The Glory in Groaning: A Reflection on Romans 8
I’ve never created anything alive. I’m not God. But I have been responsible for pets, and my track record is spotty both as a child and adult. My mother will never forget my boyhood cat
As an adult I quickly forget pets that pass away, but to my children Mrs. Frisbee the guinea pig was a vital part of our family. They painted a tombstone for her and have had regular visitations to her backyard grave the past few weeks. The bond of love a child has with a pet is a bit magical in that the pet takes on personality outside its capacities, and there’s nothing a child hates more than the groaning of a pet in misery and the jarring sight and feel of a dead one. Death is such an unwelcome interruption that changes everything. The weight of responsibility, normally reserved for us grown-ups, becomes too much to bear in the aftermath of a pet’s death. Kids figure if they were such a part of the pet’s thriving, then they must also be somewhat responsible for its demise.
Children can’t describe well the weightiness of that responsibility, but they feel it all the same by shedding tears and looking defeated. I wish I could tell them that coping with death will get easier with time. But I can’t. I may joke with my kids about the existence and habits of the Stinky Monster or make empty threats to stop the car on the highway during a twelve-hour trip, but I won’t lie to them about the pain and emptiness of death. It always hurts. And it never makes much sense.
Despite our protests, death persists. Not only does it persist, but the whole dying recipe of misery, disease, addiction, oppression, hatred, anger, and violence is simply part of life in a fallen world. A groaning world. Not only do we humans hate death, but we also groan at evil and futility. We hardly ever desire what is best for us. We desire it even less for our neighbor. God has revealed what is good and for everyone’s best, but it’s not what we think we want. We get embroiled in culture wars and let our misplaced passions mobilize us more for the service of earthly powers and authorities rather than the service of love for God and neighbor. Love calls us to be vulnerable. Love expands us and opens us up to the world around us, the world of our neighbors, misery and all. God himself gave us the example he wants us to follow by opening up himself to this world and all its groanings. He took on our flesh, became a servant, and disarmed the forces of evil that run amuck down here by dying and then rising again as a new creation. God has started a new family, using Christ as his down-payment (or firstfruit for those familiar with the OT sacrifices), calling his people to be like Christ—offering them a taste of that new life now, in community together as his church, and an even better new life in his future kingdom.
In his future kingdom there will no longer be a gap between what humans desire and what rightly worships God and allows for human flourishing. God’s Spirit will be so active in all aspects of the world that its bright diversity of sights, sounds, tastes, and textures will harmoniously merge into a masterful symphony of worship. The kingdom is a promise so true, so good, and so beautiful that we Christians sometimes wonder if it will ever really come. There cannot be even a comparison between that world and the one we inhabit currently. The realist in us doesn’t see it happening, given all the problems that face us today and how short we fall of doing what we ought to do, but we hope for God’s kingdom anyways. Who hopes for something they can easily see?
We may not see his kingdom easily, even when we gather to worship around his Word and around his table, but we still wait patiently for it. In our patience we still groan plenty. Whenever we do the truth in love, we risk resistance. We also risk misunderstanding. Sometimes the call to love amid misery can be too much to bear and prompt us to retreat in the isolation of our daily routines. But God’s left a spark in us to love, to expand, to be big, and to face suffering just as he did in Christ. And we groan at that too. Sometimes we feel like whimpering children all over again, not even knowing how to explain what it feels like living between two worlds, one fallen and one that seems so imaginary—even if we hope for it with all the faith we can muster. In those awkward, silent moments God reveals himself through both our groanings to him and his reassuring promises back to us. For Christ pleaded often to his heavenly Father.
God is patiently waiting for his kingdom too. He is eager to reveal his kingdom to his children. He doesn’t want the creation that was designed to reflect his power, love, and goodness to go on groaning like it has for so long and calling his intentions into question. So he groans too, sometimes through us. And that groaning—that desire to see the world, including ourselves, finally be different—in a strange way reveals God’s glory. There is no God “behind the back” of Christ crucified. When God came to suffer and die, opening a path to a new kind of life for his people, it revealed his glory. He wouldn’t let his own creation go to waste. He wouldn’t give up on them and scrap them away. No, instead he redeemed them, taking on sin, death, and the Devil and receiving their worst—for us. It took a lot of suffering and groaning to create a new family this way. But the suffering and pain was not for nothing. Like the pain of childbirth it was and is toward a beautiful hope.
God desires to grow his family larger, not just by sheer numbers, but also by nudging us toward the same path he walked in this old fallen world—the path marked most often by love and suffering. We talk much of striving to be like Christ, but when God obviously reveals that being like him means acting like him, we push back as if that’s not really for us. But God is patient, knowing that his methods will one day produce a large diverse family that reflects his glory. And God sticks with us, because he loves us and always will.
Last week I was in the backyard and overhead one of my son’s visitations to Mrs. Frisbee’s grave. He took Daisy, the surviving guinea pig, to see the grave and consoled Daisy with words I couldn’t quite make out because he was so quiet. I later asked what he talked about. “Jesus,” he said. I don’t think Daisy was able to take it all in, but I’m thankful that my son is starting to realize that even though there will be much more groaning in his lifetime there’s also hope to share with others. May we encourage him to share that hope by loving others and desiring for them to flourish as God’s children. Sure, everyone’s all mixed up when it comes to how exactly we as humans best do that, but God gave a clear example to follow—love in truth. It’s risky, but it’s worth it.
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