lead us into truth and once we understand and accept the truth then our desire will be for the Spirit’s lead and we will be set free and be what God’s wants us to be. Fear will be gone and love for others and God will overcome our fleshly desires ..... they will fade and the love and joy of the Lord will grow stronger each passing day until in us others see Jesus. This is what God wants. This is our true worship. This is what will glorify God. LPinPA


I am struggling to speak to the spiritual yearnings so apparent in society. We are dying (literally) for an infusion of the Holy SPirit in our darkness. Common to both the Epistle and the First reading is the idea of waiting. The disciples were waiting. They had been for 10 days now. IN the Epistle, St. paul tells us that we wait with patience. How hard it is to wait. INstead we fill ourselves with other things. We cram our lives with "stuff" because we are so uncomfortable with the nothingness of a life of faith. The spirit comes to us in the moments of nothingness. It is there in the Dark of the Night, that we become most aware of the presence of God. It is in the silence, in the waiting, in the pain of life that we are most receptive to the coming of the Holy SPirit. We run from these moments because they make us uncomfortable. We fill our emptiness with meaningless things (sex, drugs, possessions, career, etc). Life in the power of the spirit(per Moultmann) begins when we embrace the nothingness of our existance. I'm not sure where this is going, but these are some ramblings to begin the week. Grace and peace. UM in Pa


I am using the sermon title, first fruits. I will speak of penticost as first fruits with the implication there is more to come.

Penticost is the birthday of the church yet the church is still in travail, waiting to bare more fruit. Any suggestions?

Manzel


 

For into his hope we are saved. A hope we cannot see. Preciselt because it is hope. And we wait patiently. In our waiting hope filled lives the Spirit intercedes.

This is confirmation Sunday at our Church. We conitinue to meet without a physicall church structure as we are a new church start. Kind of like the saints oft he early church.

It is our hope that gives us strength to carry on ( and carry boxes) We hope for a Church Building. The confirmands are real witnesses to that faith. Even as a new church with all of its difficulkies we still have young people willing to turn their lives over to the will of Christ.

My sermon title is "My hope is built on..." Salvation, Patience, the Holy Spirit.

SunCityRev


"Pentecost" is the Greek term for the Jewish feas of Weeks, which fell on the 50th day after the ceremony of the barley sheaf during Passover. It marked the beginning of the offering of the first fruits. This is very significant in understanding Paul's use of the term first fruits.

While the NT, when it refers to Pentecost, still thinks of it in terms of the Jewish feast, the Church remembers that it was on Pentecost that the Holy Spirit came giving birth to the Church (Acts 2).

The Holy Spirit dwells in us as the first fruit even as we wait for full adoption. The Petersen translation says the "God has taken up residence in our lives."

I see three important faith characteristics: 1. The faithful will sense, even in the midst of pain, the potential birth of God's future. They will wait like a pregnant woman, full of high hopes and great expectations knowint that God is about to do something great.

2. The faithful will know that even in pain, God is with us and within us searching and interceding with sighs too deep for words. There is a peace and confidence when all human searching offers no good reason for such peace and comfort.

3. The faithful know that God is victorious despite the powers against them. All things work together for good, even the bad things. That great hope for tomorrow gives strength for today.

Fred in LA